Children & Society最新文献

Weight bias in educational settings can lead to bullying and have a severe negative impact on the mental well-being and educational experiences of school children. Indeed, extensive research has shown that children who are labelled overweight are more likely to be victims of school bullying and that weight-based bullying can lead to loss of self-esteem, lower self-confidence, social isolation, higher levels of anxiety and the development of psychosomatic issues. In this article, we utilise Butler's concepts of performativity and othering to analyse three written narrative accounts of weight-based bullying in schools, published in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. In doing so, we adopt a narrative approach to not only investigate how the narrators depict the bullying they were subjected to in their childhood and the effects it had on them, but also how they position themselves in their narratives. Two themes, ‘performative othering’ and ‘a changeable body’, are identified in the narratives. These demonstrate how the narrators were co-constructed as different, othered and dehumanised, and how the normative cruelties to which they were subjected as children served to police their corporeality in line with societal ideals. Taken together, our findings point to the importance of listening to the stories of those subjected to bullying and not only addressing bullying in terms of the negative actions taken, but also in relation to broader societal norms.

Drawing on qualitative focus groups and interviews, this paper draws on participatory and relational approaches to explore how prospective and very new workers in their early teens in Canada talk about and navigate workplace safety. We foreground our young participants' discussions and safety management strategies to discuss their shared and sometimes narrow understanding of unsafe work; their mixed, and often limited, experiences of safety training; and the individualized avenues they prioritize to deal with potential and concrete safety issues. Countering our participants' inclination towards individualized solutions, we focus on how these young workers are embedded in relationships with others as well as the material world, including workplace cultures; networks and hierarchies of people; specific materials, time and time pressures; and safety-related policies. Such a relational lens can in turn guide how we think about fostering workplace safety in ways that challenge more individualized approaches, specifically through recognizing interdependencies that shape how young people think about workplace safety; expanding beyond unidirectional, individualized educational strategies; and favouring shared self-advocacy, especially with older workers, including through unionization.

Childhood Studies scholars have increasingly engaged with the concept of neurodiversity, particularly with respect to neurodivergent children's mental well-being. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the history of the neurodiversity movement in Italy, and the consequences on children's mental health, drawing on eight in-depth interviews with movement leaders, researchers and members of parent associations. We argue that Italian education and health services serve as promising sites within which a neurodiversity approach can foster neurodivergent children's self-esteem and give them powerful tools to fight against oppressive practices.

The changes in emotions experienced during the pandemic and their effects on children's well-being remain a significant issue. This study analyses 86 drawings created by children aged 5–13, collected in fieldwork conducted through workshops across various regions of Spain. The main objective was to describe how children portray their emotional changes and the resulting impact on their lives within the context of the pandemic. We employed qualitative bottom-up logic to code the drawings using CAQDAS. Findings revealed a discernible emotional impact, expressed more explicitly by girls, as well as lasting elements concerning the pandemic and the enduring restrictions on social interactions, even beyond the widespread lockdowns of 2020.

Motherhood under 15 years is constructed as having crossed the line of societal morals and this construction shapes the provision of sexual and reproductive health services (SRH) for mothers under 15 years in Uganda. Using collaborative ethnography and through the lens of discourses and governmentality, I established that adolescent pregnancy is constructed within normative discourses enshrouded in religious and cultural values. What is constructed as non-normative is regulated through restrictive SRH policies and penalizing discourses which inhibit access to SRH services and care. A paradigm shift in adolescent SRH policies that are rooted in human rights and equity is one alternative required.

Evidence is absent in the legal, policy and programmatic landscape of online child sexual exploitation in countries in the Global South. Our work begins to contribute to filling this literature gap, drawing evidence from Tunisia, one of the least studied countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We reviewed legal and policy documents directly or indirectly connected to online child sexual exploitation, complemented with interviews from diverse actors in the child protection space at the national and sub-national levels. We note that Tunisia is a signatory to several international and regional treaties and conventions that can be leveraged to tackle online sexual exploitation of children. Still, these have yet to be fully exploited for the benefit of children. Furthermore, we observed several disparate laws at the country level. These laws are scattered in many legal documents, and some aspects could be more specific, but currently not, which poses significant legal challenges to protecting children. Finally, many institutions implementing programmes in this space create less coordination and sometimes confusion. At best, interventions seem ad hoc without any clear mandate of specificity in institutional leadership. The implications of the findings for policies and programmes are highlighted.

Australian and international research has consistently revealed that children residing in Out of Home Care (OOHC) experience low academic achievement, high rates of suspension, high rates of early school drop-out and poor representation in post school study. To address the issues experienced by many students in OOHC, trauma informed policies have been introduced in schools and education districts, both in Australia and internationally. Informed by current research and by the Trauma Informed Approach Guidelines, developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), this research aimed to identify and analyse current OOHC education policies and support documents implemented by Australian State and Territory Departments of Education. Using a thematic content analysis of national and international research on the concerning educational outcomes of OOHC students, a policy analysis framework was created and used as the tool to analyse Australian OOHC education policies currently implemented by state and territory Departments of Education. Considerable variations were evident in OOHC education policies throughout Australian Departments of Education, with only the states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria having policies explicitly for OOHC students. Significant variations also existed in the levels and types of support provided between Australian states and territories. Australian Departments of Education, schools and teacher practitioners can do more to further enhance the educational experience of students residing in OOHC. Suggestions have been made on how this can be achieved.

Studying the support received from key agents in children's lives, family and school, from the point of view of the children themselves, will allow us to be better prepared to guide them in a post-pandemic scenario. The main objective is to study the perceptions and evaluations of students between the ages of 9 and 17 regarding the guidance and support they received during the pandemic, and more specifically the help they received from their family and school. With a quantitative design, a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 1216 children (M = 14.3; SD = 2.468), from five geographical areas in Catalonia, Spain. Two multiple regression models were built with a good fit (p < .001) and explanatory capacity (adjR² = 0.42 and adjR² = 0.45). One of the outstanding results is the huge difference between the children's satisfaction with the help received from their family (very high) and from school (very low). In addition, children who identify as non-binary as well as secondary school students show much lower average levels of satisfaction with the support they receive. The ultimate purpose of this article is to make proposals to strengthen personalization and support from the perspective of community socio-educational resilience.

Adultcentrism is the tendency of adults to view children from a biased perspective, hindering the recognition of children's competence and agency. It presents a challenge for parents, potentially influencing parenting practices and children's participation in decision-making. Adultcentrism has received increasing attention in the literature, and with its recent operationalization, a new focus has emerged. However, adultcentrism has remained unexplored in Hungary. Using the Adultcentrism Scale, we aimed to conceptualize adultcentrism in this sociocultural context and validate the instrument in a different language, both for the first time. A cross-sectional sample of 422 parents was surveyed online to analyse adultcentrism in Hungary and identify whether adult-centric thinking is associated with less-positive parenting behaviour. Our findings showed that extreme adult-centric biases are rare among Hungarian parents and indicated that adult-centric thinking has two major dimensions in our context. Firstly—and dominantly—adults tend to think about children as ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’. Secondly, they tend to underestimate children's agency. The present conceptualization challenged the role of seeing children as incompetent in the construct. Adultcentrism indicated a weak positive association with parental perceptions of children's participation in decision-making and positive parenting behaviours. However, it was not associated with negative behaviours, except for physical control. Our findings support the latest research that emphasizes that a certain level of adultcentrism is natural and presents thought-provoking dilemmas regarding the understanding and measurement of adultcentrism in the Hungarian context. The study has implications for researchers analysing and theorizing this evolving construct and practitioners who want to improve the adult–child relationship.

This paper explores teenage girls' engagement with digital images on social media. Using new feminist materialism, we foreground digital images as an assemblage of materialities (human and more-than-human) filled with affective potentials that materialise in/capacities. Drawing from interviews and focus group discussions, we show how the production and sharing of selfies through posting and sexting unlocked new ‘becomings’ through expressions of heterosexual desirability and pleasure but also generated fear through sexual objectification, sexual double standards and harassment. A recognition of digital images as materially embodied through which unequal gender power relations materialise is vital to addressing online sexual risk.