This article explores the ways in which students' voices can be used to analyse the process of moving schools, at a time outside of those that young people normally change schools. The paper is based on a study in a secondary school and uses qualitative data collected by researchers and student co-researchers. Two areas were raised by students as important about being at a new school: the perceived challenges and their perceptions of learning in a new environment. It is argued that to respond to issues that arise due to mobility, an engagement with students' views is necessary. Furthermore, this can facilitate policy-makers, school leaders and educators in providing more effective support for those young people.

This study addresses the design requirements and innovative data collection methods for a study that aimed to be deaf-centred and child-friendly. The approach was created for a 6-year longitudinal study of Sign Bilingual education from the perspective of eight deaf children who were educated using that approach from 9/10 to 15/16 years old. The research question was: ‘From the deaf child's perspective, what are the experiences, advantages and disadvantages of Sign Bilingual education?' This study will discuss the methods developed for the first element of the study when the children were 9/10 years old, using six interactive weekly workshops. These included video diaries, photography, peer interviewing, drawing, poster making and group discussion. The appropriateness for and adaptations made with respect to signing deaf children are discussed as well as the wider significance of this approach for children's research in general.

Data on 117 young sexual abusers were examined to investigate the nature of community responses to young people's abusive behaviour. A wide range of community responses were found, with stigmatisation, social isolation and collateral damage being common. A contagion effect was noted, with community responses extending over time and across contexts. Some young offenders and their families were attacked and forced out of their homes. In some cases, community responses heightened risk factors. The policy and practice implications of the findings are discussed, including the need for caution about the inclusion of children in policies on community notification of sex offenders.

The notion of child well-being appears in a large number of publications nowadays. Our review of the literature underlines both the oddly pathogenic approach to child well-being and the scarcity of papers discussing a still poorly defined notion. Through this review, we identified the recourse to a binary language; from there, we derived five theoretical axes that heed the multidimensional and multilevel nature of well-being, although for each one, a pole is here predominantly developed. We argue in favour of an override of a one-dimensional, single-level, unipolar approach to child well-being and an exploration of its otherwise underdeveloped positive, hedonic, subjective, spiritual and collective dimensions.

Parenting training programmes (PTPs) aim to improve parenting skills and are widely offered in the UK. Despite evidence of efficacy, this paper hypothesises that PTPs may risk disempowering parents, children and even facilitators by prioritising professional expertise over lay knowledge. A Foucauldian discourse analysis examined six PTP manuals and identified discourses including victimhood, institutional salvation, scientism and collaboration. Power relations favouring government and professionals, and impacting outcomes and parental engagement were suggested to result from some of these discourses. Research into PTP engagement in terms of power relations and acknowledgement by policy-makers of the impact of discourse was recommended.

The paper maps out 10 risk factors measuring deficits in parent–child interaction, family–child interaction and the home environment. The prevalence of risk factor combinations is quantified using the UK Millennium Cohort Study data. In 2001, 28 per cent of families with young children were facing two or more risk factors at age 9–10 months old. Each combination of multiple risk factors accounted for a very small proportion of all MCS families. Specific risk factors were associated with particular developmental outcomes at age 5 and with changes from age 3 to age 5, but all leading to worse outcomes. The great diversity of risk-factor combinations and their very small prevalence make the tasks of identifying such families and defining eligibility for support very difficult for policy-makers. These results support the large body of policy literature advocating early intervention to improve children's development.

Previous research suggests that the likelihood of runaway episodes among children in out-of-home care varies across different communities/regions. However, the potential regional variation has rarely been reflected in attempts to understand runaway episodes in out-of-home care systems. The current study examines the effects of child characteristics, family characteristics and child welfare system-related characteristics on the likelihood of runaway episodes among children in out-of-home care, while accounting for county-level variations in the risk of runaway behaviours. The authors employed multilevel analyses using data on children aged 12–17 from the 2009 AFCARS database. Results demonstrate that the likelihood of runaway episodes varied across counties. Accounting for county variation, children's ages, gender, diagnosed clinical conditions, family structures, number of removals, number of placements, removal manner, and case plan goals significantly predicted runaway status. Implications are discussed.

With GPS technology, children can be monitored 24 h a day throughout their childhood and teens. In spite of the advantages in terms of safety and security, there are ethical problems with this. In this article, some of these are discussed. First, the concept of parental responsibility is explored and discussed in the context of GPS and children. Second, against the background of psychological research, it is argued that it is not conducive for children's sense of responsibility to be constantly monitored. Third, the question whether children have a right to privacy is discussed. It is concluded that due to the considerable uncertainty concerning the effects of constant monitoring as well as the ethical problems discussed, we ought to adopt a cautious attitude to using GPS to track children.

This article examines legal discourses on precarious status children in Canada over the last decade. Drawing on different theoretical frameworks and taking into account laws and court decisions, the paper will examine the way in which precarious status children are regarded as powerless subjects in need of protection and as threatening others. The article argues that these two apparently contrasting discourses are embedded within specific socio-historical constructions of childhood and children's citizenship which deny and limit their agency and conceive of their claim to membership as illegitimate. In the case of precarious status children, illegality and citizenship need to be redefined in a developmental perspective, questioning the potential risks associated with prevalent moral and social assumptions on childhood.

Researchers, health and social care workers often seek to understand the perspectives of children; but gathering views directly from children can present difficulties. Parents are often asked to provide accounts of children's feelings or opinions on the assumption that their proxy reports are accurate and unproblematic. This qualitative thematic analysis of open-question responses from 352 parents and 73 disabled children examines their accounts of the impact of short break services on disabled children. Participants' perspectives differed; children tended to describe immediate outcomes such as enjoying activities and participation; parents acknowledged these, but focused on longer term developmental outcomes for children.

In 2012, an art gallery in Birmingham, England presented an exhibition of ‘Children's Lives’. Through its curation of photography, fine art, objects, video and text, ‘Children's Lives’ claimed to ‘let childhood through the ages speak for itself’ and to contribute ‘to a debate over what it means to be a child’. In this article, we offer a critical analysis of the exhibition, examining the relationship between the exhibition as discourse and the ‘external’ discourses around childhood that are reinforced, negotiated and in some cases challenged by the assemblage of image, text and the spatial ‘narrative’ of the gallery.

This study investigated the relationship between adolescents’ excessive Internet use (EIU) and parental mediation. A random stratified sample of 11- to 16-year olds (N = 18 709) and their parents from 25 European countries (EU Kids Online II project) was analysed to explore to what extent different types of parental mediation and other factors predict EIU. Active parental involvement in the child's Internet use (when the child had experienced online harm) and restrictive mediation were associated with lower EIU. Harmful online experiences, time spent online, scope of online activities and adolescents’ age predicted higher EIU.

This article discusses conditions for research into the social experiences of children with autism in real-life contexts using material from case studies of two boys with autism and their friends in mainstream school settings. It is argued that essential conditions for research with children with autism in ordinary social contexts should include a participatory approach, take a wide perspective of group processes, and account for multiple influences on social behaviour. Socially focused, participatory research design allows the social competencies that children with autism do have to be seen and produces multiple perspectives on children's social activity. Children and adults thinking together and sharing their ideas about the nature of experience for a child with autism and their friends allows for shared interpretations and reduces the very real possibility of one researcher alone making wrong assumptions about the nature of the investigation.

Unlike the United Kingdom and other nations that mandate youth participation to some degree, U.S. policies instead tend to inhibit child participation rather than encourage it. Given these policy contexts, it can be challenging to locate spaces where robust opportunities for democratic participation and student voice exist. We use this article as an opportunity to examine the disciplinary, philosophical and methodological approaches that have framed youth participation in youth contexts. We conclude by identifying critical issues of citizenship and belonging that must be considered in participatory research.

The 2010 earthquakes in Haiti initiated crises for one of the world's poorest nations. This transpired amidst pervasive, pre-disaster hardships, with the resulting situation described as ‘acute on chronic’ trauma exposure. The current paper provides a description of a dynamic model focused on three factors of consideration for similar crises: cultural context, unfolding traumatic events and developmental processes. Knowledge from developmental psychology can inform humanitarian aid efforts to effectively address the unique needs of children. Recommendations are offered for research, clinical work and policy related to the mental health needs of children where ‘acute on chronic’ conditions exist.

This article examines three issues raised by three primary-aged siblings experiencing a post-divorce shared parenting arrangement. It argues that the conceptualisation of shared parenting in academic and policy discourse concentrates on parent–child relationships, overlooks children's relationships with siblings and fails to fully recognise the social and material resources necessary for shared parenting arrangements to work. It suggests that current policy discourse takes for granted that shared parenting promotes gender equality for fathers and mothers, despite the existing and ingrained gendered parenting practices produced and maintained in this UK context.

Schools have been identified as playing a key role in supporting the children of prisoners. This paper reports on a study, which explored the support provision offered in schools to children who experience parental imprisonment. By interviewing school representatives, stakeholders, parents and children, we illustrate the support available in schools, the issues that arise and ways in which support provision can be strengthened. Our findings indicate that children of prisoners often constitute a ‘forgotten’ group in schools, and we suggest that an awareness of these children and the challenges they face needs to be raised amongst education practitioners and policy-makers.

Donor conception and parent–child relationships were explored from the child's perspective. At ages 7 and 10, interview data were obtained from children in 31 donor insemination, 28 egg donation and 51 natural conception families. Children were also administered the MacArthur Story Stem Battery and a family map. Children in all family types reported close and affectionate relationships with their parents, irrespective of the lack of a genetic link between the parent and the child. Of those children who were aware of their donor conception at age 10, most demonstrated an understanding of, and had positive feelings about their donor conception.

This article describes how infants' bodies were portrayed in a range of Australian popular media texts. Four main discourses on infant embodiment were identified: the infant as ‘precious’, ‘pure’, ‘uncivilised’ and ‘vulnerable’. While, on the one hand, infants were positioned as the most valuable and affectively appealing of humans, they were alternatively represented as uncivilised. Infant bodies were portrayed as appropriately inhabiting the domestic sphere of the home and as barely tolerated or even as excluded in the public sphere. The discussion looks at how concepts of ‘nature’, civility and Self and Otherness underpinned the identified discourses.

Although domestic violence research increasingly recognises children's agency, this awareness has not extended to our understanding of children's relationships with their abused mothers. Findings suggesting that some children actively support their mother, and encourage her to leave the perpetrator, have been consistently under-discussed. This article argues that the model of parent–child relationships used by most domestic violence research sees children as passive and contributes to mother-blaming discourses. Analysing key quantitative and qualitative research, I suggest that a more sophisticated model of parent–child relationships is needed to understand how children's agency affects them, their mothers and the domestic violence situation.

Social research into the daily activities of children is important if we are to understand how children perceive themselves in relationship to their world. Ethically managed social research that allows children to speak as informed and competent subjects is thus vital. However, research regulatory bodies may be more concerned with protecting the privacy of children than facilitating their participation in research projects. In a context where publicly funded researchers are encouraged to make their data available for reuse, the bureaucratisation of the consent and ethics processes may impinge on the conduct and benefits, and the future accessibility, of the research itself. Reflecting on the findings of the Childhood, Tradition and Change research on playlore in Australian primary schools, we argue for a more balanced approach from regulatory authorities between protection and participation in relation to low-risk social research with children.

This paper illuminates children's emotional responses to an atrium in a contemporary Canadian paediatric hospital. It draws on a focused analysis of data elicited in a qualitative study that explored patients' perspectives on the design and architecture of the atrium. Children were involved in all phases of the project either as consultants on the research methods or participating in interviews and taking photographs of the space. The atrium consists of a main lobby with a high windowed ceiling, brightly coloured elevators with exposed mechanisms, information desks, a large fountain and food venues. Children expressed a range of emotions associated with the space. The findings demonstrate children's ability to identify multi-faceted issues related to hospital design and affirm their rights to participate in decisions regarding spaces that purportedly are designed for them.

To document the socioeconomic situation of street children in Iran and to ascertain the part played by this in becoming a street child, we classified and evaluated studies on this issue from the recent decade according to their strengths and weaknesses. The results will be helpful in policy-making and planning for this group. The study employed a systematic review methodology, searching Iranian and international databases, and many universities and related organisations in Iran. After the quality of studies had been evaluated by three researchers, the findings of 40 research studies were classified, described and analysed. The research finds that street children in Iran come from crowded, low-income families; many of them were rural–urban migrants and Afghans with families who immigrated to Iran; most of their parents had a lower than high school education and many of their fathers were unemployed or had low-income jobs; the majority of these children were unskilled workers who would work many hours of the day for negligible incomes. We conclude that low socioeconomic status was prevalent among the street children's families in Iran and seems to be an important factor in the street-connectedness of the children.

Data on 117 British young people who had sexually abused others were examined in order to investigate the nature and impact of family responses on the management of young sexual abusers. Parental responses were varied, ranging from being entirely supportive of the child, through to ambivalence and uncertainty and, at the other end of the continuum, to outright rejection. Parents were more likely to be supportive when their child's victims were extra-familial and condemnatory when the victims were intra-familial. Sibling responses were complex and strongly influenced by whether that sibling was the victim of the young person's abuse or not. Policy and practice implications are discussed.

This study aims to briefly explain the current child abuse laws as they relate to 18-year-old child abuse victims in Japan who are no longer minors, but not yet adults. It explains the gap in services during this transitional period and presents the results of a survey, distributed to 275 facilities, requesting information about this problem. It also examines the status of current support systems available to help these transitional abuse victims, who are on the verge of becoming adults, in establishing lives independent of their parents; and give some suggestions to improve the support system.

Tobacco use continues to be a serious public health issue. Although declining in middle- to high-income countries, smoking rates are often higher in disadvantaged communities and vulnerable groups. Knowledge about tobacco-related harm also tends to be incomplete. To date, legislation has focused on public domains, but the pressure to protect children in the home and other private spaces is fast becoming a focal point for potential legislation and intervention. Negotiating the boundary between privacy and protection is likely to become a matter of professional concern.

The child in contemporary urban China is experiencing an increasingly exclusive focus on academic achievement at the expense of non-academic activities, particularly housework. In-depth interviews with caregivers (including grandparents and parents) from 9 three-generational families (n = 34) and parents from 10 nuclear families (n = 20) were conducted. Results show that although children from both family types were low in housework participation, children in three-generational families were perceived by their caregivers to be less competent in performing self-care and family-care tasks. They were also less frequently assigned regular tasks as compared with children from nuclear families. Unlike caregivers from western societies, where children's participation in housework is seen as either a means of socialisation or a source of domestic labour, Chinese caregivers consider housework as a distraction, at best an addendum to academic work.

This study, based on research into a youth empowerment initiative in Canada, examines the transformational power of youth grants for marginalised youth and their communities. The positive changes on individual youth included increased confidence and skills, as well as strengthened social interactions between youth, and involved adults and organisations. To leverage grant impact, we identify the critical role of creating accountability at multiple levels, promoting sharing among grantees, and fostering allies and system thinkers. The evaluation points to the potential of grants for changing community's perception that youth are incapable of fostering community youth development.

The design of outdoor public play spaces such that disabled children can make use of them is set in the three constructs of play, childhood and disability, drawing upon academic learning, international policy and national policy in England. The suggestion is made that one of the main barriers to the adequate provision of such spaces is that providers and designers do not know how to design such spaces. The paper explores the knowledge which is available to overcome this barrier and which might lead to the provision and design of appropriate outdoor play spaces that disabled children can more fully use.

When children and young people run away from home or care it is most often indicative of problems in their lives. Reporting on the findings of a recent evaluation, this study considers the role, delivery and impact of ‘return home welfare interviews’ (RHWIs) in identifying children and young people in need. It concludes that RHWIs function as an effective screening mechanism and can be facilitative in creating multiple pathways for referral to appropriate services. It challenges assumptions about the unsuitability of the police in undertaking RHWIs and highlights the importance of context, training and appropriate resourcing to the success of police delivery.

Drawing on data from Peru, this article explores how poverty mediates diverse risks in rural children's lives. It offers four main arguments. First, risk is not simply a feature of ‘extraordinary’ childhoods, but integral to everyday, ‘ordinary’ lives. Second, children's responses to adversity are crucially shaped by sociomoral considerations. Third, children participate actively in household risk mitigation, their engagement structured by individual (biographical) and collective factors. Fourth, changing circumstances present new opportunities and challenges for children living with adversity. Current approaches focusing on so-called ‘objective’ risks neglect children's own priorities and subjective experiences.

Young disabled people are still rarely involved in the research process, despite an increasing emphasis on their inclusion as participants. The Participation in Education (PIE) project examined how disabled children with little or no speech could be involved in their education. The project team worked with an existing group of young disabled people to develop ways in which they could take part in the research process. The group was involved in developing the methodology, group work, observation, commenting on findings and in the dissemination process. Their involvement undoubtedly enriched the research and the benefits of working with an established group were manifold.

In recent years, social exclusion has gained the attention of governments around the world. This paper reports on a qualitative study involving 27 young men aged 14–19 years experiencing particular forms of exclusion in the context of Northern Irish society. The study used a focus group methodology to elicit their views with the aim of exploring both emotional and psychological needs and the structural factors that may contribute to their experiences of social exclusion. The findings reveal a range of unmet social and psychological needs, the impact of sectarianism and segregation, and a paucity of support systems in place. The paper concludes by making recommendations about how policy-makers and practitioners could find more imaginative ways of engaging such vulnerable young men to reduce social exclusion.

Taking an example of play as our point of departure, we consider what it means to be a child and to perform (Butler, Feminism/Postmodernism, 1990; Gender, 1990. Routledge: New York) childhood. By drawing on poststructuralist accounts of subjectivity, language and meaning (Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 1979. Penguin: Harmondsworth; Derrida, Dissemination, 1974. Athlone: London), we argue that despite powerful discourses that seek to contain childhood, children manage to exceed or interrupt sites of containment. We then go on to suggest that if children themselves are moving beyond some of the discourses in which they are enwrapped, how might we seek to further destabilise what ‘becoming’ (Deleuze,1990: http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpdeleuze3.htm) child might mean and what might be the implications for our practice(s) with children.

Choice is often presented as a defining feature of play and it has been argued that a perception of choice contributes to the developmental potential of play. This paper investigates children's self-recorded levels of choice during play across three contexts—the home, the school playground and the out-of-school club. Children recorded their play activities across contexts using a structured diary technique. Findings based on 401 reported play episodes indicated that choice varied across contexts, according to the number of children involved and whether or not an adult was present. The findings are discussed in relation to theory, policy and professional practice.

The purpose of this article is to describe young people's awareness of their parents’ and grandparents’ stories of the events of 1974 in Cyprus and to evaluate the extent to which they perceive teachers as other key figures in their lives endorsing family accounts of history. The article is based on focus group discussions with 20 Turkish Cypriot and 20 Greek Cypriot teenagers from two schools in Cyprus. The article describes how in some cases, young people appropriate these memories as their own, while in other cases, they acknowledge how the passing of time dilutes the significance of past events and allows some young people to envisage a different collective future.

This paper first considers the impacts on children who have experienced domestic and family violence and consequential homelessness. This is followed by an account of an Australian qualitative research project, Safe from the Start, which was designed to identify and form a register of intervention activities and therapeutic play for affected young children aged up to six. The key finding of this innovative applied research, substantiated by the participatory evaluation, is that effective early intervention with such children can be conducted by non-specialised workers and parents, given the right training and tools.

Discipline in schools is a topic of enduring public interest and concern. This article reviews findings from three recent research studies, which gathered views of young people on this issue in mainstream, alternative and special school settings. It reveals the confusion and frustration of students seeking to contribute to the debate, often on aspects that affect them directly and significantly. Their reflections are contextualised within a discussion of different conceptualisations of discipline, and from there, it is argued that, by strengthening the voice, power and presence of young people in dialogue on this key issue, the debate itself will be more relevant and well-focused.

This article is about young people in the UK's participation in decisions that affect them. It draws, in particular, on three research and evaluation projects that were undertaken in partnership with young people as researchers, and directly exploring the views and experience of young people of their participation in the voluntary and statutory sector. Its purpose is to contribute to reflection on young people's participation to review what has been done and what has been learnt, to consider what next, where our efforts should be focused in the future as adults and young people seek together to develop and implement meaningful opportunities for participation.

This article describes the results of a qualitative study, based on the perspective of critical discourse analysis, which explores the discourse on childhood of 10- and 11-year-old boys and girls from a middle-income socioeconomic sector in Santiago, Chile. Among the findings, a complex and relational notion of childhood is highlighted. The children perceive themselves as overwhelmed and subjected to excessive demands by grown-ups, and conceive of adulthood as a state without real freedom due to the excessive demands of work and family.

We elaborate on an aspect of photo interviews with children that has so far not been considered sufficiently: Photographs may encourage children to talk about sensitive aspects of family life. The potential and limitations of this aspect are discussed along the lines of visibility and invisibility. Visualisations support children in verbalising their thoughts, but also stimulate narrations on issues that are not displayed. Data are drawn from interviews with fifty 10-year-old children who took photographs in their families, and their parents (n = 71). We conclude that visual methods and their combination with a multiple perspectives approach may generate substantial benefits in childhood and family research.

This article describes a participatory research project, which explored four case studies of children and young people's successful political advocacy in Nicaragua. The analysis combined a human rights-based approach and a human development approach, and included concepts of multiple settings and levels, interrelated participation spaces, children and young people's citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, democracy, advocacy and empowerment. The main problems faced by children and young people seeking to influence policy-makers were identified as adultism, dependency and lack of accountability. The research identified pre-conditions, participation spaces and ways of organising for effective advocacy, and facilitation methods that had proved effective. It concludes that children and young people who achieve effective advocacy are generally self-empowered, but can count on effective adult support and facilitation. They work through coordination with the authorities and not by clashing with them, but need to ensure effective follow up if they want politicians to keep their promises.

Young people's engagement with the arts can facilitate skills development, improve mental health and strengthen resilience. This article reports on a qualitative study exploring the experiences and involvement of ten young people in care in the development of a musical play exploring life in the care system. The project was viewed as successful in a number of ways: involving young people who had not previously taken part in drama; developing skills, confidence and resilience, and improving feelings of social connectedness. Extending work on participatory arts approaches, this study identifies factors that influence young people's ability to maintain involvement and the implications for carers and professionals supporting them.

Indigenous Australians are among the most unhealthy populations in the world and yet they reside in a country where the non-Indigenous population enjoys high standards of well-being. Education has been identified as the key mechanism for closing this equity gap. At school commencement many Indigenous children are already at risk of disengagement. This four-year longitudinal study of two Indigenous boys from a socially marginalised community examined key factors affecting transitional trajectories into school. While child characteristics affected level of achievement the critical factors in sustaining positive educational engagement were social support, school practices, inclusion of family and positive expectation.

This article focuses on the implementation of evidence-based parenting programmes (EBPPs) in a small sample of urban local authorities in England. The first part discusses the development of government policy, guidance and implementation issues. The second part presents findings from an exploratory study, which focused on the implementation of EBPPs in terms of programme eligibility, fidelity and intensity in six urban local authorities. Implementation was not necessarily in line with policy or guidance. Issues associated with programme fidelity along with concerns about sustainability as a result of cuts in funding are discussed and implications for policy and future research considered.

Evaluation of a group parenting programme in the Northern Territory of Australia showed significant differences in benefits for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal boys and girls. The analysis considers whether boys and girls from different cultural backgrounds present with different problems; whether parental expectations for boys and girls differ and whether the intervention activates different responses in different settings. Conclusions suggest that there is a need to closely examine the ‘cultural logic’ of interventions, the appropriateness of their assumptions about child development and hypothesised mechanisms of change in different settings.

This article examines the use of focus groups (FGs) as a way of gathering pupils’ views on the implementation of new curricula. We provide illustrations of creative activities, which were especially designed for a case-study research project exploring the views of 11-year-old pupils in English schools adopting an innovative approach to the Year 7 curriculum. We argue that combining FGs with creative methods encourages pupils to take an active role in interviews, enriches the quality of the data being collected and enhances the place of FGs as important tools in eliciting pupils’ voices for both research and curriculum planning purposes.

The present study aims at exploring which factors predict the willingness of adolescents to disclose personal information in response to online marketing requests. Our analyses show that especially privacy concerns and perceived benefits explain a considerable portion of variance in both willingness to disclose profile data (e.g. age, hobbies, favourite products) and contact data (e.g. phone number, e-mail address, home address). An interesting interrelationship was found between profile data and contact data disclosure. Contrary to our expectations, parental mediation strategies were only a weak predictor of teenagers’ willingness to disclose contact information. Policy implications that emerge from the central findings of this study are discussed.

This article investigates the premise that Palestinian children are the authors of collective memory. Palestinian society employs an oral tradition that propagates the collective experience among different generations in which the individual dimensions of each is apparent. The oral history for Palestinian children not only illustrates past events, it also provides the tool for grasping the present and traversing the future. In this ethnographic study, 12 Palestinian children from cities, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank were interviewed. The children demonstrated active roles in reconstructing previous collective memory in relation to their own experiences and vigorously restructured the collective memory as a prerequisite for passing it to the next generation.

Despite the shift in emphasis from institutional to foster family care, in the south of Italy children in need are mainly looked after by residential services. These are required to provide family-style care and to place children on a short-term basis. Using data from research on a 100% sample of day units, residential services and children in care in the Calabria region, this article investigates the functioning of the system of care for vulnerable children at the sub-national level, describes looked-after children’s characteristics and life conditions and questions the extent to which a real deinstitutionalisation process has occurred in this area. Finally, some deinstitutionalisation recommendations are given.

The article focuses on the impact on children, schools and education during the 10 year conflict in Nepal and raises questions for further research on schooling in the post-conflict era. The article is based on research undertaken as part of a British Council funded Higher Education Link. Focus group discussions and interviews were conducted with school children, parents, teachers and community leaders between 2004 and 2006 and draws on informal discussions and observations with NGOs and teachers in the post-conflict period, including NGOs visual methods to enable children’s voices to be heard in the peace process.

This article has analysed practices towards and views on cultural diversity by staff in two Norwegian kindergartens. The article has focused on food traditions both among minorities and the Norwegian majority that serve as border markers and are used in differentiating processes among the staff. The analysis found concurrent processes towards cultural homogenisation and increased diversity and experienced that staff members are in the process of developing a perception about minority children that is complex, shifting and intersecting, rather than a straightforward perception based solely on minority status. However, the study also identified a tendency operating in parallel where, even though the ideal goal is equality in results, the outcome in practice is often a majority-based equality practice that leaves little room for difference.

This paper focuses on recent discourses and practices of listening to young children, in order to highlight listening as an ethical practice in early childhood education and care settings. The paper asks how discourses of listening should be viewed in theoretical terms and explores the work of a diverse range of authors who define autonomy and rights issues as relational. Central to the paper is a consideration of feminist critique of Foucault’s ethics of care argument. To contextualise this, the paper discusses examples of recent research in the field of listening to young children and highlights issues facing the status of the early years workforce. In summary, the paper contends that an ethical view of listening can bring adults and children together in democratic care practices which challenge conceptions of childhood and reconnect ideas of care and education.

Amidst concerns that young people’s mental health is deteriorating, it is important to explore their understandings of symptoms of mental health problems and beliefs around help seeking. Drawing on focus group data from Scottish school pupils, we demonstrate how they understood symptoms of mental health problems and how their characterisations of these symptoms as ‘rare’ and ‘weird’ informed participants’ perceptions that peers, teachers and parents would respond to disclosure in stigmatising ways. Consequently, participants suggested that they would delay or avoid disclosing symptoms of mental health problems. We highlight subtle gender and age differences and outline implications for policy and practice.

This study explores the construction of discourses about childhood in the Greek daily press. It employs the theoretical frameworks of the new sociology of childhood and critical discourse analysis to question which discourses of childhood are constructed in the daily press presenting cases where children were the victimisers in school violent episodes. The study showed that while there are distinct discourses constructed in the texts such as the romantic childhood, the minority group childhood, the homogeneous childhood and the childhood as actor, these tend to co-exist textually. Results are critically discussed in relation to the positioning of children through everyday practices such as the daily press.

This paper reports on the findings of a documentary analysis of policies and procedures relating to self-harm from a range of organisations working with young people in the UK. It identifies the extent to which policies and/or procedures relating to self-harm are available for service providers and offers a wider understanding of the concepts of self-harm and approaches to helping as incorporated into service guidance and delivery. It highlights the prevalence of self-harming behaviours in a climate of stigma and the need to define appropriate and supportive agency responses from a trained staff that is both sensitive and individualised.

This article focuses on how girls create places of meaning and opportunity through collective movement. It is based on an ethnographic study of the everyday experiences and mobility of 10–13 year old girls living in a suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark. ¹ The girls ventured for a sense of freedom and a ‘place of their own’ to pursue their interests and social relationships. For some girls the creation of places where they felt ‘at home’ would entail breaking rules and transgressing spatial boundaries set by adults.

Researchers who involve children in their research are faced with the challenge of choosing between differing theoretical approaches which can prioritise children’s autonomy rights or their ‘vulnerability’ and their need to be protected. Somewhat confusingly, ethical guidelines seem to reflect a combination of these approaches. Even when researchers have settled on their preferred approach, they may find that this then has to be modified in accordance with gatekeeper requirements. In the context of children’s involvement in a child safety online project, this paper highlights the difficulties encountered because of a tension between children’s autonomy rights, educational norms in a school setting and child protection concerns and considers whether an appropriate balance was achieved.

Prevalence studies of emotional health and well-being (EHWB) of young people indicate that that there is cause for concern. Very few studies have examined EHWB from the perspective of young people. This study examined the views of young people about their EHWB in the context of secondary education in the UK. Eight focus groups were conducted in five secondary schools with pupils in year 10 (aged 13–14). The findings suggested that whilst pupils thought some aspects of EHWB are well provided for in the school curriculum, there were problems with coherence of EHWB policy. Mental health topics were thought to be neglected in the EHWB curriculum especially in relation to self-harm. Three problems regarding talking about EHWB were identified. Firstly, the quality of EHWB lessons depended on the enthusiasm and creativity of the teacher taking the lesson. Secondly, pupils were concerned about confidentiality. Thirdly, many pupils preferred to talk to friends about EHWB issues. The findings of the study suggest a need for greater involvement of young people in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the EHWB curriculum.

The Health and Social Care Act comes into force in April 2013. It changes the organisation of the health service and accelerates the integration of health and social care. New relationships between primary and secondary healthcare will develop and the culture of clinical and cost effectiveness will expand into social care; work on children in public care is in the vanguard of this change. However, this is not an organisational change designed for children and there are considerable anxieties about how it will impact on the delivery of health care. The issues for children in public care need to stay high on the national agenda and in local fora.