Participation Citizenship And Trust In Children S Lives

This book critically analyzes and theorizes trust dynamics in children's lives and how they impact upon children's participation, citizenship and well-being, drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence that examines trust in various institutional and cultural contexts.

Research about children and young people's participation and involvement in research is an emerging area of academic inquiry. Based on the themes of participation, citizenship and intergenerational relations, this edited collection draws on the latest research in this area, and includes chapters co-authored with children and young people.

The degree to which children should have a voice in anything is the subject of strongly divergent opinion. There are many examples of children who organize themselves successfully without adult help. Children need to know that along with any rights they have come certain responsibilities. Youth participation in decision making can range from manipulation by adults to child initiated, shared decisions with adults. Researchers can promote an active role for children through Participatory Action Research (PAR). The technique can empower children as research subjects by helping them learn about practical problems and themselves. Experience in the United Kingdom illustrates that children can participate effectively in community planning issues. Moreover, children's lives vary greatly in industrialized and developing countries. Even children in especially difficult circumstances, such as those living in industrialized countries, can be active in trying to improve their own lives. Through such participation children can develop social competence and responsibility, community development, and political self-determination. Schools provide the natural starting place for children's activism. A 25-item list of references is included. (LBG).

Focusing on children's citizenship, participation and rights, this edited collection draws on the work of a number of leading scholars in the sociology of childhood. The contributors explore a range of themes including: tensions between pragmatism and grand theory; revisiting agency/structure debates in the light of children; the challenging of binary thought prevalent in studies around 'generations' and other aspects of sociology; the manifestation of power in time and space; the application of theories into the 'real' world through NGOs, practitioners, policy makers, politicians and empirical research. The collection will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including childhood studies, sociology, politics and social policy, as well as policy makers and practitioners interested in the citizenship, rights and participation of children.

This edited collection presents the concept of lived citizenship as a fruitful avenue for exploring the role played by social work practices in the lives of people in vulnerable positions. The book centres on the everyday experiences through which people practice, negotiate, understand and feel their citizenship. The authors offer both empirical analyses of how social work influences the rights, obligations, identities and belongings of children, homeless people, migrants, ethnic minorities, and young people with mental disabilities; and a theoretical framework for analysing the complexities of social work. Drawing on the notion of intimate citizenship and an understanding of citizenship as socio-spatial, the theoretical framework addresses the challenges of enhancing the agency of social work clients and of promoting inclusive citizenship, and how these challenges are shaped by emotions, affect, rationality, materiality, power relations, policies and managerial strategies. Lived Citizenship on the Edge of Society will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including social policy and social work.

This book analyzes children's agency as interactional achievement in formal and informal contexts of education and illuminates how agency can be encouraged and supported in these educational contexts. Taking a sociological approach, the author deals with children as social agents rather than learners and considers structures of interaction which encourage and support agency, rather than teaching. The book draws from field research conducted over more than twenty years in a variety of Italian and international contexts. This book is unique in providing a theoretical reflection on the social structures that can support children’s agency, as well as a large amount of examples which show how these structures and agency work.

Bringing together theories, ideas, insights and experiences of practitioners and researchers from Brazil, India, South Africa and the UK, this book explores children and young people's involvement in public action. The contributors consider the potential of children and young people's participation to be transformative.

Drawing on diverse theoretical perspectives, this book examines questions of youth citizenship and participation by exploring their meanings in policy, practice and youth experience. It examines young people's participation in non-government and youth-led organisations, and asks what can be done to bridge the democratic disconnect.