According to the United Nations' latest data, the United States has more children living in poverty than any other industrialized nation in the world. More than a fifth of all children grow up in ...poverty. The poverty rates for African American and Latino children often exceed 40 percent. Furthermore, the United States — a country that once pioneered strategies to prevent child abuse and which now spends more money fighting child abuse than any other industrialized country — also has the highest rate of child abuse in the industrialized world. Against this background, the author, an authority on child welfare, takes a critical look at the current welfare system. He traces the transformation of child welfare into child protective services, arguing that the current focus on abuse has produced a system which is designed to protect children from physical and sexual abuse, and therefore functions as a last resort for only the worst and most dramatic cases in child welfare. In a close analysis of the process of investigating child abuse, the author finds that there is no evidence that the transformation into protective services has reduced child abuse fatalities or that it has provided a safer environment for children. He makes an argument for the criminal justice system to assume responsibility for the problem of child abuse in order for the child welfare system to be able to adequately address the wellbeing of a much larger number of children now growing up in poverty. This new edition of The Welfare of Children takes into account a major legislative change since the publication of the first edition: the welfare reform legislation of 1996. This legislation has fundamentally altered the public child welfare system as broadly understood, and the author of this book examines its implications on policy and practice, refuting the claim that welfare reform has actually reduced child poverty. The Welfare of Children, 2nd Edition is a blueprint for the comprehensive reform of the current child welfare system to one that administers to the economic security of the larger number of disadvantaged and impoverished children.
Autism has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, thanks to dramatically increasing rates of diagnosis, extensive organizational mobilization, journalistic coverage, biomedical ...research, and clinical innovation. Understanding Autism, a social history of the expanding diagnostic category of this contested illness, takes a close look at the role of emotion--specifically, of parental love--in the intense and passionate work of biomedical communities investigating autism.
Each year, more than half a million migrant children journey from countries around the globe and enter the United States with no lawful immigration status; many of them have no parent or legal ...guardian to provide care and custody. Yet little is known about their experiences in a nation that may simultaneously shelter children while initiating proceedings to deport them, nor about their safety or well-being if repatriated.Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the Stateexamines the draconian immigration policies that detain unaccompanied migrant children and draws on U.S. historical, political, legal, and institutional practices to contextualize the lives of children and youth as they move through federal detention facilities, immigration and family courts, federal foster care programs, and their communities across the United States and Central America.Through interviews with children and their families, attorneys, social workers, policy-makers, law enforcement, and diplomats, anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink foregrounds the voices of migrant children and youth who must navigate the legal and emotional terrain of U.S. immigration policy. Cast as victims by humanitarian organizations and delinquents by law enforcement, these unauthorized minors challenge Western constructions of child dependence and family structure. Heidbrink illuminates the enduring effects of immigration enforcement on its young charges, their families, and the state, ultimately questioning whose interests drive decisions about the care and custody of migrant youth.
Moral laboratories Mattingly, Cheryl
2014., 20141003, 2014, 2014-10-03
eBook
Moral Laboratoriesis an engaging ethnography and a groundbreaking foray into the anthropology of morality. It takes us on a journey into the lives of African American families caring for children ...with serious chronic medical conditions, and it foregrounds the uncertainty that affects their struggles for a good life. Challenging depictions of moral transformation as possible only in moments of breakdown or in radical breaches from the ordinary, it offers a compelling portrait of the transformative powers embedded in day-to-day existence. From soccer fields to dinner tables, the everyday emerges as a moral laboratory for reshaping moral life. Cheryl Mattingly offers vivid and heart-wrenching stories to elaborate a first-person ethical framework, forcefully showing the limits of third-person renderings of morality.
The Children of Immigrants at Schoolexplores the 21st-century consequences of immigration through an examination of how the so-called second generation is faring educationally in six countries: ...France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United States. In this insightful volume, Richard Alba and Jennifer Holdaway bring together a team of renowned social science researchers from around the globe to compare the educational achievements of children from low-status immigrant groups to those of mainstream populations in these countries, asking what we can learn from one system that can be usefully applied in another.Working from the results of a five-year, multi-national study, the contributors toThe Children of Immigrants at Schoolultimately conclude that educational processes do, in fact, play a part in creating unequal status for immigrant groups in these societies. In most countries, the youth coming from the most numerous immigrant populations lag substantially behind their mainstream peers, implying that they will not be able to integrate economically and civically as traditional mainstream populations shrink. Despite this fact, the comparisons highlight features of each system that hinder the educational advance of immigrant-origin children, allowing the contributors to identify a number of policy solutions to help fix the problem. A comprehensive look at a growing global issue,The Children of Immigrants at Schoolrepresents a major achievement in the fields of education and immigration studies. Richard Alba is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. His publications include Remaking the American Mainstream (with Victor Nee) and Blurring the Color Line Jennifer Holdaway is a Program Director at the Social Science Research Council, where her work has focused on migration and its interaction with processes of social change and stratification.
There are now nearly four million children born in the United States who have undocumented immigrant parents. In the current debates around immigration reform, policymakers often view immigrants as ...an economic or labor market problem to be solved, but the issue has a very real human dimension. Immigrant parents without legal status are raising their citizen children under stressful work and financial conditions, with the constant threat of discovery and deportation that may narrow social contacts and limit participation in public programs that might benefit their children. "Immigrants Raising Citizens" offers a compelling description of the everyday experiences of these parents, their very young children, and the consequences these experiences have on their children's development. "Immigrants Raising Citizens" challenges conventional wisdom about undocumented immigrants, viewing them not as lawbreakers or victims, but as the parents of citizens whose adult productivity will be essential to the nation's future. The book's findings are based on data from a three-year study of 380 infants from Dominican, Mexican, Chinese, and African American families, which included in-depth interviews, in-home child assessments, and parent surveys. The book shows that undocumented parents share three sets of experiences that distinguish them from legal-status parents and may adversely influence their children's development: avoidance of programs and authorities, isolated social networks, and poor work conditions. Fearing deportation, undocumented parents often avoid accessing valuable resources that could help their children's development--such as access to public programs and agencies providing child care and food subsidies. At the same time, many of these parents are forced to interact with illegal entities such as smugglers or loan sharks out of financial necessity. Undocumented immigrants also tend to have fewer reliable social ties to assist with child care or share information on child-rearing. Compared to legal-status parents, undocumented parents experience significantly more exploitive work conditions, including long hours, inadequate pay and raises, few job benefits, and limited autonomy in job duties. These conditions can result in ongoing parental stress, economic hardship, and avoidance of center-based child care--which is directly correlated with early skill development in children. The result is poorly developed cognitive skills, recognizable in children as young as two years old, which can negatively impact their future school performance and, eventually, their job prospects. "Immigrants Raising Citizens" has important implications for immigration policy, labor law enforcement, and the structure of community services for immigrant families. In addition to low income and educational levels, undocumented parents experience hardships due to their status that have potentially lifelong consequences for their children. With nothing less than the future contributions of these children at stake, the book presents a rigorous and sobering argument that the price for ignoring this reality may be too high to pay. The following chapters are contained in this book: (1) Emiliana, Elena, and Ling Raise Citizens in New York City; (2) The Hidden Face of New York: Undocumented Immigrant Parents' Routes to the City; (3) Life Under the Radar: Legal and Illegal Authorities and Public Programs; (4) Documentation Status and Social Ties: Households, Networks, and Organizations in the Lives of Undocumented Parents and Their Children; (5) The Worst Jobs in Urban America: Undocumented Working Parents in the New York Economy; (6) How Parents' Undocumented Status Matters for Children's Early Learning; and (7) Providing Access to the American Dream for the Children of Undocumented Parents. "Overview of Study Design and Methods" is appended.
There is now ample evidence from the preclinical and clinical fields that early life trauma has both dramatic and long-lasting effects on neurobiological systems and functions that are involved in ...different forms of psychopathology as well as on health in general. To date, a comprehensive review of the recent research on the effects of early and later life trauma is lacking. This book fills an obvious gap in academic and clinical literature by providing reviews which summarize and synthesize these findings. Topics considered and discussed include the possible biological and neuropsychological effects of trauma at different epochs and their effect on health. This book will be essential reading for psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, mental health professionals, social workers, pediatricians and specialists in child development.
Influenced by the condition of young children within its own country and by the pattern of international evidence about the value of Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED), the government ...of Indonesia has implemented policies and programs that prioritize the early years of children's lives. The first critical step was taken in 2001, when a new directorate dedicated to early childhood was established within the Ministry of Education and Culture. The second critical step was taken when early childhood education was included in a succession of key policy documents-the National Education System Law No. 20 in 2003 and the Ministry of Education and Culture's Strategic Plan (Rencana Strategis or Renstra) in 2004. ECED services are privately provided in multiple formats intended to cater to distinct age groups, and several different government ministries regulate the services. These arrangements underscore the continuing challenges in coordinating services and ensuring high quality across service providers. This book uses Indonesian data to answer five questions with significance for research, policy, and practice within and beyond Indonesia: (1) shat does global evidence tell us about the importance of ECED, and what policies and programs has Indonesia implemented to promote ECED?; (2) what is the pattern of development among young children in poor villages in Indonesia, and how is that development linked with their families' characteristics and the ECED services typically available to them?; (3) what were the processes and challenges of implementing a community-driven ECED project across 50 poor districts in Indonesia?; (4) what can be learned from the short-term results of a randomized evaluation of the project's impact on childrens development?; and (5) what insights can be derived from this body of research to inform future policies and practices in Indonesia and beyond? With support from the World Bank and other development partners, the government has provided new early childhood services in 6,000 poor communities across 50 districts in the country. The lessons from this experience are focused in this book.
This book is the first comprehensive history of the development of child study during the early part of the twentieth century. Most nineteenth-century scientists deemed children unsuitable subjects ...for study, and parents were hostile to the idea. But by 1935, the study of the child was a thriving scientific and professional field. Here, Alice Boardman Smuts shows how interrelated movements-social and scientific-combined to transform the study of the child.
Drawing on nationwide archives and extensive interviews with child study pioneers, Smuts recounts the role of social reformers, philanthropists, and progressive scientists who established new institutions with new ways of studying children. Part history of science and part social history, this book describes a fascinating era when the normal child was studied for the first time, a child guidance movement emerged, and the newly created federal Children's Bureau conducted pathbreaking sociological studies of children.
