Fossil-fuel combustion by-products are the world's most significant threat to children's health and future and are major contributors to global inequality and environmental injustice. The emissions ...include a myriad of toxic air pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO₂), which is the most important human-produced climate-altering greenhouse gas. Synergies between air pollution and climate change can magnify the harm to children. Impacts include impairment of cognitive and behavioral development, respiratory illness, and other chronic diseases-all of which may be "seeded" in utero and affect health and functioning immediately and over the life course. By impairing children's health, ability to learn, and potential to contribute to society, pollution and climate change cause children to become less resilient and the communities they live in to become less equitable. The developing fetus and young child are disproportionately affected by these exposures because of their immature defense mechanisms and rapid development, especially those in low- and middle-income countries where poverty and lack of resources compound the effects. No country is spared, however: even high-income countries, especially low-income communities and communities of color within them, are experiencing impacts of fossil fuel-related pollution, climate change and resultant widening inequality and environmental injustice. Global pediatric health is at a tipping point, with catastrophic consequences in the absence of bold action. Fortunately, technologies and interventions are at hand to reduce and prevent pollution and climate change, with large economic benefits documented or predicted. All cultures and communities share a concern for the health and well-being of present and future children: this shared value provides a politically powerful lever for action. The purpose of this commentary is to briefly review the data on the health impacts of fossil-fuel pollution, highlighting the neurodevelopmental impacts, and to briefly describe available means to achieve a low-carbon economy, and some examples of interventions that have benefited health and the economy.
Accessible built environments are a critical component of Canada's commitment to disabled children's 'right to enjoy full and decent lives' United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
1989
.... Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York. . Although valid, reliable research data about the accessibility of built environments are key to developing related policies, these data currently do not exist. To begin to redress this gap, we conducted a case study series followed by a survey to determine the accessibility of schools, homes and neighbourhoods directly from disabled children (The ScHaN Project). To present a concise summary of the findings that can inform equitable, evidence-based policies, we developed a scoring system for their homes, schools and neighbourhoods. Although our findings illustrate that eliciting and interpreting data from these children were complex undertakings, it is clear that none of these central environments met Canada's obligation to enhance equity by enabling their access, inclusion and participation.
Stories are one way that experiences, ideas and culture are shared with children in educational settings. Commercially published books are the standard means in schools for sharing stories. ...Qualitative content analysis was carried out on 30 personal narrative‐based children's picture books. While the range of stories told in books is vast, our research focuses on refugee stories for children in light of the contemporary political and public focus on refugees and the forced movement of people around the world. Scholars have identified that books about refugees for children can be useful to explore the topic of refugees, but also caution that they can perpetuate simplistic and stereotypical understandings about forced movement in the world. In our research we examine personal narratives and propose that educators should use stories and books written and illustrated by children as a means to bring refugee children's voices into formal educational spaces. We argue that this is a respectful approach that counters a deficit model of refugee children; it highlights refugee children's authentic voices and stories told on their own terms. Additionally, it offers a counter‐narrative to dominant refugee stories in the public sphere and presents understandings of forced migration and its legacies from children's perspectives. We suggest that to effectively examine refugee experiences through literature, educators should use a number of texts to begin conversations in classrooms, and stories by children who have experienced forced migration should be featured.
Drawing on a mixed-methods cross-cultural study undertaken in five locations in Argentina, Denmark, Hong Kong, England and the United States in 2018, this paper explores how children (aged five and ...seven) conceive of playfulness. Following a card-sorting task, 387 children selected familiar activities that they felt were most representative of play and not-play and explained their reasons. The children's justifications were fully transcribed, and five corpora were created (one per site). Lexicometry was applied, generating sets of the characteristic responses per age in each site. In-depth qualitative interpretation of these modal responses revealed nine dimensions across play and not-play: pleasure, social context, materials, movement, agency, risk, goal, time and focus. Commonalities revealed that children's ideas around play are not aligned with specific activities but with the sense of agency in a secure physical and social context when carrying out an activity experienced as an end in itself. Implications for playful pedagogies highlight the need to open up play with opportunities for children's choice and initiative, confident exploration and immersion in the activities in which they participate.
There is worldwide concern about the effects of environmental factors on children's health and development. The Miami Declaration was signed at the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting in 1997 to promote ...children's environmental health research. The following ministerial meetings continued to emphasize the need to foster children's research. In response to such a worldwide movement, the Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOE), launched a nationwide birth cohort study with 100,000 pairs of mothers and children, namely, the Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS), in 2010. Other countries have also started or planned large-scale studies focusing on children's environmental health issues. The MOE initiated dialogue among those countries and groups to discuss and share the various processes, protocols, knowledge, and techniques for future harmonization and data pooling among such studies. The MOE formed the JECS International Liaison Committee in 2011, which plays a primary role in promoting the international collaboration between JECS and the other children's environmental health research projects and partnership with other countries. This review article aims to present activities that JECS has developed. As one of the committee's activities, a workshop and four international symposia were held between 2011 and 2015 in Japan. In these conferences, international researchers and government officials, including those from the World Health Organization, have made presentations on their own birth cohort studies and health policies. In 2015, the MOE hosted the International Advisory Board meeting and received constructive comments and recommendations from the board. JECS is a founding member of the Environment and Child Health International Birth Cohort Group, and has discussed harmonization of exposure and outcome measurements with member parties, which will make it possible to compare and further combine data from different studies, considering the diversity in the measurements of variables between the studies. JECS is expected to contribute to the international environmental health research community and policy-making. More international collaboration would enhance our understanding of the possible environmental causes of diseases and disabilities.
From the early modern period onwards, the phenomenon of feral children has led to ontological confusion and thus, has engendered both fascination and repulsion. A 1900 collection of short stories for ...children by American writer Abbie Farwell Brown titled The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts seems, however, to depart from this way of thinking. The book includes two short stories about feral children who grow up to become saints (“Saint Keneth of the Gulls” and “The Wolf-Mother of Saint Ailbe”). The unusually close cross-species bonds presented by Brown in her stories can be considered as, what Donna Haraway, in Staying with the Trouble (2016), would call, “kin-making.” The aim of this article is to analyse the animality of the two feral boys as a formative element of their identity, stressing that it is the nonhuman Harawayan “oddkins” who shape their characters. Due to their unconventional upbringing, the boys become Catholic saints; crucially, the children choose not to renounce the familial bonds with their oddkins, which, in turn, presents a subtle shift in the portrayal of feral children.
The Mosaic approach has been used as a form of participatory research for over two decades. It has been popular with researchers in the early childhood education and disability sectors because it ...encourages the participants to utilise a large range of communication tools, rather than relying on verbal and written data. Promoters of the Mosaic approach generally place great importance on capturing children's voices in response to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF
2015
), and the need to address the inequities of the child participant/researcher and the adult researcher. Furthermore, the findings should be passed on to those adults who make decisions that affect the children, thereby increasing children's agency. While these are imperative components of the Mosaic approach, the authors argue that there are times when adults' voices, such as parents, carers, practitioners and educators, can add to the richness and meaning of Mosaic data that the children have originally captured but are not understood by other adults, potentially adding weight to children's voices when advocating to those who make decisions that affect children's lives. Reflecting on the original framework for listening to children's voices by Clark and Moss 2011. Listening to Children: The Mosaic Approach. London: National Children's Bureau, we adapted the model to suit a particular research context and project. Reflecting on and expanding the framework may be of interest to researchers and practitioners who work with the Mosaic Approach and who gather and promote marginalised voices.
PDF
