Social comparison and the young child: Current research issues

The paper represents a synthesis of the extensive literature on social comparison in young children. Several theorists are reviewed, whose writings provide a conceptual framework for the study of social comparison. Then, the paper overviews research pertaining to the following issues: What motivates children to engage in social comparison? With whom do children seek to compare? At what age does social comparison appear? Does it follow a developmental progression? What are the effects upon subsequent behavior? Are there sex‐related differences in social comparison activity? By way of conclusion, practical implications for teaching are drawn.     

Who cares?—Supporting parents in the care of children in Hong Kong

The paper addresses the following questions: Why are children placed in residential care? What problems do the parents have in caring for their children at home? What services have been used by the parents in seeking solutions to these problems? Are parents' personal resources so inadequate that the risk of removing a child into care must be taken?

The study involved a sampling of the parents of children who were placed in residential care facilities. The findings indicated that most children were placed in residential care because the parents lacked the tangible resources necessary for them to bring up the children themselves. The findings challenge the simplistic assumption that only children who are orphaned or of irresponsible parents are placed in residential care, and prompt social workers to reflect on the practical means to support parents in the care of children in Hong Kong.     

Bullying in newsmagazines in Canada and the US: growing up is a risky and dangerous business

The incidence, as well as public and media focus on bullying and cyberbullying as social problems among children, has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Yet, the meanings, causes and consequences of bullying are all disputed. Thus, this paper reports on a qualitative content and discourse analysis of the portrayal of bullying in top circulating newsmagazines in Canada and the US from 2000 to 2014. It focuses on the answers to the following four the questions of what is bullying? What are its consequences? What is said to cause it? What can be done about it? It then offers possible theoretical explanations for the findings through the theories of medicalization, neoliberalism and risk society.     

Monitoring equity in health and healthcare: a conceptual framework

This paper aims at articulating a conceptual framework for monitoring equity in health and healthcare. The focus is on four main questions: What is health equity? What is monitoring? What are the essential components of a system for monitoring health equity? and Why monitor health equity? Monitoring equity in health and healthcare requires comparing indicators of health and its social determinants among social groups with different levels of underlying social advantage, i.e. groups who occupy different positions in a social hierarchy. A framework is presented for formulating the key questions, defining the social groups to be compared, and selecting the health indicators and measures of disparity that are fundamental to monitoring health equity. Although monitoring health equity is a scientific endeavour, its fundamental objective is guided by values; technical challenges should be addressed as part of a broader strategy to confront the political obstacles to greater equity.     

Charting a health literacy journey--overview and outcomes from a stakeholder workshop

Through a combination of Personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), Science, Healthy Schools and a range of other initiatives, we are increasingly preparing our children to understand key topics in health education. However, to what extent are we equipping them with a picture of a healthy, happy future and giving them the tools to access this? In June, The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) hosted a workshop entitled "Charting a Health Literacy Journey" to examine this. The workshop brought together a broad group of over 20 stakeholders from the health and education sectors. The aims of the day were to address the following six questions: What is health literacy? What does health literacy look like in action? What are the benefits of health literacy? How is health literacy reflected on the ground at present? How does health literacy fit with the current policy context? What are the options going forward? This report summarises the key findings of the workshop.     

Pathways to Resilience Among Children in Child Welfare,Corrections, Mental Health and Educational Settings: Navigation and Negotiation

In this paper I explore how social service delivery systems influence the pathways children travel to resilience. In particular, I look at children’s navigation to the health resources that are available through service delivery systems and their negotiation with service providers for service once under a provider’s mandate. Two case examples are used to illustrate health-enhancing and health-challenging patterns of service provision and utilization among high-risk youth. I then address two questions that are critical to understanding children’s pathways to resilience: “What services do children say they need to achieve resilience?” and “How does the structure of services affect children’s access to the health resources required to nurture and sustain resilience?”     

Wonder children and victimizing parents – preservice early childhood teachers’ beliefs about children and technology at home

In this study, written assignments from preservice early childhood teachers were examined to find answers to the following research questions: [1] What beliefs do preservice teachers have about children and technology at home? [2] How are parents represented in preservice teachers’ beliefs about children and technology? [3] What are the relationships between these beliefs and preservice teachers’ views about the role of technology in early childhood education? Preservice teachers in this study had idolized beliefs about children and discriminating beliefs about parents. Children were believed to be born-competent technology users. Parents were believed to lack the skills or will needed to regulate their children’s technology use. It was expressed to be the responsibility of early childhood education to ensure that play and social interaction are still included in young children’s lives. These findings propose that students’ beliefs about children and parents need to be afforded attention in educational technology courses.     

Resilienzforschung

Research on resilience and protective factors revolves around the question “What keeps people healthy?” Protective factors in the person, family and social surroundings contribute to resilient development of children and adolescents. The effects of these factors depend on risk constellations and environmental conditions. Although sufficient evidence is not yet available for all factors discussed in the literature, results suffice as starting points to develop preventive interventions meant to strengthen protective factors. This paper proposes a classification of interventions based on the age of the children and adolescents. In addition to personal factors it is important to target protective factors in the family and social surroundings. Successful prevention strategies begin early on and support children over the long term, in a systematic and development-oriented manner.     

Profile of an aggressor: childhood bullies evolve into violent youths

Violence in schools and communities is no longer an urban school problem; it is every school’s problem (). What factors cause children to interact with increasingly violent and anti‐social behaviors? What strategies can teachers and schools use in order to help these childhood bullies who grow up to be violent youths? This paper examines the life of Jeffrey, a fictional young man created to personalize the effects that the environment, both home and school, has on the development of anti‐social and violent behaviors. Follow Jeffrey from birth, through the early years, into middle school, and, finally, high school and observe the development of increasingly anti‐social and violent behaviors, as well as explore classroom and school interventions that may have helped Jeffrey, and others like him, learn appropriate prosocial skills. Through Jeffrey, I examine the development of anti‐social and violent behaviors at four key developmental levels and address intervention strategies and programs that have demonstrated an increase in prosocial behaviors.     

Children's well-being under adversive situations in life: new results of studies on resiliency

The risks of modern life increasingly endanger the well-being of children. There is a rising number of scientific investigations demonstrating that a significant number of children growing up under highly adversive conditions of life resist developmental risks they are exposed to. What are the specific characteristics and competencies of these children supporting resiliency? What qualities of developmental environments strengthen children and their well-being? The challenges for modern education resulting from the findings of resilience research are discussed.     

Early detection of speech and language delays in the Netherlands. The case for integrating primary and secondary prevention

The early detection of speech and language delays has been an important feature of the child health services in the Netherlands for some 15 years. During this period ideas about both the purpose of screening and the methods themselves have changed considerably. There are four key outstanding issues: What is the best age to identify children? What screening measures are available? How can we detect speech and language delays in multilingual children? Which groups are best able to detect speech and language difficulties: parents, teachers, playgroup leaders, doctors, nurses, or speech and language therapists? These questions are influenced by social, demographic developments and an increase in the understanding of language delay. This article examines the Dutch solutions to these problems. The conclusion reached is that early language screening can only be part of the answer to early detection both because the available measures are not yet sufficiently accurate and because the growing group of multilingual children (e.g. in Amsterdam more than 50% of the children under the age of 4 years are multilingual) makes the application of specific measures at a population level unworkable. An alternative method is suggested, namely primary prevention by giving information and support to parents, playgroup leaders, doctors, etc.     

Therapeutic cloning and the constitution--a Canadian perspective

Recent developments in the field of therapeutic cloning have been welcomed by many in the medical community as important breakthroughs that may help provide a better understanding of a variety of human diseases. Nevertheless, research in this field appears to have struck a sensitive nerve in society. A large amount of social debate has been generated regarding the validity of therapeutic cloning, and there are many seeking legislation to have the practice restricted. It is unclear, however, whether such restrictions can be legally justified. Analysing cloning in such a social and legal context raises a number of questions. What scientific procedures are behind therapeutic cloning? What is the legal status of the cultured or unimplanted embryo? Can cloning be considered an aspect of reproductive liberty as protected by the constitution? What medical advances might therapeutic cloning further? What social benefits and harms might arise from its promotion or restriction? Such questions, and the broader debate surrounding human therapeutic cloning, are addressed in this paper in three parts. Part 1 presents an overview of the basic biological principles behind cloning and the science behind the therapeutic cloning of specific cells and tissues. Part 2 analyses ss. 7, 2, 15(1) and 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and how they may be implicated by legal incursions into the field of human cloning. Several Charter-based arguments, both for and against the practice, are presented. Finally, Part 3 assesses some recent scientific developments in cloning technology, and how they affect the debate over the constitutionality of human therapeutic cloning.     

Children in single-father families in demographic perspective

The purpose of this article is to examine single-parent families headed by fathers. "We use specially constructed child files from the 1960-1990 Public Use Microdata Samples data from the Census of Population to address two general questions: (a) To what extent has both the likelihood and the demographic characteristics of these families changed over time? (b) What are the consequences for children of living in different kinds of father-only families? We find that single-father families are comparatively rare, but increasing rapidly, especially since 1980. Increasingly, these families are formed by fathers who are young, never married, with low incomes, and fewer children. Analysis of the 1990 data reveals wide diversity in living arrangements among children in single-father families. Furthermore, the social capital of children's fathers, the availability of adults, and children's economic well-being vary markedly across these types of families."     

Resilience Among Children in Child Welfare,Corrections, Mental Health and Educational Settings: Recommendations for Service

What are at-risk and resilient children’s patterns of service utilization across Child Welfare, Corrections, Mental Health and Educational settings? And how do systems constrain the capacities of children to access the health resources they need to sustain and nurture resilience? This paper examines how children exercise personal agency in their navigation between service delivery systems and explores their negotiation for health resources from these systems. Drawing on the literature with high-risk youth in each of these four settings, and my own research, six principles are identified that underlie better service provision that builds resilience in at-risk children and youth.     

The effects of early mother-child interaction and maternal language patterns on later development

A summary of some research on the effects of early and extended contact of primiparous lower socio-economic black mothers with their infants during the first three hours and the following three days after birth is presented. Results of verbal interaction overtime include the relationship of mother's speech to their one and two year olds, the relationship of speech to the two year old with the speech and language comprehension of the children when five, as well as the acquisition of meanings through social interaction at two and five. The questions addressed are: are altered hospital procedures which resulted in significantly more attentiveness of mothers with newborns reflected in mother's use of language? Does maternal talk to children have a lasting effect on language development? What are the implications of study results for nurseries, home, early childhood curriculum, hospitals and school behaviors?     

The voices of parents: A qualitative study of a family preservation program

Most studies of family preservation services have used quantitative methods to examine program success. This paper reports on interviews with primary caretakers of children who have been abused and those with behavior problems between six months and three and one half years after family preservation services ended. Primary caretakers were asked three questions: What did you find to be the most helpful in your counseling? What did you find that did not help or that you disliked about counseling? After family preservation services, what happened with respect to the problems for which you were initially referred? Families found the support and nontraditional approaches to counseling helpful. Parents with children who had been abused particularly appreciated the teaching component of services. Brevity of the services and switching workers midstream caused the most concern for families. Finally, how families fared after intervention fell into a continuum from improved to deteriorated. The implications of these findings for clinical practice and program development are discussed.     

We have to live in the future

Governments and health authorities are expressing concern about increasing levels of obesity, diabetes and physical inactivity in children. In response to such concerns, it is common to adapt strategies for adults to children, and to conduct adult-focused research. This paper describes a research study commissioned by the South Australian government that sought to involve children aged younger than 12 years in defining their meanings and views about physical activity. The research is being used to plan strategies to increase children's participation in physical activity. The qualitative study combined focus groups, drawing and mapping techniques and photographic methods with 204 children aged 4-12 years in metropolitan and rural South Australia. This paper reports results from two of the research questions: What are children's theories of physical activity, play and sport? What do children want to tell adults? Results indicate that children were enthusiastic participants in the research and appreciated the opportunity to communicate their views. The terms 'physical activity' and 'exercise' had little meaning for children, who described them as terms adults use. 'Play' and 'sport' had powerful, contrasting meanings for children: with 'play' child-centred and 'sport' controlled by adults. Children had mixed views on the power of sporting heroes as role models, on computers and television as the enemy of physical activity and on links between physical activity and health status. The research demonstrates that children bring to the discourse about physical activity some ideas that challenge the views adults hold about children. It is recommended that strategies to increase children's participation in physical activity are designed using research with children.     

The ethical dilemmas of human life: the hospital history of children with serious cerebral palsy

This study deals with the ethical premises of medical treatment for children with serious cerebral palsy. Eight months of ethnographic research were carried out with patients at the Cerebral Palsy Center in the Sarah Hospital in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Observation of treatment for these children, who displayed limited clinical change, led to the following question, as suggested by discussions from medical deontology: What is the purpose of medical treatment for children with serious cerebral palsy? The results of our research point to social and humanist explanations going beyond the official medical scientific explanation, which limits treatment to corporal mechanicism.