This volume is comprised of empirical research and theoretical papers about children's well being, children and youth peer cultures, and the rights of children and youth. These empirical studies include children's voices and experiences from four continents and a range of methodological and theoretical orientations.
This volume is comprised of empirical research and theoretical papers about children's well being, children and youth peer cultures, and the rights of children and youth. These empirical studies include children's voices and experiences from four continents and a range of methodological and theoretical orientations.
Why are men, like other primate males, usually the aggressors and risk takers? Why do women typically have fewer sexual partners? In Why Sex Matters, Bobbi Low ranges from ancient Rome to modern America, from the Amazon to the Arctic, and from single-celled organisms to international politics, to show that these and many other questions about human behavior largely come down to evolution and sex. More precisely, as she shows in this uniquely comprehensive and accessible survey of behavioral and evolutionary ecology, they come down to the basic principle that all organisms evolved to maximize their reproductive success and seek resources to do so, but that sometimes cooperation and collaboration are the most effective ways to succeed. This newly revised edition has been thoroughly updated to include the latest research and reflect exciting changes in the field, including how our evolutionary past continues to affect our ecological present.
This handbook examines the meanings, implications, and transformative potential of a child-rights approach for school psychology. It focuses on the school community, in which psychology is committed to promoting well-being, learning, and development of all children. The handbook begins with an overview of the 1989 United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and explores main themes such as, survival, protection, development, participation, and nondiscrimination. Chapters provide guidance in promoting and protecting child rights when dealing with critical issues relevant to the school community, including well-being, freedom from violence, and access to high quality education. In addition, chapters analyze and offer recommendations for child rights applications within the roles and responsibilities of school psychologists. The handbook concludes with future directions for achieving a child-rights approach for school psychology. Topics featured in this handbook include: The current status of child rights in the international community. Accountability for child rights by school psychology. Collaborative home, school, and community practices aimed at promoting family support. Protecting child rights within the realm of competitive sports. CRC and school-based intervention programming. Promoting child rights through school leadership. Applying child rights-respecting research to the study of psychological well-being. The International Handbook on Child Rights and School Psychology is a must-have resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners, clinicians, and graduate students in child and school psychology, educational policy and politics, social work, public health, and other school-based or child-serving mental health disciplines.
This volume provides a series of critical analyses of some of the contemporary debates in relation to the human rights of children, resituating them within visions which informed the text of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. The studies embrace examination of some of today's widespread interpretations of the CRC, analysis of what is implied by a human rights-based approach in research and advocacy and consideration of advances and barriers to research and to several aspects of CRC implementation. With contributions by leading experts in the field, the book examines the CRC as an international instrument, its inherent dilemmas and some of the debates generated by the challenges of implementation. It embraces examinations of different levels of governance from the international to the state party, regional and local levels, including institutional developments and changes in law, policy and practice. The book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and policy-makers working in the area of children's rights and welfare.
Globally, over 25 million people are displaced within their own countries by conflicts or human rights violations. In Kenya, thousands of families are increasingly being displaced by the effect of inter-ethnic violence, environmental disasters and forced government eviction from forest reserves. The majority of these displaced communities end up squatting in informal settlements in the nearby urban centres or at the fringes of the forest zone where they are exposed to extreme poverty and deprivation. Since almost all the displaced families originate from the rural areas, the act of displacement shatters the family-based rural economy when they seek refuge in towns. Internally displaced children face many risks due to the violence and uncertainty surrounding both their familyis flight and their life in the place of refuge. This report discusses the findings of the Child Exclusion Survey conducted among the internally displaced in Rift Valley and Nyanza provinces between January 2007 and August 2007. The main objective of the study was to examine the extent of child exclusion among IDPs in Kenya in relation to attaining the ideals of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Millennium Development Goals."
Child poverty is a central and present part of global life, with hundreds of millions of children around the world enduring tremendous suffering and deprivation of their most basic needs. Despite its long history, research on poverty and development has only relatively recently examined the issue of child poverty as a distinct topic of concern. This book brings together theoretical, methodological and policy-relevant contributions by leading researchers on international child poverty. With a preface from Sir Richard Jolly, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, it examines how child poverty and well-being are now conceptualized, defined and measured, and presents regional and national level portraits of child poverty around the world, in rich, middle income and poor countries. The book's ultimate objective is to promote and influence policy, action and the research agenda to address one of the world's great ongoing tragedies: child poverty, marginalization and inequality.
Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
Psychology, focusing on processes that occur inside the individual and Sociology, focusing on social collectives and social institutions, come together in Social Psychology to explore the interface between the two fields. The core concerns of social psychology include the impact of one individual on another; the impact of a group on its individual members; the impact of individuals on the groups in which they participate; the impact of one group on another. This book is a successor to Social Psychology: Social Perspectives and Sociological Perspectives in Social Psychology. The current text expands on previous handbooks in social psychology by including recent developments in theory and research and comprehensive coverage of significant theoretical perspectives.
Children on the Boundaries of Time and Space in sub-Saharan Africa has come at the time when children’s well-being is on the agendas of governments, policy makers, schools and community organisations. It provides an in-depth analysis of the relation between official children’s rights and well-being policies and their implementation refracted through African as well as Western lenses. The content of the book is a departure from conventional stereotype approach to children’s well-being analysis in sub-Saharan Africa. In addressing issues around children’s rights and well-being, the book offers a reflection on the conflict between adult society and government welfare policies. The book also draws on existing knowledge about national and international efforts to change adult attitudes towards children. Analysis in the book demonstrates that there are both structural and operational problems in children’s rights and policies governing their well-being in sub-Saharan Africa. This sort of work has been neglected since the last few decades and has created a gulf between government policy rhetoric and practice. Children on the Boundaries of Time and Space in sub-Saharan Africa bridges that gap and reasserts the need for effective policy, material changes in resources and cultural change valuable to enhance children’s ability to stay healthy, grow and learn to become responsible citizens.
