Drawing and writing on the screen

This chapter focuses on the physicality of the iPad as an object, and how that physicality affects the interactions children have with the device generally, and the apps specifically. Thinking about the physicality of the iPad is important because the materials, size, weight and appearance make the iPad quite unlike most other toys and equipment in the kindergarten space. Most strikingly, this physicality does not ‘represent’ the virtual vast dimensions of the iPad brought about through the diverse functions and contents of the apps contained in it. While the iPad is small enough and functional enough to be easily handled and operated even by young children, it is capable of performing highly complex, highly technological tasks that take it beyond its diminutive dimensions. This virtual-actual contrast is interesting to consider in relation to the other resources more commonly found in a kindergarten space. While objects such as toys, bricks, building materials often do prompt the child to imagine and invent beyond the physical boundaries of the toy, they not have the same types of virtual-actual contrasts of a digital device such as the iPad. How then, might children be drawn to the iPad because of its physical, technological and virtual difference? Particularly, how might this virtual-actual difference impact on the physical skills associated with writing and drawing: skills usually learnt through the use of a pencil and paper? While the research project did not set out to compare how digital and paper-based resources affect writing and drawing skills there was great interest to see how young children negotiated drawing and writing on the shiny glass surface of the iPad.

Exploring parents' beliefs about their young child's physical activity and screen time behaviours

Drawing on the belief-based framework of the theory of planned behaviour, 20 adults living in Queensland, Australia participated in semi-structured interviews to elicit salient beliefs regarding their young child’s physical activity (PA) and screen time behaviours. Data were analysed separately for PA and screen time with a range of beliefs emerging that guided parents’ decisions for these important health behaviours. Underlying advantages (e.g., improve family interactions, improve child behaviour), disadvantages (e.g., mess and noise factor, increase in parental distress), barriers (e.g., lack of time, parental fatigue), and facilitators (e.g., access to parks, social support) to engaging their child in adequate PA and limited screen time emerged. Normative pressures were also identified as affecting parents’ decisions for their child in these contexts. Parents experience unique difficulties in engaging their child in adequate PA and limited screen time that interventions can draw on when designing and implementing programs aimed at modifying these important child health behaviours.

A multilevel algorithm for force-directed graph-drawing

We describe a heuristic method for drawing graphs which uses a multilevel framework combined with a force-directed placement algorithm. The multilevel technique matches and coalesces pairs of adjacent vertices to define a new graph and is repeated recursively to create a hierarchy of increasingly coarse graphs, G0, G1, …, GL. The coarsest graph, GL, is then given an initial layout and the layout is refined and extended to all the graphs starting with the coarsest and ending with the original. At each successive change of level, l, the initial layout for Gl is taken from its coarser and smaller child graph, Gl+1, and refined using force-directed placement. In this way the multilevel framework both accelerates and appears to give a more global quality to the drawing. The algorithm can compute both 2 & 3 dimensional layouts and we demonstrate it on examples ranging in size from 10 to 225,000 vertices. It is also very fast and can compute a 2D layout of a sparse graph in around 12 seconds for a 10,000 vertex graph to around 5-7 minutes for the largest graphs. This is an order of magnitude faster than recent implementations of force-directed placement algorithms.

Mandated prevention in child welfare: Considerations from a framework shaping ethical inquiry

Summary: This article outlines a framework for approaching ethical dilemmas arising from the development, evaluation and implementation of child welfare policies. As such, it is relevant to policy-makers, social researchers and social workers. The central tenets of the framework are developed by drawing on ideas from moral philosophy and critical social theory. These ideas are presented as axioms, theorems and corollaries, a format which has been employed in the social sciences to offer a rational justification for a set of claims. • Findings: This process of reasoning leads to four principle axioms that are seen to shape the ethical scrutiny of social policy: 1) problematizing knowledge; 2) utilizing structured forms of inquiry to enhance understanding; 3) engendering enabling communication with those affected by the ethical concern; and 4) enhancing self-awareness. • Applications: The four axioms are then applied, by way of example, to the current and contentious, 'third way' policy of mandated prevention in child welfare, where the aim is to obviate deleterious outcomes in later life. It is argued that the framework can be applied beyond this specific concern to other pressing, ethical challenges in child welfare.

An Inconvenient Truth: Barriers to Truth Recovery in the Aftermath of Institutional Child Abuse in Ireland

Contemporary settled democracies, including the United States, England and Wales and Ireland, have witnessed a string of high profile cases of institutional child abuse in both church and state settings. Set against the broader literature on transitional justice, this analysis argues that there are significant barriers to truth recovery within the particular context of historical institutional abuse by the clergy in the Republic of Ireland. In the main, I argue that the frameworks of the inquiries and commissions into historical institutional child abuse are not conducive to truth recovery or the search for justice in dealing with the legacy of an abusive past. It is the church-state relationship which makes the Irish situation noteworthy and unique. The Catholic Church and child care institutions are especially self-protective, secretive and closed by nature and strongly discourage the drawing of attention to any deficiencies in organisational procedures. The nature of the public inquiry process also means that there is often a rather linear focus on accountability and apportioning blame. Collectively, such difficulties inhibit fuller systemic investigation of the veracity of what actually happened and, in turn, meaningful modification of child care policies. The article concludes by offering some thoughts on implications for transitional justice discourses more broadly as well as the residual issues for Ireland and other settled democracies in terms of moving on from the legacy of institutional child abuse.

Dealing with a problem that doesn't exist?:Professional responses to female perpetrated child sexual abuse

Female involvement in sexual offences against children is more common than is generally thought and has serious implications for the long-term emotional and psychological well-being of victims. Drawing on findings from: a comprehensive review of the literature; an overview of relevant literature and legislation; and an electronic survey of Multi-Agency Public Protection Panels; this paper explores the criminal justice response to female sex offending in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The literature highlights that the way in which professionals identify and respond to child sexual abuse has been shown to be influenced by the gender of the perpetrator. Equally, whilst similar to male sex offending in terms of the intrusiveness and seriousness of the abuse, some aspects of female sex offending can cause particular problems for professionals. The fact that some sexual abuse can be disguised as childcare can make it difficult for professionals to identify this type of abuse whilst high rates of co-offending bring additional difficulties in determining the degree of female involvement and assigning responsibility. The survey findings indicate that risk assessment tools for female sex offenders is a key area requiring development and point towards small inconsistencies in the current practice of risk assessing females in the community. The survey also identifies the lack of treatment programmes for this group of offenders as well as drawing attention to the need for national policies and procedures, staff training and the identification of areas of good practice. Increased discussion and debate about how best to work with this group of sex offenders is also required. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Deconstructing Victim and offender Identities in Discourses on Child Sexual Abuse: Hierarchies, Blame and the Good/Evil Dialectic

Contemporary social and political constructions of victimhood and offending behaviour lie at the heart of regulatory policies on child sexual abuse. Legislation is named after specific child victims of high profile cases, and a burgeoning range of pre-emptive measures are enacted to protect an amorphous class of ‘all potential victims’ from the risk sex offenders are seen as posing. Such policies are also heavily premised on the omnipresent predatory stranger. These constructed identities, however, are at odds with the actual identities of victims and offenders of such crimes. Drawing on a range of literatures, the core task of this article is to confront some of the complexities and tensions surrounding constructions of the victim/offender dyad within the specific context of sexual offending against children. In particular, the article argues that discourses on ‘blame’ – and the polarised notions of ‘innocence’ and ‘guilt’ – inform respective hierarchies of victimhood and offending concerning ‘legitimate’ victim and offender status. Based on these insights, the article argues for the need to move beyond such monochromatic understandings of victims and offenders of sexual crime and to reframe the politics of risk accordingly.

Incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Law: A Comparative Review

Incorporation in law is recognised as key to the implementation of the UNCRC. This article considers the ways in which a variety of countries have chosen to incorporate the CRC, drawing on a study conducted by the authors for UNICEF-UK. It categorises the different approaches adopted into examples of direct incorporation (where the CRC forms part of domestic law) and indirect incorporation (where there are legal obligations which encourage its incorporation); and full incorporation (where the CRC has been wholly incorporated in law) and partial incorporation (where elements of the CRC have been incorporated). Drawing on evidence and interviews conducted during field visits in six of the countries studied, it concludes that children’s rights are better protected – at least in law if not also in practice – in countries that have given legal status to the CRC in a systematic way and have followed this up by establishing the necessary systems to support, monitor and enforce the implementation of CRC rights.

Child care by choice or by default? : examining the experiences of unregulated home-based child care for women in paid work and training

This thesis aims to uncover the dynamics, causes and outcomes of women's reliance on unregulated home-based child care in Ontario, Canada, and the implications ofthis form of care for women's equality. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study, I examine the diverse experience of 14 women using home-based child care and engaged in both paid work/training and care work for children under the age of six, and draw comparisons with users of other forms of child care. I argue that home-based child care involves high levels of instability for continuity of care and is chosen largely as a default position based on economic considerations. It represents a compromise between the demands of social reproduction and paid work/training that entangles mothers in relations of exploitation with care providers. Doing so leaves both mothers and care providers socially and economically vulnerable and relying on social networks to fill in the gaps.

Child labour in African Artisanal Mining Communities: experiences from Northern Ghana

The issue of child labour in the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) economy is attracting significant attention worldwide. This article critically examines this ‘problem’ in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, where a lack of formal sector employment opportunities and/or the need to provide financial support to their impoverished families has led tens of thousands of children to take up work in this industry. The article begins by engaging with the main debates on child labour in an attempt to explain why young boys and girls elect to pursue arduous work in ASM camps across the region. The remainder of the article uses the Ghana experience to further articulate the challenges associated with eradicating child labour at ASM camps, drawing upon recent fieldwork undertaken in Talensi-Nabdam District, Upper East Region. Overall, the issue of child labour in African ASM communities has been diagnosed far too superficially, and until donor agencies and host governments fully come to grips with the underlying causes of the poverty responsible for its existence, it will continue to burgeon.

Safeguarding inheritance and enhancing the resilience of orphaned young people living in child- and youth-headed households in Tanzania and Uganda

This paper explores the resilience of orphaned young people in safeguarding the physical assets (land and property) that they inherited from their parents and in sustaining their households without a co-resident adult relative. Drawing on the concept of resilience and the sustainable livelihoods framework, this paper analyses the findings of an exploratory study conducted with 15 orphaned young people heading households,18 of their siblings and 39 NGO workers and community members in Tanzania and Uganda. The research suggests that inherited land and property represent key determining factors in the formation and viability of child- and youth-headed households in both rural and urban areas. Despite experiences of stigma and marginalisation in the community, social networks were crucial in enabling young people to protect themselves and their property, in providing access to material and emotional resources and in enhancing their skills and capabilities to develop sustainable livelihoods. Support for child- and youth-headed households needs to recognise young people's agency and adopt a holistic approach to their lives that analyses the physical assets, material resources, human and social capital available to the household, as well as individual young people's wellbeing, outlook and aspirations. Alongside cash transfers and material support, youth-led collective mobilisation that is sustained over time may also help to build resilience and foster more supportive social environments that challenge property grabbing and the stigmatisation of child- and youth-headed households.

The Sick Child in Early Modern England, 1580-1720

The Sick Child in Early Modern England is a powerful exploration of the treatment, perception, and experience of illness in childhood, from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries. At this time, the sickness or death of a child was a common occurrence - over a quarter of young people died before the age of fifteen - and yet this subject has received little scholarly attention. Hannah Newton takes three perspectives: first, she investigates medical understandings and treatments of children. She argues that a concept of 'children's physic' existed amongst doctors and laypeople: the young were thought to be physiologically distinct, and in need of special medicines. Secondly, she examines the family's' experience, demonstrating that parents devoted considerable time and effort to the care of their sick offspring, and experienced feelings of devastating grief upon their illnesses and deaths. Thirdly, she takes the strikingly original viewpoint of sick children themselves, offering rare and intimate insights into the emotional, spiritual, physical, and social dimensions of sickness, pain, and death. Newton asserts that children's experiences were characterised by profound ambivalence: whilst young patients were often tormented by feelings of guilt, fears of hell, and physical pain, sickness could also be emotionally and spiritually uplifting, and invited much attention and love from parents. Drawing on a wide array of printed and archival sources, The Sick Child is of vital interest to scholars working in the interconnected fields of the history of medicine, childhood, parenthood, bodies, emotion, pain, death, religion, and gender.

Managing professionals : the emerging leadership role of Victorian Maternal and Child Health coordinators

Drawing on research into cultural and organizational change in the Victorian Maternal and Child Health Service during the 1990s, this paper examines implications for the nursing leadership provided by service coordinators. The project included a quantitative survey of nurses and semistructured interviews with managers and coordinators. Under a strongly neoliberal state government in Victoria, Australia, services were fundamentally restructured through tendering processes. A competitive, productivist culture was introduced that challenged the professional ethos of nurses and a primary health orientation to the care of mothers and infants. This paper focuses on the pressures that the entrepreneurial environment presented to maternal and child health nurses' identity and collegial relations and to the coordination role. It argues that coordinators emerged as a Significant nursing management group at the interface of administrative change and the management of professional practice. Although many nurses skilfully negotiated tensions with peers and management, their leadership role needs further clarification and support.

Domestic violence and child protection : partnerships and collaboration

The interface between the child protection and domestic violence sectors is often problematic, in that the two sectors operate relatively independently, with little integration. However, it is widely recognised that these sectors need to work more closely to enhance both women's and children's safety. This paper explores the processes needed for the child protection and domestic violence sectors to develop collaborative partnerships that lead to the provision of higher-quality responses to both women and children. Drawing on collaboration theory, a number of barriers to the development of successful partnerships are described, and applied to initiatives that seek to develop integrated approaches between child protection and domestic violence services. It is concluded that there is much scope for the two sectors to work closely together, but that the development of integrated responses involving both child protection and domestic violence services will take a significant commitment, level of determination, and stamina from both parties.