The Educational Dilemma of Rural Left-behind Children and the Construction of Care System

Left-behind children in rural areas are a special group produced in the process of urbanization in my country. Left-behind children lack parental care in life and education. This article investigates whether left-behind children have an impact on the performance and cognitive abilities of left-behind children, and the magnitude of the influence. The results show that only left-behind children whose mothers go out and whose fathers are at home will have a significant decline in performance; the absence of parents will have a significant negative effect on the children’s cognitive ability. Based on the above education dilemmas for left-behind children, this article proposes to build a care system for left-behind children: on the one hand, the government, market and social forces should be integrated to ensure the effective connection of urban and rural education resources; on the other hand, through the national child welfare policy and local social welfare provision Organically combine to promote the development of left-behind children.

De/gendering violence and racialising blame in Swedish child welfare: what has childhood got to do with it?

This article is a critical interrogation of how gender and power figure in Swedish child welfare policy and the discourses on violence in intimate relationships vis-à-vis children exposed to violence. Drawing on feminist violence research, critical childhood studies, and intersectional perspectives, we identify a differentiation with racialised undertones in the understanding of violence as a social problem when related to children’s exposure. While predominately gender-neutral discourses of social heredity and epidemiology run through the material for the seemingly ‘universal’ child, forms of violence ascribed to the presumed cultural Others link to gender, structural power and sexuality. The article concludes that gendered articulations of violence are restricted yet pivotal if children’s exposure is to be linked to issues of inequality and power. However, when gendering interlinks with racialisation, problematic differentiations of violence, childhoods and children are produced.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Gendered articulations of violence are pivotal if children’s exposure to violence is also to be linked to social justice issues.</li><br /><li>Racialisation is indicated when gender, sexuality and power are linked to the culturally Other but not the ‘general’ child.</li></ul>

Normalcy for children in foster care in the time of coronavirus

Purpose This paper aims to describe how a sense of normalcy for young people in foster care can be critical to their well-being. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on policy and practice efforts in the USA to promote normalcy for youth in care. The authors review policy that promotes normalcy and report on one organization's efforts to support these goals. Findings COVID-19 has offered profound challenges to the goal of normalcy. Rise Above has adapted to meet the challenges. Originality/value The authors argue that COVID may also offer opportunities to build toward a more robust paradigm of normalcy within child welfare policy and practice.

Experiences of Children in Kinship Care (CKC) in Ghana

The provision of care by extended family members and close friends is a common cultural practice in Ghanaian traditional communities. With a recent interest by stakeholders in Ghana to consider kinship care as an alternative care option in child welfare policy, this study explores current kinship care challenges to help identify and address potential setbacks for policy and practice recommendations. In-depth interviews were conducted with 22 young adults with experience as Children in Kinship Care (CKC). The participants with CKC experience reported inadequate basic needs, educational neglect, and lack of adequate emotional attachment as the major difficulties experienced by children in kinship care. The study revealed that challenges faced by CKC in Ghana mostly come from the limited financial and emotional resources of caregivers. For policy recommendations, common cultural practices like CKC should be adequately examined with clear guidelines on how to promote the welfare of children and young people.

Austerity Beyond Crisis: Economists and the Institution of Austere Social Spending for At-Risk Children in Israel

Austerity is frequently associated with crisis-enabled spending cuts. What happens when the crisis is over? This article’s original contribution lies in its in-depth exploration of one mechanism that help explain austerity’s endurance post-crisis, when state elites face increased popular resistance and pressure to reinstate social spending. This mechanism calls attention to the role of economists in Central Budgeting Offices as agents of technocratization and de-politicization within social policy domains. These economists may institute an austere spending mode by changing social spending’s norms and instruments. To demonstrate economists’ role in mediating macroeconomic fiscal goals and social policy design over time, the article examines the development of child welfare policy in Israel before, during and in the aftermath of economic crisis. In this case, austerity attained hegemony when economists were able to delegitimize and shelve an ‘irresponsible’ social spending proposal – and in response to post-crisis demands for compensation – introduce an austere policy instrument to cap social spending during a period of social policy expansion. This analysis suggests that scholars regard relations between austerity and social spending as dialectical.

Domestic adoption in Romania: Behavioral adjustment in a sample of adolescents

A considerable body of research has analyzed the development of children internationally adopted from Romania. However, domestic adoption remains largely uninvestigated. Our study examined the behavioral adjustment of 52 Romanian adolescents domestically adopted. Adoptive mothers and their children completed Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) – School Age forms. While overall our sample did not differ from the normative population, the rate of subjects obtaining clinical scores was higher. Behavioral problems did not appear to be linked to the considered pre-adoption risk factors. The overall positive adjustment of this rare sample of domestic adoptees encourages a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved in the success of this child welfare policy.