Residential childcare has had an image which, at the very least, is not a positive one. It has been blamed for weakening family links and leading to poor educational and health outcomes for children (Biehal et al. 1995; Mendes and Moslehuddin 2004; Stein 2002). However, children and young people enter residential care institutions for a variety of reasons, and by examining the experiences of children and young people in Bangladesh, we can see that residential childcare has the potential to offer a positive option for many disadvantaged children and young people. UNICEF estimates that there are more than 49,000 children in residential care in Bangladesh (UNICEF 2008), but this figure fails to include thousands of children who live in madrasahs. There is neither a uniform childcare policy nor formal aftercare support provision in Bangladesh; instead, the government, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and madrasahs all have their own approaches and methods and there has been no research conducted on young people in and after care. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of residential care from the perspectives of a group of young people who had lived in residential childcare institutions in Bangladesh with a view to making improvements in residential childcare in the future. Qualitative methods were employed for data collection, using in-depth semi-structured interviews with 33 young people (aged between 12 and 26) who had left the care system and observation of the four institutions where they had lived: one run by an NGO, two run by the government and one madrasah run by the religious community. All of the fieldwork was conducted and transcribed in Bangla. The findings of this study show that young people had mixed feelings about their lives in care, preparation for leaving care, and aftercare support; moreover, their experiences were diverse. Overall, most said that they had benefited from being in care and the institution had had a largely positive impact on their lives. However, the experience for those who had been evicted was much less favourable; these young people suffered a range of hardships after leaving care. The findings also show that there was a connection between the in-care experience and the success of a young person in the outside world. The type of institution, its culture, systems and practices, the amount of care received and socio-cultural-religious influences all played a part. The research further indicated that although some young people developed a measure of resilience to face the problems of their everyday lives, they were not fully able to overcome them due to societal discrimination. Those who did best where those who had developed positive attachments with at least one trusted adult, who acted as a mentor and strengthened their commitment and self-motivation. The findings demonstrate that aftercare support varied from institution to institution, but overall, was informal in nature. The study concludes by setting out implications for building better residential childcare policy and practice in Bangladesh. It identifies a number of avenues for further research, suggesting that lessons for the minority world may be learned from this study, namely the notion that the whole community should take responsibility for its children; and attention should be paid to faith and religious beliefs in children’s upbringing. The study has also demonstrated that improving financial resources may not necessarily lead to better outcomes from children and young people. Instead, building relationships with adults, peer groups, parents, and community offer the best chance for good outcomes.

Young women are particularly vulnerable to HIV. Despite the successful HIV prevention efforts in Thailand in the past, young Thai women are at increased HIV risk and in urgent need of effective HIV interventions. Numerous studies have emphasised the importance of family in determining young people’s sexual behaviour. This thesis explores the roles of family in shaping young people’s sexual decisions and examines the potential of family-involved HIV interventions (FIHIs) for young Thai women. The thesis systematically examines studies across settings to determine whether involving family in HIV interventions could influence young people’s sexual behaviour. The findings suggest that FIHIs have a potential in shaping young people’s condom use practices. It identifies several key characteristics of effective FIHIs that can potentially be valuable for future HIV development in other contexts. Qualitative data collected from focus groups of young Thai women in Bangkok are analysed using the framework developed from the systematic review of qualitative studies. The findings highlight several challenges for future FIHIs for young Thai women. These are barriers to parent-child communication, a tension of coexistence of two divergent sexual norms - traditional/Thai versus modern/globalised, alternative sources of sexual health and HIV knowledge, the importance of family relationships, and the different circumstances and needs of young Thai women from different backgrounds. Future FIHIs for young Thai women should consider a comprehensive, structural and eco-developmental approach, simultaneously targeting both individuals and the wider environment. This thesis offers a new contribution to the HIV prevention and sexual health education literature and identifies the potential effectiveness of FIHIs tailored to young Thai women,constituting an important step in addressing the public health problems of HIV/AIDS infections in Thailand.

The UK government has pledged to end child poverty by 2020. It is not known how far the measure of child poverty used by the government corresponds to differences in children’s experiences. Qualitative research on poverty has not generally been informed by the insights of dynamic research, which investigates duration, timing and transitions, among other temporal topics. Qualitative and quantitative methods have not generally been combined in social policy research on poverty, which limits the explanatory power of both. The thesis presents an analysis of the correspondence or lack of correspondence between qualitative and quantitative research on child poverty as a temporal experience. Semi-structured life history interviews were conducted with 15-21 year olds in Britain with experience of child poverty in the period 1997-2001. These were analysed alongside secondary analysis of the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2005). The qualitative respondents lived in households which took part in the survey, so there is a direct link between the two methods. The assumptions, methods and findings of dynamic poverty research are in general found to be a simplified and decontexualised version, rather than a misrepresentation of, the qualitative findings. Time formed an important part of the experience of poverty for children. It was not possible to fully match together exits from poverty with perceived improvements in circumstances, and entries into poverty with perceived deteriorations in circumstances, though this was partly due to limited recall and lack of contemporaneous knowledge. Nor were these changes clearly placed in time by respondents, in terms of duration and timing. Although most respondents did not explicitly engage with the idea of poverty as a personal experience, poverty-like accounts of disadvantage and difference were found in the accounts of all respondents. Thus, there is evidence for and against the way child poverty is currently measured.

This thesis focuses on work-life balance policy; one of the key field of EU gender equality policies. The purpose of this study was to analyze most recently proposed policy on work-life balance ‘An initiative to support work-life balance for working parents and carers’ that aims to upgrade existing policy and legal frameworks. The main objective of the study is to identify problem representation(s) of gender equality in the stated policy. The study objectives comprises of problematizing identified problem representation(s) by drawing attention to silences and underplayed issues including its far-reaching implications on various groups. Analysis presented in this thesis is guided by theoretical framework of poststuructural feminism chiefly through discourse analysis methodology. In that endeavor, Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach has been applied for discourse analysis of the policy by employing 3 out 6 postulated questions. The study identifies several problem representations of gender equality in the stated EU reconciliation policy. Among others, childcare responsibility is identified as the most dominant problem representation. Likewise, the study points out silenced issues in the policy. This includes structural challenges affecting accessibility and advancement of women in labour market, the type of work, division of unpaid work besides caring responsibilities, inequalities engendered by intersectional factors, well-being of individuals, family, children, elderly care and commitment from employing organizations. The study finally notes ensuing lived effects on women due to added responsibilities. The study analysis concludes some still present pitfalls in the modernized work-life balance policy.

Den här intervjubaserade kvalitativa studien syftar till att utforska den professionskunskap som socialarbetare upplever att de har och använder i sitt dagliga arbete inom barnavårdsutredningar i Sverige. Ordet "professionskunskap" avgränsas i studien som den kunskap, de erfarenheter, de verktyg och upplevelsen av handlingsutrymme som socialarbetare använder i beslutsprocessen kring tvångsomhändertaganden. Det empiriska materialet består av åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer med socialarbetare som syftade till att samla in socialarbetarnas subjektiva syn på och åsikter kring sin professionskunskap. Det empiriska materialet tematiserades och analyserades genom Michael Lipskys teori "Street-level bureaucracy" och narrativ teori. Även om professionskunskap kan anses vara individbaserad visar studien på vissa gemensamma mönster. En av uppsatsens slutsatser är att den professionella kunskapen som socialarbetaren har uttrycks genom ett utbyte av erfarenhetsbaserad kunskap som är knuten till det utmanande ställning som socialarbetarna har som gräsrotsbyråkrater. Ett annat resultat är att för att behärska denna komplicerade position måste socialarbetarna hantera sina känslor i samband med sitt arbete genom att regelbundet utbyta kunskaper och erfarenheter i en narrativ miljö. Sammanfattningsvis indikerar uppsatsen att ett konstant utbyte av erfarenheter skapar den ultimata grunden för professionskunskap. / This interview based qualitative study aims to explore the professional knowledge that social workers experience that they have and use in their daily work in authority based child care in Sweden. The word “professional knowledge” is defined in the report as what “knowledge”, “experiences”, “instruments” and sense of “action space” the social workers include in the process of decision making regarding compulsory care. The empirical material was collected through eight semi-structured interviews with social workers with the purpose to gather their subjective views and opinions regarding their professional knowledge. Then, the empirical material was thematically categorized and analysed through Michael Lipsky's theory “Street-level bureaucracy” and narrative theory. The study finds that professional knowledge is a constant exchange of self-perceived experiences and that it is somewhat tied to the individual social work but also that there are some basic common observations to be made. One of the conclusions of the essay is that the professional knowledge that the social worker possesses is expressed through a development of experience which is tied to the challenging position the social workers have as street-level bureaucrats. Another finding is that in order to master this complicated position the social workers have to manage the emotions connected to their work through exchanging experience-based knowledge on a regular basis. In summary, the essay suggests that a constant exchange of experiences creates the ultimate basis for professional knowledge.

A relação entre a produção dos registros na educação infantil e o quanto eles se configuram como documentações pedagógicas proporcionando a prática reflexiva e o olhar para os bebês foi o que buscou compreender esta pesquisa. Partindo da concepção de documentação pedagógica defendida pelas pedagogias do norte da Itália e da Associação Criança em Portugal, entende-se que ela é valioso instrumento para professores, crianças e comunidade educativa que, ao partilhar os processos vivenciados do cotidiano das ações pedagógicas, contribui para a postura reflexiva dos professores e a visibilidade das crianças. A investigação de caráter qualitativo configurou-se como um estudo de caso envolvendo três professoras de um agrupamento de berçário de uma creche universitária da cidade de São Paulo. Os dados envolvem essencialmente os registros de caráter pedagógico dessas professoras e o acompanhamento de suas práticas com os bebês. Na busca da compreensão de como os bebês estão evidenciados na prática reflexiva do professor que é instrumentalizada por meio dos registros e da documentação pedagógica buscou-se responder essencialmente a três questões: 1) Como os registros periódicos evidenciam o olhar para os bebês?; 2) Como os registros podem se transformar em documentações pedagógicas com vistas ao planejamento e à avaliação das práticas?; 3) Como as documentações pedagógicas estão a serviço da prática reflexiva do professor? Os dados confirmam uma prática qualificada com bebês, elemento fundamental para que a prática reflexiva aconteça instrumentalizada pelos registros que, por sua vez, se revelam potentes documentações pedagógicas se alcançarem os processos de aprendizagem dos bebês, para além da consecução de produtos estéticos e visuais. A documentação pedagógica pode representar um novo caminho à educação infantil na medida em que possibilita a prática reflexiva do professor e evidencia as crianças no processo educativo, porém os resultados denunciam os escassos espaços e tempos legitimados nas instituições infantis para a reflexão em equipe, além de propor um olhar mais atento à extensa produção de registros, em especial as fotografias, que se constituem arquivos de memória pouco apresentados às crianças e pouco utilizados no âmbito educacional qualitativamente. / The relation between the production of the records in child education and how much they are configured as pedagogical documentation providing the reflexive practice and the look at the babies is what this research intended to understand. From the conception of pedagogical documentation defended by the pedagogies of the North of Italy and the Associação Criança in Portugal, it is understood that it is a valuable tool to teachers, children and the educational community, which, by sharing the everyday processes of pedagogical actions, contributes to the reflexive attitude of teachers and the visibility of the children. The investigation of qualitative type was configured as a case study involving three teachers from a nursery group in a university childcare center at the city of São Paulo. The data involves essentially the records of pedagogical type of these teachers and the monitoring of their practices with the babies. In seeking to understand how the babies are evidenced in the reflexive practice of the teacher that is instrumented through the records and the pedagogical documentation, the intention was to answer three questions essentially: 1) How do the periodic records evince the look at the babies?; 2) How can the records become pedagogical documentation with a view in the planning and evaluation of the practices?; 3) How is the pedagogical documentation at the service of the reflexive practice of the teacher? The data confirm a qualified practice with babies, a fundamental element for the reflexive practice to happen in an exploited way by the registers, which in turn become powerful pedagogical documentation if achieving the learning processes of the babies in addition to the achievement of esthetic and visual products. The pedagogical documentation can represent a new path to the childhood education to the extent that it enables the reflexive practice of the teacher and evidences the children in the educational process, but the results denounce the scarce spaces and legitimized time in the children institutions for the team reflection, besides of proposing a more attentive look to the extensive production of registers, specially photographs, which become memory files that are little presented to the children and little used in the educational field in terms of quality.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:31:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Angela da Cruz Santos.pdf: 1618988 bytes, checksum: 39656e3ea5cc1eb68688209d74cf8f42 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-04-10 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This dissertation has a wider objective to understand the social construction of Brazilian childhood, linking to one of the axis of colective work of Gender, race and age core of studies, which is centered in the enunciation of inequalities of age. The research focused on the treatment given to the theme of education and care of children to the age of 3, in speeches made and broadcasted on radio, by 12 canditates to the city hall of São Paulo on electoral propaganda in 2012. The theorical cut was constituted by the integration of two areas of knowledge: the first concerns the theory of ideology by John B.Thompson (1995), the second, to the Social Studies of Childhood. On methodological field, was used the hermeneutical of depth, proposed by John B.Thompson (1995) and the technique of analises of content developed by Bardin (2011) and Rosemberg (1981). This methodological proposal allowed that the social historical of producton, reproduction and circulation of symbolic ways was defined and to classify kinds of operation of ideology. On electoral propaganda, in a meaningful way, nursery was linked to the needs of infrastructural for the local development. However it was recitifed as a place of service to attend poverty destined to needy population. The concern with the social actor baby, occurred only in the mother testimony, reinforcing gender inequalities. The child was represented or presented in a generical, blurred way and nominated by few terms, that is, dissimulated. The dissimulation glooms assimetrical connections to age and may be interpreted as a strategy of operation of ideology. The family was also mentioned generally, preveting any kind of conclusion about its individual members. And education professionals were subsumed in the teacher category. The corpus analyzed supports and produces the inequalities of age, what allow us to identify as ideological production which does not treat the child as a person of rights, especially the nursery / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo mais amplo compreender a construção social da infância brasileira, vinculando-se a um dos eixos de trabalho coletivo do Núcleo de Estudos de Gênero Raça e Idade, que está centrado na enunciação de desigualdades de idade. A pesquisa focalizou o tratamento dado ao tema educação e cuidado de crianças pequenas de até 3 anos, os bebês, nos discursos proferidos e veiculados em rádio, pelos(as) 12 candidatos(as) a prefeito(a) do município de São Paulo, na propaganda eleitoral de 2012. O recorte teórico foi constituído pela integração de duas áreas do conhecimento: a primeira diz respeito à teoria de ideologia de John B. Thompson (1995), e a segunda, aos Estudos Sociais da Infância. No campo metodológico, foi usada a Hermenêutica de Profundidade, proposta por John B. Thompson (1995), e técnica de Análise de Conteúdo desenvolvida por Bardin (2011) e Rosemberg (1981). Essa proposta metodológica permitiu que fossem definidos acerca das formas simbólicas analisadas o contexto sócio-histórico de produção, reprodução e circulação, assim como sua análise formal, a classificação dos modos de operação da ideologia e suas respectivas estratégias de construção simbólica. Na propaganda eleitoral, de maneira significativa, a creche esteve associada às necessidades infraestruturais para o desenvolvimento local. Entretanto foi reificada como um local de atendimento destinado à população mais carente. A preocupação com o ator social bebê, ocorreu apenas no depoimento de mãe, reforçando desigualdades de gênero. A criança foi representada ou apresentada de forma genérica, esmaecida e nomeada por poucos termos, ou seja, dissimulada. A dissimulação obscurece relações assimétricas de idade e pode ser interpretada como uma estratégia de construção simbólica da ideologia. A família foi mencionada de forma também genérica, impossibilitando qualquer tipo de conclusão sobre seus membros individualmente. E os profissionais da educação foram subsumidos na categoria professor. O corpus analisado sustenta e produz desigualdades de idade, o que nos permite identificá-lo como produção ideológica, que não trata o bebê como sujeito de direitos, especialmente a creche

The thesis deals with comparison of family policy systems in the Czech Republic and Sweden in order to assess the overall profamily environment in these countries. Thesis analyzes the specific tools to support families and evaluates their effectiveness in terms of whether they are able to secure the young generation with some financial resources and create conditions for reconciliation of family and work. Swedish family policy is in this regard considered successful, as evidenced here a relatively high birth rate due to adverse demographic trends in other countries, such as the Czech Republic. Work in fact seeks the causes of the family policy success in Sweden and its shortcomings in the Czech Republic, points out the differences in systems of family policies due to different historical development, which reflects the volume of financial funds for families with children, and indicates as a key variable in the success of family policy area of reconciling work and family lives, where the Czech Republic currently lags far behind.

<p>Scandinavian countries are usually assumed to be less disposed than other countries to involve associations as welfare producers. They are assumed to be so disinclined due to their strong statutory welfare involvement, which “crowds-out” associational welfare production; their ethnic, cultural and religious homogeneity, which leads to a lack of minority interests in associational welfare production; and to their strong working-class organisations, which are supposed to prefer statutory welfare solutions. These assumptions are questioned here, because they cannot account for salient associational welfare production in the welfare areas of housing and child-care in two Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Norway.</p><p>In order to approach an explanation for the phenomena of associational welfare production in Sweden and Norway, some refinements of current theories are suggested. First, it is argued that welfare associations usually depend on statutory support in order to produce welfare on a salient level. Second, it is supposed that any form of particularistic interest in welfare production, not only ethnic, cultural or religious minority interests, can lead to associational welfare.</p><p>With respect to these assumptions, this thesis supposes that political parties are organisations that, on one hand, influence statutory decisions regarding associational welfare production, and, on the other hand, pursue particularistic interests in associational welfare production. It is hypothesised that political parties attempt to mould statutory decisions on associational welfare provision in accordance with the interests of associations with “congruent constituencies.”</p><p>The aim of this thesis is to examine whether political party preferences for certain welfare associations might help to explain variations in statutory support for associational welfare provision. Two questions are raised: First, do parties differ in their attempts to influence statutory subventions and regulations of associational welfare provision, resulting in more or less favourable conditions for associational welfare? Second, do parties systematically differ in their policies with regard to more or less “congruent” associations?</p><p>In order to investigate these questions, a comparison is made between political parties’ attempts to influence statutory regulation and subvention of Norwegian and Swedish associations active in the areas of day-care and housing. For this purpose, information is drawn from public documents and official statistics in order to identify more or less favourable policies and related partisan policies. In addition, supportive parties and favoured associations are compared with regard to their “constituencies.”</p><p>The findings partly support the hypothesis. Although political parties partly pursued consensually association-friendly policies, they often varied their support for welfare associations, whereby both right-wing and left-wing parties partly advocated and partly rejected association-friendly policies in a conflicting way, resulting in varied degrees of statutory support. Furthermore, supportive parties shared “congruent constituencies” with those associations supported by respective parties’ policies. These findings indicate that partisan policies indeed make a difference for associational welfare production, whereby parties of any political colour can support associational solutions. Furthermore, partisan policies vary according to the involved associations’ more or less “congruent constituencies,” which can pursue welfare production out of various particularistic interests, be they religious-cultural or socio-economic in nature.</p>

Scandinavian countries are usually assumed to be less disposed than other countries to involve associations as welfare producers. They are assumed to be so disinclined due to their strong statutory welfare involvement, which “crowds-out” associational welfare production; their ethnic, cultural and religious homogeneity, which leads to a lack of minority interests in associational welfare production; and to their strong working-class organisations, which are supposed to prefer statutory welfare solutions. These assumptions are questioned here, because they cannot account for salient associational welfare production in the welfare areas of housing and child-care in two Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Norway. In order to approach an explanation for the phenomena of associational welfare production in Sweden and Norway, some refinements of current theories are suggested. First, it is argued that welfare associations usually depend on statutory support in order to produce welfare on a salient level. Second, it is supposed that any form of particularistic interest in welfare production, not only ethnic, cultural or religious minority interests, can lead to associational welfare. With respect to these assumptions, this thesis supposes that political parties are organisations that, on one hand, influence statutory decisions regarding associational welfare production, and, on the other hand, pursue particularistic interests in associational welfare production. It is hypothesised that political parties attempt to mould statutory decisions on associational welfare provision in accordance with the interests of associations with “congruent constituencies.” The aim of this thesis is to examine whether political party preferences for certain welfare associations might help to explain variations in statutory support for associational welfare provision. Two questions are raised: First, do parties differ in their attempts to influence statutory subventions and regulations of associational welfare provision, resulting in more or less favourable conditions for associational welfare? Second, do parties systematically differ in their policies with regard to more or less “congruent” associations? In order to investigate these questions, a comparison is made between political parties’ attempts to influence statutory regulation and subvention of Norwegian and Swedish associations active in the areas of day-care and housing. For this purpose, information is drawn from public documents and official statistics in order to identify more or less favourable policies and related partisan policies. In addition, supportive parties and favoured associations are compared with regard to their “constituencies.” The findings partly support the hypothesis. Although political parties partly pursued consensually association-friendly policies, they often varied their support for welfare associations, whereby both right-wing and left-wing parties partly advocated and partly rejected association-friendly policies in a conflicting way, resulting in varied degrees of statutory support. Furthermore, supportive parties shared “congruent constituencies” with those associations supported by respective parties’ policies. These findings indicate that partisan policies indeed make a difference for associational welfare production, whereby parties of any political colour can support associational solutions. Furthermore, partisan policies vary according to the involved associations’ more or less “congruent constituencies,” which can pursue welfare production out of various particularistic interests, be they religious-cultural or socio-economic in nature.