• Refine Query
  • Source
  • Publication year
  • to
  • Language
  • 10
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • Tagged with
  • 38
  • 7
  • 5
  • 5
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
21

What is fair is not the same everywhere

Hanisch, Susan, Eirdosh, Dustin, Schäfer, Marie, Haun, Daniel 11 December 2023 (has links)
When people must share things, what does it mean to share fairly? Do all people around the world have the same idea of what is fair or unfair? Are humans born with a feeling about what is fair and unfair, or is it something we learn as we grow up? Scientists study how people from different cultures choose to share things in various situations, and whether people think different ways of sharing are fair or unfair. The article describes an experiment in which scientists studied whether children from different cultures have different ideas about what is fair. These studies are important for understanding how humans are similar and different from each other and from other animals, and they also help us understand how we can work to create a world that is considered fair by everyone.
22

The place of young people in the spaces of collective identity : case studies from the Millennium Green Scheme

Goodenough, Alice Siobhan January 2007 (has links)
Change associated with late modernity is argued to have diminished collective identification, particularly in relation to locality, as an approach to and resource for, navigating life paths. Young peoples‟ creation of a life course has been understood as particularly responsive, or alternatively vulnerable, to such influences. Contrasting research asserts, however, that collective identification with and through particular appreciations and understandings of locality continue to provide ontological security within the circumstances of modern change. Local collective identification can be carried out via its participants‟ shared investment in symbolic interpretations of culture and space. This identification is asserted through claims to affinity with, or competency in, these socio-spatial systems and practices and the building of symbolic boundaries that contrast identities not possessing such claims. This perspective renews the significance of academic explorations of young peoples‟ choice of collective identification with locality as a tactic in managing their biography and its negotiation as an influential social, cultural and spatial context in their lives. This thesis explores the ways in which young people negotiate the spaces and resources of local collective identification, in the context of late modernity. It employs a qualitative analysis of a community participation project – the Millennium Green Scheme - to access such issues. The participation of adult active citizens and inclusion/exclusion of young people within this scheme are understood to reflect some of the dimensions of collective identification with locality, at three case study sites. At each case study - two rural and one urban - the research takes an unusual intergenerational approach, exploring both adults‟ and young peoples‟ understandings of locality, collective identification and young peoples‟ relationship to these. The findings suggest that young peoples‟ access to the spaces and resources of collective identification, with and through locality, are negotiated within adult defined social and cultural contexts. Further, adults mobilise cultural representations of young people that regulate this access, in relation to the symbolic resources and boundaries of local collective identification. This regulation is influenced by adult reactions to wider pressures upon collective identification associated with modernity. The research finds that although modernity may influence young peoples‟ recourse to local collective identification, it is also central in shaping adults‟ inclusion/exclusion of young people from accessing this means of navigating the life course. Adults‟ geographies of locality are central symbolic material to their collective identification with locality. They are also found to dictate the logic of adult inclusions of young people within the spaces and resources of local collectivity. Adults at the case studies associated many young people within cultural affiliations and competencies they understood to belong to the late modern context, resulting in representations of „dislocated‟ childhood. At rural case studies these were perceived as inappropriate to local socio-spatial norms and rendered young people outside the symbolic boundaries of collective identification and endeavour. In the urban research, young people were perceived to require reinstatement into local collective identification through education about and encouragement into, its spaces and resources. Both understandings reflected broader adult reactions to late modern change. Young people took up the tactic of collective identification with locality or rejected it, in context dependent strategies. However their perceptions of opportunities to share identification with locality were significantly influenced by adult attempts to shape their inclusion/exclusion from spaces of collective identification. In addition, young people interpreted these inclusions/exclusions as broad comment upon their local socio-cultural and spatial status. This research finds that locality and local collective social contexts continue to be of significance in young peoples‟ lives. It adds texture to understandings of the way in which the influence of modernity upon young peoples‟ biographical choices is experienced and negotiated from within local social and cultural relations and spaces.
23

Jeunes de quartiers populaires et politiques de jeunesse : Adhésion et résistance des jeunes / Youngsters of popular suburbs and youth policy : willingness and resistance of the young

Hbila, Chafik 07 December 2012 (has links)
La finalité de la thèse est de tenter de répondre à la question de savoir comment les spécificités des parcours de vie des jeunes des quartiers populaires, si elles existent, sont prises en compte dans les politiques publiques, et plus particulièrement dans les politiques de jeunesse à l'échelle locale, notamment celles impulsées par les municipalités. A partir de quels référentiels et de quelles représentations de la jeunesse se construisent ces politiques ? Et, in fine, qu'est-ce qui fait que les jeunes tantôt vont adhérer et tantôt vont résister à la « formalisation » des politiques de jeunesse.Pour ce faire, après avoir proposé une sociologie de la jeunesse contemporaine, mis en évidence les spécificités des parcours de vie des jeunes des quartiers populaires et défini les contours et les finalités des politiques de jeunesse, la thèse tente d'analyser la prise en compte des jeunes au travers de différents axes stratégiques constitutifs de l'action, notamment la citoyenneté et la participation, l'insertion sociale et professionnelle, et l'accès aux espaces publics.Réalisée en convention industrielle de formation par la recherche (CIFRE) au sein de RésO Villes, centre de ressources politique de la ville des régions Bretagne et Pays de la Loire, la thèse s'est essentiellement construite à partir des matériaux issus d'une recherche-action associant les Villes d'Angers, de Brest, Lorient, Nantes, Quimper, Rennes et Saint-Nazaire (67 entretiens réalisés avec des professionnels de jeunesse et des élus, 55 avec des jeunes des quartiers populaires et un cycle de plusieurs journées de réflexion avec ces mêmes acteurs) / The aim of the thesis is to try to answer the question of knowing how specificities of the steps of life of the young of popular suburbs. if any, are taken in account in the public policies, and particularly in youth policies at local level, especially by the local councils. From which references and which representations of youth are these policies elaborated ? And, at last, whatmakes that sometimes the young accept this policy or resist the « formalisation » of youth policies.For that purpose, after having suggested a sociology of contemporary youth, and emphasized on the specificities of the steps of life in popular districts and precised all the limits and the aims of youth policies, the thesis attempts to analyse the way the young are taken in account through different strategic paths, leading to action, particularly citizenship and participation, social and professional insertion, and access to public space.This thesis, written after convention of professional research with the Brittany Region and the Pays de Loire Region, was elaborated after matters provided from a research in different cities : Angers, Brest, Lorient, Nantes, Quimper, Rennes and Saint-Nazaire (67 interviews involving youth professionals and city councillors, 55 with young from popular suburbs and asession of many days of reflexion with these same actors)
24

Finding one's place in the world : an exploration of the ways in which young people inhabit the ideological complexities of a globalised, postmodern world

Peace, Mark Benjamin January 2013 (has links)
This study explores the ways in which young people orient themselves as moral/political beings to contemporary contexts. It sets out to understand the nature of these contexts, with a particular focus on the ideological challenges produced by globalisation and postmodernity. In equal measure, it sets out to examine the ways in which young people inhabit this context, drawing on a blend of Activity and Narrative Theory to expose the strategies that they employ to achieve such engagements. As such, it offers contributions which connect together existing literatures from divergent fields in a coherent way, and which place these amongst data reflecting lived experience. The research fundamentally conceptualises its subject matter as concerned with a process of learning (about oneself, and the world in which one inhabits). As such, though it is not concerned directly with the institution of schooling, or the practice of teaching, it contributes broadly to the field of education.The methodology of the research places equal emphasis on literature and empirical work, generating its key contributions by fostering interplay between the two. It operates by bringing together disparate aspects of theory, and holding these against a lived context, as represented by the perspectives of participants. Empirical data was generated this data through two waves of interview. In the first, sixteen teenage participants were asked in pairs to respond to a series of stimulus images. Follow-up interviews with three sets of these pairs sought responses to initial analysis and commentary on its data. Analysis combined content and critical discourse analysis, examining both what participants’ said of their experience in the world, whilst also interrogating the how those responses were constructed.Through this exploration, I demonstrate that the partiality, ambiguity and contradiction borne of processes of globalisation and postmodernity contort moral/political being. These trouble our moral impulses, perceptions and usual mechanisms of response. As a result, usual theoretical frameworks that attempt to describe to moral being are often unsatisfactory. In particular, these tensions problematise the sense of moral functioning as a rational response to known experience, and the modernist portrayal of development as the gradual development of the cognitive mechanisms necessary to do this. Rather, I represent moral/political existence (what I call ‘ideological being’) as a more organic and reflexive process, by which individuals must import meaning and subjectivities, in order to ‘anchor’ partial experience in something amenable to evaluation. In doing so, I draw heavily on existing work on socially mediated being (particularly that of Wertsch and Tappan), and demonstrate the useful and cogent ways in which it might be integrated with a broader ‘narrative’ turn in social theory.
25

Unbegleitet. Minderjährig. Flüchtling.: Zur Konstruktion unbegleiteter minderjähriger Flüchtlinge in der Online-Berichterstattung

Harloff, Raimund 06 November 2020 (has links)
Die Arbeit untersucht Darstellungen von Kindern- und Jugendlichen die ohne Begleitung eines für sie verantwortlichen Erwachsenen nach Deutschland geflüchtet sind anhand von Artikeln der Online-Berichterstattung die im Zeitraum zwischen 2009 und 2017 erschienen sind. Mit einem qualitativen, triangulativen Vorgehen aus Grounded Theory Methodology und wissenssoziologischer Diskursanalyse extrapoliert die Untersuchung drei mediale Deutungsmuster: 'Ablehung und Restriktion', 'Fördern und Fordern' sowie 'Verstehen und Anerkennen' und ordnet diese Formationen des Wissens in übergeordnete Diskurszusammenhänge und Strukturen ihrer Entstehung ein.:1 Einleitung 2 Wirklichkeit als Konstruktion 2.1 Kollektive Wirklichkeitskonstruktion in der Sprache 2.2 Machtvolle Wirklichkeiten 3 Konstrukt: Unbegleitet. Minderjährig. Flüchtling. 3.1 Flüchtlings-Dispositve 3.2 Kindheits- und Jugend-Dispositive 4 Online-Berichterstattung als Massenmedium 5 Forschungsanliegen 6 Methode 6.1 Erhebung und Material 6.2 Auswertungsmethodik 6.2.1 Begrifflicher Zugang: Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse 6.2.2 Methodischer Zugang: Grounded Theory 7 Ergebnisse und Interpretation 7.1 Dimensionen der Deutungsmuster 7.2 Deutungsmuster: Ablehnung und Restriktion 7.2.1 Interpretationen 7.2.2 Schlussfolgerungen 7.3 Deutungsmuster: Fördern und Fordern 7.3.1 Interpretationen 7.3.2 Schlussfolgerungen 7.4 Deutungsmuster: Verstehen und Anerkennen 7.4.1 Interpretationen 7.4.2 Schlussfolgerungen 8 Zusammenfassung Literaturverzeichnis Anhang
26

Dritte Dresdner Kinderstudie 2012: Lebenslagen Dresdner Mädchen und Jungen

Stephan, Christina, Fehser, Stefan, Lehmann, Matthias January 2012 (has links)
Nach 2000 und 2005 wurden nunmehr zum dritten Mal Dresdner Kinder und Jugendliche durch die Forschungsgruppe Kinder und Jugend an der TU Dresden unter Leitung von Prof. Dr. Karl Lenz zu ihrer Lebenssituation, ihren Problemen und Möglichkeiten befragt. Durch die wiederholten Erhebungen lassen sich Vergleiche ziehen sowie Trends und Entwicklungen ablesen, wie sich die Lage der Dresdner Mädchen und Jungen innerhalb der letzten 10 Jahre verändert hat. Im Rahmen der Dritten Dresdner Kinderstudie wurden etwas mehr als 2.000 Dresdner Kinder im Alter von 9 bis 15 Jahren befragt. Durch die große Anzahl von Befragten sind nicht nur Aussagen für die gesamte Stadt, sondern auch differenzierte Aussagen über die Lebenslage der Kinder in den einzelnen Ortsamtsbereichen bzw. Ortschaften möglich. Ähnlich den PISA-Studien handelt es sich bei der Stichprobe der Dritten Dresdner Kinderstudie um eine quotierte Klumpenstichprobe. Die Auswahl der befragten Schüler/-innen erfolgt daher nach dem Zufallsprinzip. Anders als in den Vorgängerstudien sind nicht nur Gymnasien, Grund- und Mittelschulen in der Erhebung berücksichtigt, sondern auch Dresdner Förderschulen. Um den altersspezifischen Fähigkeiten der Schüler gerecht zu werden, wurden insgesamt sechs verschiedene Fragenbögen verwendet, die sich inhaltlich stark ähneln, aber sich in ihrem Umfang und ihren Anforderungen unterscheiden. Die Bereitschaft der Schulen, der Eltern und auch der Kinder, an der Dritten Dresdner Kinderstudie mitzuwirken, war wiederum sehr groß. Die Befragungen fanden im März 2010 statt.:Vorwort ......................................................................................................... 5 1. Einleitung ................................................................................................... 8 2. Familie: Lebensformen, Bezugspersonen und Beziehungsqualität .................... 14 2.1 Lebens- und Wohnformen ...................................................................................... 14 2.2 Soziale Netzwerke Dresdner Kinder und Jugendlicher........................................... 20 2.3 Gemeinsame Aktivitäten, Partizipation, Konflikte und Sanktionspraktiken ............ 28 2.4 Eltern-Kind-Beziehungen und Familienklima ........................................................... 49 2.5 Freiräume und Individuierung ................................................................................. 55 3. Schule: Schulkultur, Zeitbudget und Freizeitangebot ....................................... 59 3.1 Schulkultur ............................................................................................................... 59 3.2 Ängste im Schulkontext .......................................................................................... 64 3.3 Schulweg ................................................................................................................. 65 3.4 Hausaufgaben ......................................................................................................... 69 3.5 Freude an der Schule .............................................................................................. 70 3.6 Teilnahme am schulischen Freizeitangebot ............................................................ 71 3.7 Angestrebter Schulabschluss ................................................................................. 73 4. Freizeit und Freizeitverhalten ....................................................................... 75 4.1 Nutzung von Freizeitangeboten .............................................................................. 75 4.2 Zufriedenheit mit den Freizeitangeboten ................................................................ 78 4.3 Erreichbarkeit von Freizeitangeboten ..................................................................... 80 4.4 Freizeitaktivitäten und Zeitbudget ........................................................................... 82 5. Problemlagen und Problemverhalten ........................................................... 89 5.1 Arbeitslosigkeit der Eltern und Lebensqualität der Kinder und Jugendlichen in Dresden .................................................................................................................. 89 5.2 Zwischen Verkehr und schimpfenden Nachbarn – Probleme in den Wohngebieten von Dresdner Kindern und Jugendlichen ...................................... 94 5.3 Erschöpfung, Unruhe, Angst – gesundheitliche Beschwerden und Stresssymptome Dresdner Schülerinnen und Schüler ......................................... 97 5.4 Rauchen, Alkohol- und Drogenkonsum ................................................................ 102 5.5 Gewalt aus Täter- und Opferperspektive .............................................................. 109 5.5.1 Gewalterfahrungen aus Opfersicht................................................................. 110 5.5.2 Gewalterfahrungen aus Tätersicht.................................................................. 113 5.5.3 Täter und Opfer – eine Gegenüberstellung .................................................... 116 5.5.4 Orte der Gewalterfahrung ............................................................................... 117 6. Finanzielle Ressourcen: Zufriedenheit und Quellen ...................................... 119 6.1 Wöchentlich verfügbare Geldbeträge ................................................................... 119 6.2 Einschätzung der finanziellen Lage der Familie im Vergleich zu Mitschülerinnen und Mitschülern .................................................................................................... 121 6.3 Herkunft des Geldes ............................................................................................. 123 6.4 Zufriedenheit mit verfügbaren Geldbeträgen ........................................................ 124 7. Partizipation ............................................................................................ 127 8. Anlage und Durchführung der Studie .......................................................... 132 8.1 Durchführung ......................................................................................................... 132 8.2 Stichprobe ............................................................................................................. 133 Literatur ...................................................................................................... 137 Abbildungs- und Tabellenverzeichnis .............................................................. 141
27

"Walking the fine line?" : young people, sporting risk, health and embodied identities

Killick, Lara January 2009 (has links)
sociological literature suggests that adult sports participation is occurring in a 'culture of risk' which glorifies pain, rationalises risk and promotes the practice of playing hurt (Messner, 1990; Nixon, 1992; Curry 1993; Pike, 2000; Roderick et aI, 2000, Safai, 2003; Howe, 2004; Young, 2004a; Liston et aI. 2006). Using this corpus of knowledge as a point of departure, this study directs attention towards young people's sporting risk encounters within the specific context of school sport. Guided by a process-sociological framework (Elias, 1978, 1991,2000 [1939]), it offers an insight into the ways in which young people interpret, experience and manage sporting risk and episodes of sporting pain and injury whilst at school. The research draws on data generated by 1,651 young people aged between ten and sixteen years old using a three-phase data collection programme. The programme incorporated self-report questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and group-based creative tasks and was conducted in six secondary schools located in "Churchill", a major English conurbation. The findings suggest that school sport worlds (re )produce two entwined, yet competing sets of beliefs, attitudes and practices related to sporting pain and injury and are best described as webs of risks and precaution and protectionism. Rather than adopting a more cautious approach to pain and injury the data indicates that this cluster of young people frequently play hurt, normalise injury and engage in forms of 'injury talk' that discredit episodes of sporting pain. In so doing, they may be placing their short and long-term physical, psychological, social and moral health in jeopardy. However, it is argued that this collection of sporting practices are highly valued by young people and are integral to the ways in which they assign and perform a range of dissecting and fluid embodied identities. Notwithstanding the potential for sporting risk encounters to engender damaging, disrupting and debilitating outcomes, the data also emphasises the potential for these experiences to act as important spaces in which young people are able to probe their bodily limits, develop corporeal knowledge and experience pleasurable emotions (Maguire, 199Ia). This thesis draws attention to the duality of sport and calls for a more reality-congruent approach to the sport-health-risk-youth nexus in the development of future (school) sport worlds.
28

Le traitement de la délinquance des jeunes en établissements. Analyse comparative des régimes répressifs et éducatifs (États-Unis - France).Ce que la politique et le terrain font à l’acteur. / Juvenile delinquency treatment. A social regulation actantial model.

Sanzane, Jean 02 December 2016 (has links)
En comparant les pratiques en matière de traitement de la délinquance des jeunes en France et aux États-Unis, notre travail explore un pan d’un phénomène social bien connu, l’américanisation des politiques judiciaires en France et en Europe.À travers l’exemple du traitement de la délinquance des jeunes en établissements, cette recherche analyse les logiques et modalités de pratiques dans 06 établissements (03 aux États-Unis et 03 en France). Inspirée par une démarche compréhensive, la méthodologie de recherche oscille entre participation observante et observation participante.Évoquer le traitement de la délinquance des jeunes, en refusant de lui concéder tant une « vision objectivante » qu’une « vision subjectivante » des philosophies politiques mises en oeuvre au sein de ces établissements nous a conduit à rendre compte d’un dynamisme qui se nourrit fort logiquement des confrontations et des courants parfois contradictoires et qui permettent ainsi de mettre en évidence d’autres formes de rapports entre l’individu et l’Institution. Reconnaissant à la philosophie politique d’un programme l’oeuvre des acteurs et leur capacité à s’accaparer des procédures et à les réinterpréter, l’analyse révèle un dynamisme au cours duquel certains acteurs sont susceptibles de suivre un processus de construction ou de reconstruction de sens de leur propre implication à partir de ce qu’ils croient juste pour l’action.En définitive, l’inflexion néolibérale de la politique judiciaire, en France, que Francis Bailleau et Yves Cartuyvels (2007) assimilent à une décivilisation du fait de la modification du contexte économique, social et culturel sous l’influence de la domination de politiques économiques néolibérales laisse transparaître un processus plus large de subjectivation. Les sujets répressif et éducatif se réajustant mutuellement dans la perspective de leur action, la réinsertion sociale des jeunes. / By comparing the practices of juvenile delinquency treatment in France to those of the United States, this research explores a part of a well-known social phenomenon, the Americanization of judicial policies in France and in Europe.Through the example delinquency treatment in the juvenile facilities, this research analyses the logics and modalities of practices in six institutions (three in the United States and three in France). Inspired by a comprehensive process, the research methodology oscillates between observant participation and participant observation.To evocate the juvenile delinquency treatment, by refusing to grant them both the “objectivizing approach” and the “subjectivizing approach” of political philosophies implemented in the institutions, has led us to grasp the logical dynamism strongly fueled by the sometimes contradictories confrontations and opinion, this allows also to uncover other forms of relationship between the individual and the Institution. Accounting a program political philosophy, the work of actors and their capacity to monopolize and to reinterpret procedures, this analysis reveals a dynamism during which some actors are likely to come across a construction or deconstruction process for the meaning of their own implication, departing from what they believed right for their actions.Definitely, the neoliberal inflexion of the judicial policies in France, analyzed by Francis Bailleau and Yves Cartuyvels (2007), as an decivilization due to the modification of the economic, social and cultural context under the influence of dominating neoliberal economic politics, showing trough a bigger subjectivation process. Repressive and educational subjects readjusting each other from the perspective of their action, the juvenile rehabilitation.
29

Contextualisation didactique en éducation à la sexualité et production d’inégalités dans les pratiques sexuelles à risque chez les lycéens

Girondin, Alberte 15 January 2019 (has links)
Les transformations institutionnelles qu’a connu la Guadeloupe ont marqué les pratiques sexuelles de la population. Cependant, comme partout en France on retrouve l’éducation à la sexualité à l’école. Afin de comprendre comment se fait cette intervention de la sphère publique par le contexte scolaire auprès des élèves d’origines sociales diversifiée. Nous prenons comme référence les travaux de Bru (2002), Chevallard (1985, 2009), Sauvage et Turpin (2012) et Poggi (2014) pour le processus de contextualisation et ceux de Lahire (2012) et de Bozon (2013) pour comprendre la production, rencontre et modification des dispositions incorporées sexuelles. On pose que l’apport des savoirs va produire et agir sur les dispositions incorporées sexuelles des élèves par l’action de l’enseignant et crée un processus de contextualisation. Nous formulons deux hypothèses : la situation didactique en éducation à la sexualité est à la fois contextualisée et contextualisante.Les études menées sur l’analyse du curriculum formel, sur l’analyse des pratiques déclarées des enseignants et sur l’analyse des pratiques déclarées des élèves en rapport avec le milieu didactique en éducation à la sexualité. Permettent de conclure que la dimension contextualisée est révélée par les dispositions incorporées des acteurs et le poids du contexte institutionnel. Cette dimension contextualisée induit une dimension contextualisante, par une place insuffisante accordée au contexte social de l’élève, le savoir reste homogène dans un milieu diversifié. Cette rencontre entre homogénéité et diversité crée des inégalités dans l’acquisition des savoirs et dans les choix de conduites sexuelles. / The institutional transformations experienced by Guadeloupe marked the sexual practices of the population. However, as everywhere in France we find sexuality education at school. To understand how this intervention of the public sphere is done by the school context with students of diverse social origins. We take as reference the works of Bru (2002), Chevallard (1985, 2009), Sauvage and Turpin (2012) and Poggi (2014) for the contextualization process and those of Lahire (2012) and Bozon (2013) to understand the production, encounter and modification of the incorporated sexual dispositions. It is posited that the contribution of the knowledge will produce and act on the sexual incorporated dispositions of the pupils by the action of the teacher and creates a process of contextualization. We formulate two hypotheses: the didactical situation in sexuality education is both contextualized and contextualizing.Studies on formal curriculum analysis, analysis of teachers 'declared practices and analysis of students' reported practices related to the didactical environment in sexuality education. Let us conclude that the contextualized dimension is revealed by the incorporated provisions of the actors and the weight of the institutional context. This contextualized dimension induces a contextualizing dimension, by an insufficient place given to the social context of the student, knowledge remains homogeneous in a diversified environment. This encounter between homogeneity and diversity creates inequalities in the acquisition of knowledge and in the choice of sexual behavior.
30

Balancing looked after children's protective, provisional and participatory rights in research, policy and practice

Munro, Emily R. January 2015 (has links)
In England around 68,000 children are currently looked after by the state. Sixty two per cent of this population are admitted to care or accommodation in response to abuse and neglect. As the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child acknowledges, the state has a unique responsibility for these children and is expected to ensure their safety, wellbeing and development. Underpinned by a rights-based framework the publications in the thesis make an original contribution to social work research, policy and practice, in respect of looked after children nationally and internationally. Three cohering theoretical strands - the new sociology of childhood, attachment theory and focal theory, and different methodological lenses, (from participatory research with young people to cross-national analysis of administrative data), are employed to advance understanding of the balance of protective, provisional and participatory rights ( 3 Ps ) for these children and young people. The work focuses upon their life pathways at two key stages in the lifespan: early infancy and adolescence into adulthood. Consistent with the theoretical underpinnings of the research, the methodological approach employed in two of the four core studies sought to promote children s active participation in the research process, and to give them a voice . The participatory peer methodology adopted moved beyond involving care experienced young people in interviewing their peers, to training and engaging them in several major aspects of the research cycle, including analysis of the data and the design and write up of the findings, to produce accessible peer research reports for young people. At the national level the work undertaken demonstrates how a needs-based discourse, and orientation towards considering looked after children as objects of concern, can mean that young children s protective rights may be prioritised in policy and practice, at the expense of their provisional and participatory rights. Children s participation rights are also constrained due to assumptions about the (in)capacities of younger children to express their wishes and feelings. In this context parents rights tend to be prioritised at the expense of the rights of the child. Whereas parents rights may take precedence when children are young, in adolescence the rights of parents are more peripheral. Cross-national comparisons reveal variations in how young people s provisional, participatory and protective rights are balanced as young people negotiate the transition from care to adulthood in western societies, as well as different drivers for reform. Empirical research on recent policy developments in England also illuminates the tensions and dilemmas professionals can face as they attempt to protect and provide for young people, whilst recognising their evolving capabilities and their right to autonomy and active participation in decision making processes. Finally, the studies highlight that young people with the most complex care histories may be denied the right to decide for themselves if they want to remain in foster or residential care into early adulthood.

Page generated in 0.0233 seconds