Children's rapid development and dependency distinguish them from adults and calls for significant additions to and revisions of leading liberal views. Over the course of chapters 2 to 5, I defend the following two views. First, our obligations to children consist in meeting their needs. Specifying what children's needs are is a difficult task that is best met through a two-part strategy. While a liberal state can make use of a general and abstract characterization of children's needs, it must leave the more concrete specification of those needs to carers. The nature of caring relationships is such that the carers must be given space to act on their conception of the child's good. Second, a proper understanding of the way genes and environment co-determine children's development challenges the exclusion of "natural primary goods" from the scope of distributive justice. While genes constrain developmental outcomes, the nature and extent of these constraints can only be established empirically. Consequently, it is not possible to categorically distinguish between the kinds of goods subject to distributive principles on the basis of a supposed origin in a genetic lottery. In the final two chapters, I look at policy challenges raised by children. In Chapter 6, I explore how children's development affects the value of their opportunities for choice through an analysis of a proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, and argue for a refined account of Alex Voorhoeve's Potential Value of Opportunities View that can accommodate these considerations. In Chapter 7, I consider the fair distribution of risk between children in light of the Grimes v. the Kennedy Krieger Institute case. I argue that recognizing the importance of risk miligation to children's health necessitates a refined understanding of benefit tha is responsive to the endemic health risks in a child's environment.

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This thesis explores current ideas about children and childhood in Britain through an examination of empowerment, play and learning as identified by policies, professional playworkers, and adult and child service users in two State run after school provisions in a London borough. Conducted in two quite different physical and social environments, the primary research involved an ethnographic study during the academic year 2007 to 2008, based on participant observation and interviews with managers, playworkers, parents and children at both sites. The research found strong connections between playworkers' attitudes to children's play, learning and empowerment, and their descriptions of their own priorities and responsibilities. That play and activity were occurring in supervised, closed access, paid-for settings meant that free play and regulation of behaviour were held in constant dynamic tension. Perceptions of playworker's jobs as both controlling children's behaviour and facilitating their play highlighted ambiguities inherent in these contexts and produced tensions felt by playworkers and children. Though masquerading as mechanisms for each child's individual development and fulfilment, play, informal learning and empowerment were imbued with strategic endeavours to steer children's experiences in particular directions. Furthermore, these ideas and their related practices were understood and implemented differently in the two after school settings. The research focus evolved to look at the impacts of social constructions of children and childhood on playworkers' practices and children's experiences. Far from being fixed concepts whose meanings were consistent over time and contexts, ideas about play, learning, empowerment, children and childhood all referred, in fact, to fundamentally dynamic social processes that this thesis reveals and explores. Two key aspects of the complex meanings attached to children and their childhoods emerged. Firstly, the child and childhood are 'relational' concepts (Aries 1962) or 'conceptions' (Wyness 2000), fluid in their meanings yet constant in their social significance. Secondly, social constructions of childhood can only adequately be understood in their real life social, economic and political contexts (Hendrick 1997a: 35). Reflecting both recent and more conventional ideas, playworkers presented contrasting constructions of the children as victims and products of their social circumstances with predictable futures, or as rights bearers and social agents with a say in their current and future possibilities. The ways in which playworkers controlled or facilitated the children were tied in with these ideas and a matrix of intersecting influences impacting on their confidence, trust and skills - as individuals and as teams - in allowing children to direct their own play activities and to deal with issues. This thesis contributes to gaps in current knowledge and understanding about notions of the child and childhood operating in playwork settings and the effects of these on practices and experiences in these contexts.

The United Nations’ 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, is the most fundamental potentiality to affect children’s lives for the better, through the dynamic relationship between its provisions for child participation, protection and the best interests of the child. I investigate how the Convention is being implemented in Kundapur, in southern India. The makkala panchayat initiative has established children’s councils that parallel the rural (adult) village councils which operate under the decentralizing Panchayati Raj system of local government in Karnataka State. The initiative is the innovation of Bangalore-based NGO, The Concerned for Working Children (“CWC”). Through a methodology informed by grounded theory, ethnography and the sociology of childhood, I report the opinions of the children elected to the makkala panchayats, how the makkala panchayats impact their lives and whether the Convention’s provisions are being integrated into the makkala panchayats. I examine the context in which the Convention is being operationalized, the conceptualizations of children and childhood with particular consideration being given to postmodern social constructionism, childhood and The Child. The thesis divides into six themes related to the children of the makkala panchayats: loss; burden; risk; competency; homogeneity; and authenticity. An examination is made in the role of the NGO, in its capacities as facilitor and research gatekeeper. I find the children do benefit from their participation, in both material and developmental terms, and I find drawbacks. From my findings, I offer suggestions for further avenues of research.

Social Identity Theory (SIT) (Tajfel & Turner 1979) is a widely accepted theoretical perspective on intergroup behaviour in adults. SIT, however, does not take account of the development of prejudice in children. Plethoras of research have investigated the development of this social construct in children. Given the unique social and political situation, many studies have focused on prejudice and in-group awareness in Northern Ireland. There remains, however, a lack of consensus regarding the age at which prejudice develops in children. Therefore this research study aimed to investigate if there was a consensus among children, young people, parents and teachers as to what age children become aware of their social identity in terms of ethnic/religious group affiliation and when this becomes salient. A mixed methods approach, incorporating questionnaires, focus groups and a quasi-experimental design was employed. The questionnaire participants included a convenience sample of Catholic and Protestant parents (97), teachers (74) and young people (221) and the focus groups comprised parents (15), teachers (12) and young people (22) from mixed ethnic/religious groups. The quasi- experiment involved 201 children, aged 7-11 years, from Maintained and Controlled schools. Results indicated a general consensus amongst parents, teachers and young people; children become aware of their social identity between 8.4 and 8.9 years, and social identity becomes salient between 10.6 and 11.7 years. One third of young people felt that social identity never becomes a salient issue. Interestingly, although Protestant children displayed a significant in-group preference, the Catholic children did not. Protestant children also rated the out-group artist higher than the Catholic children. In conclusion, this study would provide evidence to support the notion that prejudice in children in Northern Ireland is not as prevalent as some might suggest and not all children brought up in a divided society necessarily develop prejudiced attitudes towards the out-group.

This thesis explores two issues: 1. the relationship between emotional and behavioural difficulties in childhood and adult economic attainment; and 2. the costs arising from the public service response to child and adolescent psychosocial difficulties. After a review of the relevant literature, longitudinal data are used to examine the first of these issues. The relationship between psychosocial development and labour market outcomes are examined for a cohort of British males of predominantly working class origin. Similar longitudinal analyses are then repeated in a national and more socially representative British birth cohort born in 1970 who were most recently followed-up at age 30. Econometric estimations relating to age 30 earnings within the 1970 cohort are combined with cross-sectional earnings data from a large survey of the UK labour force to arrive at a series of lifecycle earnings projections for workers who experienced childhood psychosocial problems. Potential justifications for public intervention are examined followed by an outline of current service arrangements in the UK and a discussion of recent policy developments towards child and adolescent psychosocial problems. Service utilisation data from a major epidemiological survey of the mental health of children and adolescents in Britain are then used to derive new empirical estimates of the costs to the National Health Service and education system arising from child and adolescent psychopathology. Individual variations in costs are then examined in more detail using multivariate statistical methods with a view to assessing the extent to which services are responsive to psychosocial problems that are more socially and academically disabling.

In January 2001, the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) jointly set up Pre-School Qualification Accreditation Committee (PQAS) to oversee the standards and quality of pre school teacher training for both kindergarten and Childcare sectors. The MOE and the MCYS introduced an integrated Pre-School Education (PSE) framework for teacher training and accreditation applicable to р re-school personnel. The training route for pre-school teachers came into effect in January 2001. Teacher training and the qualifications offer high leverage opportunities for enhancing standards of training and expanding career opportunities for pre-school professionals in Singapore. The various levels of training are planned to cater to the different needs of the teachers and prepare them for leadership in the sector. This will ensure that pre-school professionals are well equipped to provide our young children with an enriched learning environment, to nurture their social skills and values, and prepare them for lifelong learning (wwwl.moe.edu.sg/preschooleducation).The majority of teacher trainees involved in this research have been working as caregivers in most Child Care Centres in Singapore without relevant knowledge of the child. The study is underpinned by the contemporary argument that any adult who works with children needs to know about Child Development, Theories of Childhood and Play-based Learning Environment, which actively challenge the traditional stereotypical notions that experiences alone would be sufficient. Understanding the growing child would no doubt help to focus on appropriate tasks for the child. Central to the focus of the study is to gain an understanding of the existing knowledge of the teacher trainees (both who are working with children and otherwise) before and after the study sessions and how such an increase of knowledge could empower and enfranchise the teachers to make informed decisions in the child’s life. At the completion of the course they were able to comprehend the most important factors of the growing child that they were considerably unaware of and better manage behavioural situations with the child. The teachers' final records of Observation and Evaluation, Professional Journals of the children combined with a final powerful public presentation of the Child Study Making Learning Visible no doubt heighten the educational process as a learning discipline, a vital link that provides a powerful medium to interact with the growing child.

Background: Child Development is a process of positive change in psychomotor, cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and behavioural aspects in a well nourished child. The word psychomotor refers to the psychological and motor aspects of action. Psychomotor abilities have a pivotal role in the achievement of holistic development of well balanced children during the early phases of life. Many children live in the underprivileged conditions prevailing in the developing countries. About 11 million under 5 children die every year, while a large proportion of children who survive are prone to developmental delays, socio-emotional difficulties, and growth faltering. It has been estimated that at least 200 million children are developmentally delayed in the developing countries. Aims and objectives: The overall aim was to evaluate the relative contributions of socio-economic status, rural-urban neighbourhood and sensory stimulation to the psychomotor development of the child. In addition, to explore whether physical growth is in the causal pathways of the influence of these factors on psychomotor development. Methodology: A cross-sectional study involving 1244 0-3 year old children living in Sindh, Pakistan was conducted from May to November 2002. Children were assessed at home visits using: Bayley's Infant Developmental Scale for psychomotor development, the Home Observations for Measurement of the Environment inventory (HOME) to assess sensory stimulation available at home, basic anthropometry for growth status, and a questionnaire covering a variety of data including socio-economic status. A socio-economic index was created based on principle component analysis and multiple linear regression techniques were applied to assess study hypotheses. Key findings: Socio-economic inequalities have an immense impact on early child growth and development. Children in rural neighbourhoods have poor psychomotor development compared with urban areas; the association is statistically very robust. In contrast, rural urban differences in physical growth are mediated by socio-economic status. Physical growth is a significant determinant of psychomotor development, especially in the presence of a combination of poor anthropometric indicators. Sensory stimulation available at home is strongly linked with physical growth and psychomotor development. However, its effect on psychomotor development is only marginally mediated via the nutritional status of the child. Implications: The study highlights the fact that improvement in socio-economic conditions is vital to achieve optimal growth and development during early childhood. However, attention to the contextual needs, especially rural urban neighbourhood, is required in formulation and implementation in early child care and development interventions. The study also draws our attention to the fact that efforts to improve physical growth are mandatory in order to achieve optimal child development. Last but not least the study provides substantial evidence that sensory stimulation should be promoted as a strategy to make a positive difference to the growth and development status of children.

Language plays an important role in driving visual attention. The aim of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of how language may mediate visual attention in toddlers, who begin to learn about the world through language communication. In Part I of the thesis, I examine the time course and order in which different types of stored linguistic representations are activated during spoken-word recognition. In Experiments 1-4, I demonstrate that the four-picture adult visual world paradigm (VWP) in combination with growth curve analysis and mixed effects modelling (Mirman, 2014), is a suitable tool for measuring language-mediated cognitive processes in toddlers. The results indicate that, like adults, toddlers extract phonological information faster than semantic information during spoken-word recognition, and that these differences hold irrespective of whether the semantic information is taxonomic or thematic in character. Moreover, phonological effects are related to the toddler's overall vocabulary size, suggesting a role for emerging phonological organisation and/or word familiarity in the phonological decoding of words. The results of the study are compatible with an interactive view of language-mediated visual attention in toddlers whereby implicitly generated phonological codes and speech-driven phonological encoding work together to support referent identification. In Part II of the thesis, I investigate how language as an attentional set may guide toddlers' visual attention. Specifically, I examine the role of dis- tractor inhibition during language-mediated visual attention using a negative priming (NP) procedure. NP refers to the impaired response observed when a participant has to respond to a stimulus identity or location that they previously ignored (i.e., identity or location NP). Any observed NP effect would suggest that language-mediated selective attention involves inhibition of response towards the distractor. In Experiment 5 (six conditions), participants were shown trials each containing a prime phase, followed by a probe phase. In both phases, participants heard the target picture being named and were allowed to look freely at the pictures. In all conditions, participants were 'on-task' and showed greater than chance target preference after target label onset. No location NP effect was observed when the prime stimuli were repeated in the same locations in the probe phase, or when the probe stimuli were novel. However, location NP was observed when the prime stimuli were repeated in swapped locations in the probe phase. That is, there was significantly less target preference in the ignored location-attended identity condition. Rather than by distractor inhibition, these results could be better explained by the mismatching of feature-location-response bindings in the prime and probe phases. These findings indicate that language drives the encoding of temporary episodic representations of events, which are stored, retrieved and compared with later events, and may mediate visual attention. In sum, this thesis demonstrates that language-mediated visual attention involves the activation and retrieval of 'higher level' representations, which are then matched and integrated with the 'lower level' visual and auditory inputs. While Part I demonstrates how relatively long-term lexical-semantic knowledge mediates visual attention, Part II demonstrates how recently encountered events are encoded into episodic representations, retrieved and in turn, influence mediated visual attention.

Previous research indicates that psychosocial risks and contextual risks such as poverty can have detrimental effects on children’s development. In this thesis I use data from the Avon Longitudinal study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) to examine prospective relationships between risk factors present early in life and later child outcomes related to cognitive functioning, psychopathology, and brain structure. In Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 I describe theories and methods behind the research presented in this thesis. Chapter 3 examines how maternal depression, contextual risks, and interpersonal stress early in life relate prospectively to children’s cognitive outcomes at the age of 8 years. Chapter 4 introduces a metaTanalysis of brain imaging studies I conducted to identify brain regions showing reduced metabolism in depression. Chapter 5 examines how early adverse experiences within the first six years of life relate to children’s internalising symptoms during childhood, and how early adversity and internalising symptoms relate to variation in grey matter structure in early adulthood in the regions of interest identified in Chapter 4. In Chapter 6 I examine how preT and postnatal psychosocial adversity (prenatal maternal stress, childhood adversity, and peer victimisation) relate to psychosisTlike experiences in adolescence, and how psychosocial adversity and psychosisTlike experiences relate to altered white matter microstructure in adolescence. Finally, Chapter 7 presents a summarising discussion of the general themes emerging from my research, as well as limitations and future directions for this field of research. The results presented in this thesis indicate that different types of risks during prenatal and early postnatal development relate to poorer child outcomes, including poorer cognitive functioning, increased levels of psychopathological symptoms, and altered grey and white matter. These findings have implications for intervention since they highlight the importance of intervening early in life.