The purpose of this thesis was to explore the premise that children may be more accepted in social situations in Spain than in England. This was framed within a review of international reports and mass media sources that indicated children in England may be viewed less positively than in Spain. The central question asked if there were differences in attitudes to child-rearing and young children in Kent (England) and Murcia (Spain). To address this, a comparative multiple-case study of pre-compulsory early years settings was employed. Social settings in the wider environments were also investigated. A qualitative, interpretive approach to the research generated data through interviews and observations in these locations. The first part of the fieldwork involved visiting six early settings where 48 practitioners in three coastal, town/city and out-of-town settings in both Murcia and Kent were interviewed. This entailed observing practitioners’ interactions with children and their daily practices. The second part involved spending time in intergenerational spaces within the two wider societies; hotels, restaurants and shopping centres. In these, 18 interviews were conducted and adult-child interactions were observed. Before adopting more conventional methods for coding categories and identifying emerging themes, NVIVO, a qualitative data classifying program, was used to sort and categorise these data. In conclusion, the main differences identified in the settings were practitioners’ attitudes to affective behaviours, emphases on safety factors and valued social behaviours. Regarding attitudes to children in the wider societies, children appeared less likely to be excluded from shared public spaces or viewed as nuisances in Spain. In contrast, although Kent provided more child-focused ii facilities than its counterpart, this sometimes resulted in children being segregated from adults. This thesis potentially contributes to the field of early childhood studies by highlighting how the interplay of cultural differences and adults’ attitudes impact on young children’s lives.

No description available.

This thesis presents findings from a postal survey in 1991, mainly in three diverse areas in the north of England. 339 members responded from six important professions in child protection: social workers, health visitors, teachers, police, general practitioners and paediatricians. The overall response rate was 60%. It explores practitioners' varied exposure to child protection training and experience of cases, their different severity ratings of brief vignettes of abuse, their thoughts and action proposals and choice of contacts in relation to an unfolding vignette, and their perceptions of local procedures and the functioning of their local child protection networks. The work rests on a literature review published in 1991 under the title Coordination and Child Protection: a review of the literature by Christine Hallett and myself. The general findings of the survey are that interprofessional cooperation and coordination are well accepted tenets among workers in the system and that most informed respondents believe the system works fairly well, particularly in the assessment stage. However, many people, particularly among teachers and general practitioners, revealed an extremely limited involvement in or knowledge of the system. A complex network is revealed. Social workers, specialist police and consultant paediatricians clearly emerge as the core but health visitors appear to be a crucial bridge between frontline agencies and the core professions. Many other professions and agencies appear to have peripheral or episodic involvement in cases. Despite the generally favourable view of the system's functioning, many points of tension and conflict are evident. These range from discrepant evaluations of cases through many other factors to competing priorities and resource shortfalls as obstacles to coordination. A number of proposals to ameliorate some of these tensions are put forward.

One area of history that historians have ignored is that of children and their relationship to witchcraft and the witch trials. This thesis begins with a survey of historical done on the general theme of childhood, and moves on to review secondary literature about children and the continental witch trials. The thesis also reviews demonological theory relating to children and the roles children played in the minds of continental and English demonologists. Children played various roles: murder victims, victims of dedication to Satan, child-witches, witnesses for the prosecution, victims of bewitchment or possession, and victims of seduction into witchcraft. The final section of the thesis deals with children and English witchcraft. In England children tended to play the same roles as described by the demonologists.