A SOCIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF STREET CHILDREN IN ANKARA Pehlivanli, Ezgi M.A. Department of Sociology Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Kayhan Mutlu January 2007, 105 pages This thesis draws a profile of children who work/ live on the streets of Ankara relying on children&rsquo / s life histories and social workers&rsquo / opinions about the situation in the context of Social Exclusion. Social is a new concept, was first used in 1960&rsquo / s around Europe in order to define the groups, who are faced to material and socio-cultural deprivation due to the difficulties experienced by the Welfare States. This study assumes that street children can be explained in the context of social exclusion. Employing qualitative methods, this study main aim of this study is to understand the reasons for children to start working on street. After the introductory chapter, Chapter II provides a theoretical framework, in which street children and the concept of social exclusion are examined. Chapter III focuses on the findings from the life histories of children who work/live on streets of Ankara. Chapter IV contains the information about the interviews with social workers and a comparison part, in which two types of information, is analyzed in the context of Social Exclusion.

This project is an extended case study design investigating the mentoring programme of Kids Company, an innovative and controversial organisation that closed during fieldwork. The study considers the programme both as a case of the larger category of ‘youth mentoring' as well as a case in itself – of a unique and situated intervention. Methods employed included participant observation and interviews with professional staff, as well as the analysis of a sample of mentoring records documenting the one-year relationship of six mentoring pairs from the perspective of the mentor. Plans to interview mentoring pairs were curtailed by the unexpected demise of the organisation, but the data set includes interviews with five new mentors and mentees. The project has developed from a collaborative studentship aimed at understanding the mentoring programme, to include a post mortem of an organisation in crisis. Thus, documentation by and about Kids Company during this very public downfall also forms part of the data set. The thesis organises its findings into three chapters with insights on the model of mentoring employed by Kids Company and the reliance of popularised ideas from attachment theory and neuroscience; insights into the mentoring relationships themselves, including the value of a middle stage of everyday ‘being there'; and critical insights into how Kids Company's approach to young people and communities simultaneously takes on representations of race and class, yet elides them. The thesis draws together critical social policy and childhood studies literature on the history of child saving interventions and representations of the child in need within society, and psychology literature on youth mentoring initiatives, in order to make the argument that mentoring must be understood as an intervention situated in time and place. The messiness, complexity, and variety of youth mentoring experiences needs to be recognised. Nevertheless, youth mentoring also has potential to be powerful and productive for all involved and the thesis reflects on both the strengths and weaknesses of the Kids Company approach to make suggestions for good practice.