This study carried out in one children’s home in Finland. This study aims to understand how the caregivers collectively perceive their work to secure and construct the childhood of the children living in the children’s home. Furthermore, the study mainly includes caregiver’s perceptions and practices of upbringing of children in the children’s home, which have been thoroughly analysed in the study. The study follows carefully designed two qualitative research methods: focus group interview and text for data collection. The data comprise one focus group interview of seven child care workers that includes five discussion questions about children’s home, listening to the children, importance of rules, regulations and daily routines, children’s future and difficulties in the work. References have been given to the ‘text’, i.e. institution’s policy documents- rules and regulations and the Finnish Child Welfare Act for the analysis of the data. However, the study does not include the analysis of the ‘text’ itself. Moreover, thematic analysis is used for data analysis. The study highlights that understanding childhood comprise the process of trust building between children and care workers- allowing children’s voice, agency, independence and protection respecting the child rights, personal integrity with the provision of safe home, trustable adults and permanent routines and individual child care plan. In addition, the same body ‘caregiver’ who, at the same time, allows child autonomy, agency and independence, also regulates the children’s everyday life, controls children and creates limitation, bridge trust and protect them from developing deviancy and asocial behaviours. Such process gives special consideration to the children’s psychological as well as physical incompetency such as age, immaturity and the vulnerable past in the children’s home that partly creates dilemmas/conflicts in delivering full agency to the children as mentioned in the legal frame work. The study reveals that building trust takes place through interaction between children and care workers and is a long-term process that backs up bringing corrective experiences in children. Listening to the children means helping and teaching them to recognise own feelings, emotions and stand independent and strong for oneself in the future. Likewise, respect to the child rights and organising everyday life delivers protection and safety net to the children. The study reveals, despites various difficulties at work, such as changing welfare act, complicated bureaucracy, unlimited parental rights and surprising legal interference, the child workers have the professional as well as moral obligations to protect children and provide them a safe and intact growing environment. Finally, the study reveals that future of the children is based on the personal choices they make in future and only a few of them will have relatively better life than others. However, all of the children are always under potential risk of post-traumatic collapses.   Keywords: childhood, child perspective, agency, children’s voice, building trust.

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In November 2016 the Swedish government requested a study where actions were suggested in order to strengthen the children's rights perspective for those children living at refuges. This resulted in the commission of inquiry "A window of opportunity- a strengthen children's rights perspective for children in refuges" (SOU 2017:112). The aim for this paper is to study how this inquiry is constructed and in which way it problematize children's rights and will be guided by three research questions: how is the concept ‘children's rights' problematized in the report SOU 2017:112, how does the problematization of children's rights position children living at the refuges in order to strengthen them as rights holders and what implicit assumptions are made as a way to increase the children's rights perspective for the children living at refuges? To investigate these questions this paper will do a policy analysis based on Carol Bacchi’s (2009) “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?” (WPR) approach. The method is chosen since the WPR-approach is used for the study of policies and especially studies the way a policy constructs a problem. This paper argues that the problematization of children's rights positions the children at the refuges as in need of protection and care and at the same time emphasizes their right to get their voice heard, as they are being active individuals. The urge to strengthen the children is argued to be a way to prevent the children who have experienced violence to become abusive themselves. As such, the conclusion is that a strengthen children's rights perspective for those children living in refuges transmits to them becoming ‘good citizens'.

In the Social Services Act in Sweden, it is stated that every child has the right to be given information and the opportunity to express its will and opinion. The child’s possibility to participate in the process of investigation should be considered with respect to the child´s age and maturity. By reasons of this we have chosen to examine how this is practiced in Swedish courts regarding eight cases where the out of home care of children according to 1 and 2 §§ in LVU is being judged. This has been done through a qualitative study with an attempt of using an argumentation analysis method. The main result of our study is that in the cases we studied the children had participated to a larger extent than described in previous research. Anyhow, when it comes to taking children’s, opinions in account, the cases we studied showed still great flaws and need of improvements. The conclusion of our study is that children's participation is a complex issue where more research is needed. Having this said, we believe that the subject of children’s participation must be more highlighted if a greater change is going to happen in the society. / I Socialtjänstlagen står det beskrivet att varje barn har rätt att bli tilldelad information och ges möjlighet att framföra sin talan. Barnets möjlighet att delta i utredningsprocessen bör övervägas utifrån barnets ålder och mognad. Med anledning av detta valde vi att granska hur denna lag följs i 1 och 2 §§ LVU genom att studera åtta beslutsunderlag med en kvalitativ argumentationsanalys. Huvudresultatet av vår studie visade på en hög delaktighet hos barnen i förhållande till det som framhållits i tidigare forskning, dock såg vi att beaktande av barnens vilja fortfarande var bristfällig. Den slutsats vi kom fram till i vår studie var att frågan om barns delaktighet inom Socialtjänsten framstår som ett komplext område innehållande stora brister i förhållande till hur lagen är formulerad. Med detta sagt ansåg vi att ämnet måste belysas mer i forskning för att en större förändring av barns delaktighet ska kunna utvecklas.

<p>There is an ongoing discussion in Sweden about child perspective and child’s perspective.</p><p>The municipalities’ family law units are required to include these perspectives in their investigations. But how do they affect the outcome of custody investigations? This essay addresses that issue. I have looked at how much say children have and how much they participate in their custody investigations. I have studied fourteen children, from seven custody investigations, what their views are and how children are presented in these investigations.</p><p>I use a social constructionist theory according to which the way children are viewed is constructed through interactions between people. This essay uses the terms “showing” and “telling” to see how children get their say. In a showing text it is the child who tells the story. In a telling text it is the narrator who is telling us about the child.</p><p>Nine of the children give a clear opinion of which parent they want to live with and how much they want to see the other parent. Eight of the investigations use a showing text to describe the children. These children’s opinions have a greater impact on the investigation than the ones described with a telling text.</p>

There is an ongoing discussion in Sweden about child perspective and child’s perspective. The municipalities’ family law units are required to include these perspectives in their investigations. But how do they affect the outcome of custody investigations? This essay addresses that issue. I have looked at how much say children have and how much they participate in their custody investigations. I have studied fourteen children, from seven custody investigations, what their views are and how children are presented in these investigations. I use a social constructionist theory according to which the way children are viewed is constructed through interactions between people. This essay uses the terms “showing” and “telling” to see how children get their say. In a showing text it is the child who tells the story. In a telling text it is the narrator who is telling us about the child. Nine of the children give a clear opinion of which parent they want to live with and how much they want to see the other parent. Eight of the investigations use a showing text to describe the children. These children’s opinions have a greater impact on the investigation than the ones described with a telling text.

Denna studie har undersökt hur barn pratar om och beskriver begreppet delaktighet inom idrottsrörelsen, i syfte att klargöra barns perspektiv inom detta kunskapsområde. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av en kvalitativ ansats och baserades på tre gruppintervjuer med tolv unga idrottare i åldrarna 10–15 år. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien var delaktighetsteorier, dels utifrån ett statsvetenskapligt samt ett sociologiskt perspektiv, men också specifikt, teorier som rör barns delaktighet (children’s participation) där framförallt delaktighet utifrån Roger Harts (1992) "ladder of participation" har använts. Resultatet för studien visar att idrottande barns beskrivningar av begreppet delaktighet är omfångsrik och innefattar å ena sidan en varierad bild av beslutsprocessen, där beskrivningar av att våga och inte få välja utgör exempel på icke delaktighet medan komma överens, kompromissa, rösta, vara med och bestämma, få välja, bli tillfrågad, få förklaringar, ge feedback, ge förslag och önskemål samt säga vad man tycker utgör barns beskrivningar av delaktighet. Å andra sidan visar även resultatet att idrottande barns beskrivningar av delaktighet går utöver beskrivningar av själva beslutsprocessen och innefattar även ett socialt perspektiv, där känna sig utanför, vara utesluten, och som att man inte finns utgjorde beskrivningar av att inte vara delaktig, medans beskrivningar av att man är med i ett gäng, alla får vara med och att man upplever att man finns till samt blir sedd, lyftes fram som viktiga komponenter för att beskriva delaktighet. Resultatet ligger i linje med tidigare forskning som har indikerat att barn uppfattar begreppet delaktighet som något mer än bara vara en del av en beslutsprocess. Studiens forskningsbidrag är därmed dels en bekräftelse av tidigare antydningar av idrottande barns breda syn på delaktighet men framförallt vad denna breda syn består av, vilket till min kännedom inte har utforskats tidigare. Resultatet ska emellertid beaktas med försiktighet givet det begränsade urvalet för studien. / The aim of this study has been to investigate how children talk about and describe the concept of participation in the sports movement, thus illuminating a child’s perspective of this area, and providing a basis for future quantitative work. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach and was based on three group interviews with twelve young athletes aged 10–15 years. The theoretical starting point for the study was participatory theories, partly from a political science and a sociological perspective, but also specifically, theories concerning children's participation. The results of the study show that athletes’ descriptions of the concept of participation are comprehensive and include, on the one hand, a broad picture of the decision-making process, where descriptions of daring and not being able to choose are examples of non-participation, while agreeing, compromising, voting, participating and deciding, getting to choose, being asked, getting explanations, giving feedback, giving suggestions and wishes and saying what you think, constitute children’s descriptions of participation. On the other hand, the results also show that young athletes’ descriptions of participation go beyond the decision-making process itself and also include a social perspective, where feeling outside, excluded, or that you don’t exist, are descriptions of non-participation, whilst descriptions such as being a part of a group, everyone is included, that you feel that you exist and are seen, were highlighted as important components to describe participation. The results are in line with previous research which has indicated that children perceive the concept of participation as something more than just being part of a decision-making process. The study’s main contribution is therefore firstly a reinforcement of the indications of previous research of children’s broad view of participation and secondly, illuminating what this comprehensive view consists of, which to my knowledge hasn’t been explored before. Further research is however needed given the small sample in this study, in order to strengthen these findings.