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Children as Actors: How Does the Child Perspectives Literature Treat Agency in the Context of Poverty?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2009

Gerry Redmond
Gerry Redmond*
Affiliation:
Social Policy Research Centre, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The purpose of this review is to examine agency in the worldwide literature on children's perspectives on poverty. By definition, asking children about their lives and responses to living in poverty assumes that they are competent actors – this is one of the positive features of the new and burgeoning literature on children's perspectives. Findings from research in poorer and richer countries are summarised and compared, and children's agency is categorised using frameworks proposed by Ruth Lister and John Micklewright into a number of different types, including self-exclusion, exclusion of children by other children, ‘getting by’, ‘getting (back) at’, ‘getting out’, and ‘getting organised’. The review concludes with suggestions on where more research is needed on children's agency in the context of poverty.

Type
Themed section on Children's Perspectives on Poverty and Disadvantage in Rich and Developing Countries
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 541 - 550
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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