Adrian L. James

Pump Up the Volume: Listening to Children in Separation and Divorce.

This article seeks to build on the theoretical advances made by the new sociology of childhood by exploring how recently postulated models of childhood might be applied to an analysis and understanding of an important issue relating to children and childhood which is currently the subject of considerable debate - the welfare of children in separation and divorce and the policy and practice issues surrounding this. It is argued that while these theoretical models offer some valuable insights, their explanatory power and applicability to issues affecting the lives of children can be considerably enhanced by an empirical focus on the role of law as a key influence in the social construction of childhood and by the addition of a temporal dimension to reflect the dynamic nature of such a process.

Privatizing prisons : rhetoric and reality

Private Prisons Rediscovered International Developments in the Twentieth Century Evaluating Private Prisons Contemporary Developments in British Penal Politics Contracting-out at Wolds Responding to the Challenge in the Public Sector Legitimacy and Consent Ethical Issues in Contracting-out Privatizing Prisons Current Issues and Future Prospects

Family Law and the Construction of Childhood in England and Wales

Listening to the voices of children has become somewhat of a mantra within the current politics of English childhood following the signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and the implementation of the Children Act 1989. However, although the Convention establishes children’s rights to be heard and the Act makes specific provisions for ensuring that children have a proper say in matters concerning their own welfare, it is clear that in England and Wales the courts still do not always listen to children’s wishes and feelings (Lyon, 1995; Murch 1995; Parry, 1994). And in contexts outside of the family justice system, such as hospitals and schools, routine consultation with children about matters concerning their own welfare appears to be an even less well-established practice (Alderson, 1993, 2000; but see also Blair, this volume). Any firm commitment to listening to children’s views would, therefore, still seem to be absent from the everyday practices of many professionals working directly with vulnerable children. As such, the contemporary day-to-day politics of childhood in Britain unfolds in ways which remain characterised by adultist concerns, rather than those of children, despite the Children Act 1989 being heralded as a ‘children’s charter’. How this happens and the implications this has for children is the subject of this chapter.

Constructing Children, Childhood and the Child

In the contemporary media, all kinds of images and representations of children’s childhoods are to be found. In the world of advertising and marketing, for example, children constitute a rich and abundant pool of new consumers. They can be targeted as customers not only of traditional children’s toys, pop music and computer games but, as has occurred more recently, as health-conscious dieters and drinkers of bottled water (The Independent, 21 April 2002). They are an audience to be wooed and enticed, not only for what they represent now, but also in their immanence as the next generation of adult consumers.

Concluding Thoughts — Continuity and Change

In the course of the preceding chapters, we have sought to develop and articulate a theoretical model that addresses the complexities of childhood, both as a social phenomenon and as an experience. Our purpose has been not only to increase the explanatory power of models that are currently available but, by drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives, to provide a heuristic model that might take the social study of childhood a little further.

Key Constructs: Politics, Policies and Process

Globalisation has done more for children than make the hamburger available worldwide. It has revealed a great diversity in childhood experiences, both inter- and intra-culturally, with television and other media providing visual evidence of this on an almost daily basis. Differences in children’s everyday lives are, in this sense at least, taken-for-granted, with some childhoods, however, becoming problematised as ‘incorrect’, as the public display of children as child workers, or as hunger stricken refugees or child soldiers in Africa, serves to sharpen ideas about what a proper childhood ought to be (see Ennew 1986 and Chapter 4).

The Production and Reproduction of Childhood

Given the variation between concepts of childhood and the variation in children’s social experiences noted in previous chapters, it might be argued that childhood is always best understood in terms of its local diverse context; that it is no longer credible, as has often been the case in the past, to speak of ‘the child’ as a universalised and apolitical subject of the modern world or of ‘childhood’ as an unproblematic and universal feature of the generational order (see Chapter 1); and that, instead, we might best concentrate on exploring the local diversities and cultural variables which fracture the coherent sensibilities of the notion of ‘the child’ as a common and shared category status.

Helping parents in dispute: Child-centred mediation at a county court

In a review I happened to read recently, the reviewer commented that the title and the sub-title should really have been reversed in order to give potential readers a clearer idea of the nature and content of the book. So it is with this publication. As the author acknowledges early on, ‘This is a book about one specific type of family mediation, namely ‘county court dispute resolution’, that is carried out on court premises by family court service officers . . . and no general application nor pertinence is uncritically proffered’ (p. 3). This is just as well, since in the pages that follow we learn that the book is in fact about child-centred mediation on county court premises; that it involves mediation following receipt of an application for an order under section 8 of the Children Act 1989; that it addresses the practice of employing a single consultation in order to resolve a dispute between parents; that it involves the use of sole and co-mediation; that it is concerned solely with voluntary mediation; that the involvement of solicitors in mediation sessions is common; and, of course, that it concerns practice in county courts in Essex. From this, it rapidly becomes clear that the book is not about ‘Helping parents in Dispute’, except in a very narrow and particular sense. Although the author does illustrate a number of the themes and issues arising from his research, by making reference to research and writing about the much broader field of family mediation, the research on which the book itself is based is very narrow indeed and the author’s words of caution about the general application and pertinence of his findings are apposite. In addition, there are also some important observations to be made concerning the methodology employed in the research, of which readers need to be mindful and to which I shall return shortly. But first, what will you get for your money if you decide to part with the not inconsiderable sum of £47.50? You will get a slim volume, published (as one would expect from Ashgate) in hardback and comprising seven chapters. The introduction, reasonably enough, sketches out the background to ‘the Essex study’, as the author refers to it throughout, and rehearses what are by now fairly familiar arguments concerning the nature of and need for mediation, with brief speculation about the future of mediation and the possible impact of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS). This in itself draws attention to one of the shortcomings of this book, although this is not something for which the author can be held responsible – viz. it was written prior to a number of important developments, which have substantially altered the context in which it must now be read. Not only was