Michael Bourdillon

‘Doing it right?’: working with young researchers in Malawi to investigate children, transport and mobility

This paper explores involving children in Malawi in research about young people, mobility and transport, respecting their rights of participation, education, and protection from exploitation. The Malawi study forms one component of a research project taking place in three sub-Saharan African countries. A foundation of the larger project was the conviction that children are experts on their own lives; therefore seeking childrens views was essential, thus respecting the UNCRC. We also embraced an ethical approach, that ‘the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration’. We reflect on challenges in putting ethical principles into practice in the inevitably messy real-world.

Re‐assessing minimum‐age standards for children's work

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to call for re‐thinking of the universal minimum‐age approach to problems of child labour.Design/methodology/approach – The authors point out that there has been no serious policy analysis on universal minimum‐age approaches, and question common assumptions concerning such policies by reviewing available knowledge on the impact of work on children.Findings – Available research does not support a presumption that blanket minimum‐age laws are beneficial. In some cases, it is clear that they are injurious to children, underlining the need for systematic policy analysis.Practical implications – The promotion of universalized minimum‐age policies should cease until their effect on children has been reliably assessed. In the meantime, more energy and investment should be devoted to alternative, proven ways of combating forms and conditions of work that are genuinely likely to cause harm, and to promoting access to education.Originality/value – This paper contributes toward...

Children as domestic employees: Problems and promises

While childrens domestic work is widely seen as acceptable in a childs own home, there has been growing attention to the vulnerability of children employed in domestic service; some people have argued that this work should be banned outside childrens homes. This article considers both the potential harm as well as the benefits accruing to children in such environments, and has inquired into the opinions of children who themselves are involved in this kind of situation. This exploration has encountered obstacles: for example, institutions for fostering children and extended-family scenarios frequently blur the boundaries between work within the home and for outside employment. While support for child domestic workers should be a matter of urgency, stopping children from working outside their homes is not necessarily an effective way of protecting them, and, further, this approach removes possible material resources from some disadvantaged children. It is, instead, better to focus on positive ways of improving childrens opportunities.

Taking the long view : temporal considerations in the ethics of children's research activity and knowledge production.

Children are increasingly engaged in the research process as generators of knowledge, but little is known about the impacts on childrens lives, especially in the longer term. As part of a study on childrens mobility in Ghana, Malawi and South Africa, 70 child researchers received training to conduct peer research in their own communities. Evaluations at the time of the project suggested largely positive impacts on the child researchers: increased confidence, acquisition of useful skills and expanded social networks; however, in some cases, these were tempered with concerns about the effect on schoolwork. In the follow-up interviews 2 years later, several young Ghanaian researchers reported tangible benefits from the research activity for academic work and seeking employment, while negative impacts were largely forgotten. This study highlights the unforeseeable consequences of research participation on childrens lives as they unfold in unpredictable ways and underscores the temporal nature of childrens engagement in research.

Concluding reflections: how might we really protect children?

The articles contained in this issue present a panorama of good protective intentions gone awry. International or national policies presumed to benefit children appeared in field research to be ineffective or counterproductive for the children. Depending on the situation, the problem could primarily be one of poor interpretation or implementation of a child protection policy. This is a management issue, which can be resolved by competent governance. National governments and international development programmes know how to handle such issues; the question is one of will and priority. However, in some cases, perhaps even in most cases, it appears that at least part of the underlying dysfunction was with the policies themselves, some of which might be misguided. This is a far more serious problem, since it suggests that those making the policies may know rather less about child protection – what is needed and how to provide it – than has been assumed. As we pointed out in the Introduction, much has been learnt and put to good use about how to protect the lives, well-being, and development of very young children. But that is not equally true for children from young middle childhood onwards. These children, especially in poor countries, have been the primary subjects of concern in the papers in this journal issue. We end by briefly reflecting on them as a group, taking into consideration pertinent thought from elsewhere, to see what lessons we might draw and consider to helpfully inform development theory and practice.

Neglected dimensions of child well-being

Academic researchers on children should not ignore criteria for childrens well-being. Starting from the observation that attempts at protection from harmful work has often damaged childrens opportunities, the article argues that protection must be broader than simply protection from particular risks, and take in protection of opportunities. Moreover, researchers need to find ways to look beyond material and cognitive development to neglected areas of well-being sometimes referred to as ‘spiritual’.

WORKING CHILDREN IN ZIMBABWE

This chapter is about the value and costs of the work of children – to themselves, their families, and their communities. I present a range of situations in which children in Zimbabwe have to work, placing the employment of children in the broader context of childrens work. I point to benefits and harm that can accrue to children from their work, paying attention to how the children themselves perceive it. The vignettes I present illustrate the complexity surrounding the work of children, and the need to understand the contexts in which they work before we try to intervene.

Young entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa

Young people in subSaharan Africa are growing up in rapidly changing social and economic environments which produce high levels of unand underemployment. Job creation through entrepreneurship is currently being promoted by international organisations, governments, and NGOs as a key solution, despite there being a dearth of knowledge about youth entrepreneurship in an African context. This book makes an important contribution by exploring the nature of youth entrepreneurship in Ghana, Uganda, and Zambia. It provides new insights into conceptual and methodological discussions of youth entrepreneurship as well as presenting original empirical data. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative research, conducted under the auspices of a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and comparative research project, it highlights the opportunities and challenges young people face in setting up and running businesses. Divided into a number of clear sections, each with its own introduction and conclusion, the book considers the nature of youth entrepreneurship at the national level, in both urban and rural areas, in specific sectors – including mobile telephony, mining, handicrafts, and tourism – and analyses how key factors, such as microfinance, social capital, and entrepreneurship education, affect youth entrepreneurship. New light is shed on the multifaceted nature of youth entrepreneurship and a convincing case is presented for a more nuanced understanding of the term entrepreneurship and the situation faced by many African youth today. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars interested in youth entrepreneurship, including in development studies, business studies, and geography, as well as to development practitioners and policy makers.

Introduction: Child Poverty and the Centrality of Schooling

In the year 2000, the United Nations agreed on time-bound Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015. Children are strongly affected by the development agenda, both directly and indirectly. Two of these goals, namely achieving universal primary education and reducing infant mortality, target children directly. Most of the other goals — on maternal health, combating disease, gender equality, and environmental sustainability — have a strong impact on children’s well-being. Goal 1, ‘eradicating extreme poverty and hunger’, is especially signifIcant for children for two main reasons. First, childhood is the most signifIcant period in shaping long-term outcomes in terms of physical, mental, social, and emotional development, when poverty, malnutrition, and limited opportunities for learning can have strong adverse consequences. Inequalities are typically established even before children reach school age and permanently influence their opportunities later in life — something that affects the children as individuals, their families, and society as a whole. Second, children comprise a large proportion of the population in low- and middle-income countries and are disproportionately represented among the very poor; numerically, children deserve serious attention when considering poverty.

Children's chances: How countries can move from surviving to thriving

for examining some of these aspects of children’s and young people’s lives. Although the author begins by laying down a well-designed theoretical orientation (inspired by J. K. Gibson-Graham’s diverse economic practices), I cannot help but be left dissatisfied with the ‘missing’ treatment of certain longstanding themes in educational research. For instance, I am kept puzzled by the extent to which issues of class and privilege are features of alternative education. It also does not help that there is a lack of information on the backgrounds of families involved in homeschooling as well as Steiner andMontessori schooling. An initial expectation I had of this book was to be able to read about the diverse ways in which children and young people learn outside formal educational spaces. The book certainly showcases this to some extent. But I find it wanting of young people’s actual learning experiences. There is a significant amount of narratives about how educators and parents conceive/perceive alternative education and learning. Yet, the voices of young learners are minimal –which is something the author himself wishes had been otherwise (p. 256). This leaves me with the impression that the notion of alternative learning explored in this book largely reflects the vision of (adult) educators, practitioners, and parents. Geographies of Alternative Education makes an important contribution to geographical studies of education by foregrounding the hitherto under-examined sites of ‘alternative’ learning. Scholars, educators, and policy-makers will find this to be a valuable resource given that it is a hopeful theoretical and political project around education and learning. I have one final remark: given that most of the world’s children and young people are drawn into formal education, to what extent can these ‘alternative’ practices be usefully incorporated into mainstream educational settings? Are some of these alternative practices already being practiced in mainstream schools? I believe that these questions will be of great interest to those working to push pedagogical and learning boundaries in mainstream education.