EARLY LIFE RISKS,ANTISOCIAL TENDENCIES,AND PRETEEN DELINQUENCY

Early age‐of‐onset delinquency and substance use confer a major risk for continued criminality, alcohol and drug abuse, and other serious difficulties throughout the life course. Our objective is to examine the developmental roots of preteen delinquency and substance use. By using nationally representative longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (N= 13,221), we examine the influence of early childhood developmental and family risks on latent pathways of antisocial tendencies from 3 to 7 years of age, and the influence of those pathways on property crime and substance use by 11 years of age. We identified a normative, nonantisocial pathway; a pathway marked by oppositional behavior and fighting; a pathway marked by impulsivity and inattention; and a rare pathway characterized by a wide range of antisocial tendencies. Children with developmental and family risks that emerged by 3 years of age—specifically difficult infant temperament, low cognitive ability, weak parental closeness, and disadvantaged family background—face increased odds of antisocial tendencies. Minimal overlap is found between the risk factors for early antisocial tendencies and those for preteen delinquency. Children on an antisocial pathway are more likely to engage in preteen delinquency and substance use by 11 years of age even after accounting for early life risk factors.     

A dimension of private life in Wallachia: violence between parents and children (1830–1860)

Violence was present and had different forms in every family during nineteenth-century Wallachia, either rich or poor, in rural or urban areas. Remaining in the shadow, almost never discussed between its members or even in public, this social act shocked the penal courts when it reached a critical point. But, during the century, violence between parents and children knew a constant evolution, visible in normative texts and in any written evidence left behind by the contemporaries. Thus, violence became a dynamic element in defining childhood and parent–child relationships.     

The Country of Sexualised Children: Whiteness,Innocence, and the “Sexualisation of Childhood”

This article argues that the sexualisation of childhood discourses have a distinct history in Australia. To advance this argument, I will explore the similarities between these discourses and discourses surrounding the iconic Australian “lost child”. In all of these discourses, a white child (here a symbol of White Australia’s future and past) becomes lost in an unforgiving and dangerous environment. This child is assumed to be asexual, though with the likelihood that they will mature into reproductive heterosexuality. This latter point will be illuminated in the final section of the article, which will focus specifically on the 2016 criticisms of the Safe Schools Coalition Australia. These criticisms are the most recent examples of anti-sexualisation discourses in Australia.     

The Politics of Child Prostitution in South Africa

This paper argues that policies, interventions and discourses pertaining to child prostitution have been guided by overarching political agendas that have masked the underlying structural basis of this phenomenon. These political agendas have shifted in accordance with the locus of power, control and resistance in South Africa since the nineteenth century. On the basis of a historical analysis this paper identifies distinct periods in which child prostitution was used to legitimate policies in favour of social control rather than social development. In the colonial period, child prostitution was used to justify stricter controls on adolescent and adult women's sexuality and movement by colonial and traditional patriarchal authorities. In the colonial and Apartheid periods, policies on child prostitution were informed by fears of miscegenation and sexually transmitted diseases, which were used to support the racist and oppressive legislation of sexual behaviour. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the issue of child prostitution was ‘discovered’ in the press both to deflect attention from the incarceration of juveniles during the 1987 State of Emergency and as the basis upon which liberals attacked the Apartheid state. In the latter half of the 1990s and 2000s, it was used by the African National Congress (ANC) government to attack the moral legacy left by the Apartheid state and in turn deflect responsibility for the root causes of this phenomenon. Furthermore, child prostitution was used to support stricter controls on adult sex workers and on the movement of undocumented migrants. This politicised and sensationalist approach has undermined detailed analysis of the root causes of this phenomenon and children's motivation for engaging in prostitution. For many children in South Africa it has been one means by which they can exercise their agency and power in order to ensure their survival in the face of high levels of socio-economic deprivation and rapid socio-cultural change. This paper therefore proposes a shift from policies and interventions centred on social control to social development, based on an in-depth understanding of children's agency, risk and resilience.     

Public attitudes toward funding preschool programs to prevent violence

Public policy on violence prevention has increasingly focused on early childhood interventions to reduce violence over the life course. This paper examines public attitudes toward funding of programs in schools to enhance learning and to reduce violence. The data come from telephone surveys in a large Southern US City collected from 2004 to 2007. The paper explores the relationship between public funding of programs and increased taxes for programs. PLUM Ordinal Regression models were used to predict attitudes toward prevention programs controlling for demographic variables and political affiliation. Implications of these findings are discussed for understanding of attitudes toward school-based programs and their funding.     

Raising the future leaders: an analysis of child and family welfare policy in Ghana

This paper examines the scope and potential impact of current child-focused policies in in Ghana as a West Africa example. The paper assesses the thrust of Ghana’s child protection policy in terms of its sound theoretical basis, congruence with the Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC) as well as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) and promise of socio-economic empowerment for families with children. The analysis of Ghana’s policy efforts highlights what is currently happening and what needs to happen for child welfare in West Africa.     

从心理健康的角度谈快乐童年的塑造

每个人都从童年开始他的精彩人生,每个人的童年经历将会是精彩人生中心理健康的基点.家庭教育、学校教育和社会教育都应该承担让儿童快乐成长的责任,让儿童体验快乐,创造快乐,使儿童在快乐中成长为拥有良好心理素质的个体,以健康的心理去生活和工作.     

Childhood,age of consent and moral regulation in Canada and the UK

This paper analyses the resurgent regulation of young people's sexuality in Canada and the UK and examines notions of childhood in relation to adulthood, referred to by the term ‘generation’, as they are portrayed in the political process. In both cases, the political manipulation of the identity of childhood in relation to adulthood that is both gendered and generational is an important enabling factor, although regulation takes place within a specific context for each. Moreover, this politics of generation reaches beyond the specific regulation of young people's sexuality through notions of hegemonic femininity and masculinity and the idealization of the heterosexual family in a far more pervasive regulation of society in general.     

When is a Child not a Child and Other Questions—A Commonwealth-wide Overview

Abstract

Although international human rights instruments assume a universalism of application and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of the most ratified instruments in the world and therefore most likely to have global if not universal application, in fact understandings of childhood and definitions of ‘child’ or ‘children’ are very variable not just in different social and cultural contexts but in laws as well. This creates a number of challenges for formulating cross-boundary policies and programmes, because on the one hand these differences cannot be ignored, but on the other hand they should not be seen as insurmountable barriers to the advocacy and promotion of children’s rights. This paper presents an overview of difference and similarity in the Commonwealth and considers some of the challenges that these may present in formulating strategies for international organisations such as the Commonwealth.     

Characteristic Features of Pediatric Firearm Fatalities—Comparisons Between Australia and the United States

Abstract:  Gunshot deaths in children less than 17 years of age from Adelaide, SA, Australia (1969–2005) and from San Diego County, CA, United States (1988–2005) were compared. Forty-two pediatric gunshot fatalities occurred in South Australia (1.1 cases/year; M:F = 30:12). There were 6 accidents (14%), 14 suicides (33%), and 22 homicides (52%). In San Diego there were 185 cases ( c. 10 cases/year; M:F = 148:37). There were 6 accidents (3%), 42 suicides (23%), 130 homicides (70%), and 7 undetermined cases (4%). The incidence of homicide was significantly higher in San Diego County compared to Adelaide ( p  < 0.001), with a higher proportion of murder–suicides occurring in Adelaide. There were markedly more accidents and suicides involving males in Adelaide and a far higher number of male homicide victims in San Diego County compared to females. Rifles of 0.22-caliber were preferred weapons in South Australia, compared to handguns in San Diego County.