Suchergebnisse

Planning is central to ensuring children and young people live in safe, secure places, that they are included and can be active. There can be few aspects of planners? work that do not directly impact on children, from designing city centres, to implementing policies that will minimise the environmental effects of industrial practices. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) requires planners to consider children in matters affecting them and affirms that they have the right to be heard on such matters, and there is a consensus that it is important to try and engage children and young people in the planning process. The main question is how?0This book provides a range of international case studies illustrating good practice. It offers a variety of tools and techniques which have proved to be successful and discusses the work that needs to be done to enable planners to respond more effectively. It identifies key areas of concern generally with reference to the built environment and more precisely to planning theory and practice

The rapidly aging populations of many developed countries--most notably Japan and member countries of the European Union--present obvious problems for the public pension plans of these countries. Not only will there be disproportionately fewer workers making pension contributions than there are retirees drawing pension benefits, but the youth-to-age imbalance would significantly affect the total contributive capacity of future generations and hence their total income growth. In Children and Pensions, Alessandro Cigno and Martin Werding examine the way pension policy and child-related benefits affect fertility behavior and productivity growth. They present theoretical arguments to the effect that public pension coverage as such will reduce aggregate fertility and may raise aggregate household savings. They argue further that public pensions, as they are currently designed, discourage parents from private human capital investment in their children to improve the children's future earning capacity. - After an overview of pension and child benefit policies (focusing on the European Union, Japan, and the United States), the authors offer an empirical and theoretical analysis and a simulation of the effects of the policies under discussion. Their policy proposals to address declines in fertility and productivity growth include the innovative suggestion that relates a person's pension entitlements to his or her number of children and the children's earning ability--proposing that, in effect, a person's pension could be financed in part or in full by the pensioner's own children.

Looks at recent research into children's media consumption, highlights the importance of media literacy, and reports on an industry‐related media education programme; the research is tending to show that children are deciding what and when they watch television and other media. Develops, on the basis of these findings, a model of self‐supervised media engagement which is characterised by a lack of adult mediation. Argues that media literacy is important because it helps children become critical viewers of advertising and programming on their own; media literacy involves information processing skills and as such may be the most important life skill in the age of the internet. Introduces the UK Media Smart programme, which is industry funded and since 2002 has provided educational materials to help children think critically about advertising and other media issues.

SUMMARY: The life chances of children and young people can only be understood in the context of their material circumstances. Through a review of what is known about children and poverty in Ireland today, North and South, this article highlights the causes and impact of poverty and makes the case for more resources to be committed to children and their carers in the interests of both social justice and economic prudence.

Inspectors increasingly expect providers to consult children and families over the services they receive, with leaders playing a crucial role in ensuring their views are listened to, writes Jo Stephenson

Children with AIDS are a small but growing population who present unique policy and practice challenges. Social workers must develop an understanding of the needs of this population and their families. Social supports must be created and worker skills must be developed.

This special issue overcomes the still existing reservations to analyze children's perspectives on politics and society. Dealing with different topics, research questions, and new data, the articles provide new insights and open the discussion for questions of children's involvement in civil society. The findings of these articles should be relevant for all researchers of childhood sociology, for civic educationalists and students of political learning and behavior. Questions investigated are, among others, how do children think about politics, democracy, and society? How do they express their political attitudes? What do children's political orientations and behavior look like? How politically knowledgeable are they and what are the reasons for between-group differences? What are important democratic learning contexts and factors that shape these orientations? And, last but not least, what methods can we use to analyze children's political involvement in an adequate manner?