Children's Leisure Research Articles

Conditional Cash Transfers and Their Impact on Child Work and Schooling: Evidence from the PROGRESA Program in Mexico

In this paper we investigate whether a conditional cash transfer program such as the Programa Nacional de EducaciA³n, Salud y AlimentaciA³n (PROGRESA) can simultaneously combat the problems of low school attendance and child work. PROGRESA is a new program of the Mexican government aimed at alleviating extreme poverty in rural areas. It combats the different causes of poverty by providing cash benefits that are targeted directly to households on the condition of children attending school and visiting health clinics on a regular basis. Some of the questions addressed are as follows: Does the program reduce child labor? Does it increase participation in school activities? Does the latter occur at the expense of children's leisure time? And how do the effects of the program vary by age group and gender? Our empirical analysis relies on data from a quasi-experimental design used to evaluate the impact of the program involving a sample of communities that receive PROGRESA benefits (treatment) and comparable communities that receive benefits at a later time (control). We estimate the effect of treatment on the treated using both double-difference and cross sectional difference estimators. Our estimates show significant increases in the school attendance of boys and girls that are accompanied by significant reductions in the participation of boys and girls in work activities. We also find that the program has a lower impact on the incidence of work for girls relative to boys.

Are We Welcome? African American Racial Acceptance in Leisure Activities and the Importance Given to Children's Leisure

This study investigated differences between middle-class African American and middle-class European American adults in their perceptions of how “welcome” African Americans are in 20 leisure activities common to the study area, and in the importance given to children's participation in these activities. A random sample of 45 blocks from a southern U.S.A. metropolitan census tract composed of racially integrated middle-class neighborhoods yielded 124 African American and 170 European American households who rated the activities on Likert-type scales. Using 2-tailed t tests, with an F (folded) statistic to test for equality of the 2 variances, and a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparison tests, significant differences (p <.001) between African Americans and European Americans were found for 16 activities (80%) on “welcome” scale scores, and 10 activities (50%) on children's “importance” scale scores. When scale scores were ranked, a strong association was shown between the racial groups for both “welcome” (R =.95, p <.001) and “importance” measures (R =.48, p <.05). The present study suggests three major conclusions: (a) Middle-class African Americans and middle-class European Americans strongly agree on where African Americans are most likely to be welcomed and where they will not be welcomed, (b) Middle-class African Americans feel much less welcome in most leisure activities than middle-class European Americans believe, and (c) Middle-class African Americans and middle-class European Americans, when thinking of themselves as parents, believe many of the same leisure activities are important for children; however, European Americans rated many more leisure activities as very important when compared to African Americans.

Revitalizing the American Home: Children's Leisure and the Revaluation of Play, 1920-1940

Journal Article Revitalizing the American Home: Children's Leisure and the Revaluation of Play, 1920–1940 Get access Lisa Jacobson Lisa Jacobson University of California, Los Angeles, Department of HistoryLos Angeles, CA 90095 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 30, Issue 3, Spring 1997, Pages 581–596, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh/30.3.581 Published: 01 March 1997

Play Through the Eyes of Children: Use of Cameras to Study after-school Use of Leisure Time and Leisure Space by Pre-adolescent Children

Abstract This paper reports on the use of cameras by children to record how they used their play environments during after-school play in an Australian provincial city. The study was one of six carried out concurrently to illuminate the complexity of children's after-school leisure and the environment in which it takes place. Twenty four children, twelve boys and twelve girls, were issued with disposable cameras to photograph their play in after-school time and leisure space. They produced 342 usable images which were analyzed by location, setting and activities. There was no measurable gender difference in choice of play location, but place of residence strongly influenced this choice. Both boys and girls had a strong tendency to choose open and natural locations, and naturalistic settings dominated play spaces. While the expected multiplicity of activities in children's free play is demonstrated in the photographs, so is the importance of solitude and reflection. The photos also reveal a much higher inc...

L'apport d'Henri Wallon à la connaissance de l'enfant

The originality of Henri Wallon's contribution to our understanding of the young child lies principally in the emphasis he places on the study of its early socialization and the importance of it's social environment. Henri Wallon pays particular attention to the child's leisure activities.

Televisiekykpatrone en videogebruik by die skoolgaande jeug – 'n telefoonopname

SUMMARY In this study aspects of the television viewing habits and video usage of standard 3 to 10 pupils in 1983 were investigated by means of a telephone survey. The investigation confirmed that watching television is a very popular pastime and that a substantial proportion of children's leisure time is taken up by television viewing, especially Friday nights and Saturdays. The programmes mostly preferred by school children were Magnum and Knight Rider. It therefore seems that children prefer light entertainment programmes to programmes that make a demand on their cognitive ability. The use of videos is increasing in popularity and the results of this investigation revealed that videos are by no means strange to children – more than 75% of the respondents said that they had watched videofilms from time to time. It therefore seems that the electronic media play an important role in the lives of pupils.

Schools and communities in Hungary

The democratic reform of public education in Hungary after the Second World War brought about a system which now includes Day-Care from the ages of 4–6 and compulsory Elementary School education up to the age of 16. A high proportion of students go on to Secondary education in vocational schools, special schools or grammar shools. The system is supplemented by career-counselling and provision for children with difficult home-backgrounds and for the mentally-retarded. District Councils are responsible for the schools in their areas and for the zoning that determines which schools children should attend. The environment of a school has a strong influence not only upon the standard of its facilities and the quality of its staff but also upon the function it is expected to fulfil in the community. Achievement is directly related to the degree of urbanization, but the increasing participation of farming-co-operatives in education in rural areas promises well for the development of better facilities and mutual understanding there. Housing estates in high-density residential areas make special demands which are being met in different ways. The role of the school in general is being expanded to include children's leisure time activities; at the same time factories are making a significant contribution locally through vocational guidance, financial help, and training-for-work programmes. Councils are implementing the requirements of public education resolutions to integrate school education into the whole scheme of public education, co-ordinating the activities of all social and cultural institutions, and developing new multi-functional complexes, to give a more effective and efficient service to the whole community.

Homework: a neglected research area

Homework is a controversial issue. Its advocates claim that it encourages student initiative, develops independent learning skills, and allows time for practice and application of what has been learned in school. Its critics argue that it encroaches upon children's leisure time and denies them access to community activities. They also see homework as a powerful instrument of class discrimination in the sense that children from lower income homes often do not have conditions appropriate for home study and must compete on unequal terms with their middle class peers. The overview of homework research in this paper is intended to serve as a basis for identifying several important conceptual and methodological problems, and hopefully to stimulate some interest in what has been a somewhat neglected area of educational research. No attempt is made to provide an exhaustive review of the available research, and no reference is made to studies of homework at the college or university levels. The main concern is with studies which have explored the relationships between various homework practices and the achievement of children at the primary and secondary school levels. In the first half of the paper some of these studies are described in detail to illustrate the nature of the research and its problems. The discussion in the latter part of the paper relates to methodological and conceptual issues and is summarised by a model for homework research. There have been ample statements of opinion and numerous reports of practices, but surprisingly few well-designed studies which might support any particular viewpoint on the kind or amount of homework which should be assigned. Goldstein (1960) reported that of 280 articles on homework over the 30 years prior to 1958, only 17 were original reports of experimental research. Hedges (1971) reviewed 40 'thorough' studies which had been published since 1954 and concluded that there was no firm or comprehensive research evidence on the various facets of homework. In the same year Rosenshine (1971) noted that there had been no study of actual classroom behaviour related to homework. Rosenshine's comment does

Children's Leisure

Children's Leisure

The School and Children's Leisure

The School and Children's Leisure