Definition Of Childhood Research Articles

Comparative analysis of adolescent hypertension definitions for predicting early-adulthood carotid artery intima-media thickness: Tehran lipid and glucose study.

Definitions of childhood and adolescent hypertension (HTN) do not precisely elucidate the relationship between HTN and cardiovascular outcomes. Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT), as a substitute for cardiovascular outcomes, enables the early identification of cardiovascular events throughout early adulthood. This study aimed to compare the ability of childhood HTN definitions to predict a high CIMT in early adulthood. This prospective cohort study included 921 individuals aged 10-17 years from the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study (TLGS). The CIMT was measured after 18 years of follow-up. Participants were categorized into normal blood pressure (BP), high-normal BP, HTN stage 1, and HTN stage 2 groups based on the childhood HTN definitions of the 4th report, European Society of Hypertension (ESH), and American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Practice Guidelines (AAP-CPG). Akaike's information criterion (AIC) and relative efficiencies (RE) were calculated to compare the ability of each to predict a high CIMT (≥95th percentile) during early adulthood. The highest and lowest prevalence of stage 1 HTN was observed with the AAP-CPG (17.7%) and ESH (8.8%), respectively. Similarly, the highest and lowest prevalence of stage 2 HTN was noted with the AAP-CPG (1.5%) and ESH (0.8%), respectively. According to the RE values, the highest to lowest predictive abilities belonged to the 4th report, ESH, and AAP-CPG, respectively. In all models, the 4th report's pediatric HTN definition had the lowest AIC value and offered the best predictive ability. Among the various definitions of pediatric HTN, the 4th report offered the best ability to predict a high CIMT during early adulthood, followed by the ESH and AAP-CPG. Because the reference population of the 4th report includes overweight, obese, and normal-weight individuals, our findings suggest that excessive adiposity is among the main predictors of early adulthood atherosclerosis risk.

Afterlives: Testimonies of Irish Catholic Mothers on Infant Death and the Fate of the Unbaptized

Older Irish Catholics remember a metaphysical space or place called Limbo. This was the destination of unbaptized infants. They could never enter Heaven because the stain of original sin had not been removed. In addition, they were denied burial in consecrated ground. Fear of such eventualities drove parents to baptize as soon as possible. Nor was this a purely Irish phenomenon. In emergency cases, even baptism in utero was permitted in some parts of Catholic Europe. The centerpiece of this study is the testimonies of Irish mothers and their remembrances of the perils of Limbo, the disposal of infant corpses (in cillíní), and “churching.” Why belief in Limbo has become almost extinct in recent decades is explored, drawing on both demand and supply side explanations. More generally, considerations of Limbo, the unbaptized, and the afterlife give rise to challenging questions as to secularization and even the definition of childhood.

The Problem of Modern Pederasty in Queer History

Intergenerational sex between children or youth and adults was historically common, but it is understudied within the historiography of sexuality. There are three reasons that historians of sexuality should pay greater attention to intergenerational sex. First, it was common; second, discourse around intergenerational sex has been a critical site for the production of power; and third, studying intergenerational sex illuminates how sexuality is historically constructed. However, studying intergenerational sex also raises thorny methodological problems around definitions of childhood and consent, the treatment of children’s agency, and how to contextualize a practice that was once considered ordinary but is now taboo. Using examples from my research on the writer and notorious pederast Norman Douglas, I address each of these methodological concerns and suggest productive approaches.

Reinventing Play

In postwar France, the definition of play helped to situate the meaning of childhood in a manner that marginalized disabled children from the common understanding of childhood. Three thinkers—Françoise Dolto, Maud Mannoni, and Fernand Deligny—all advocated more nuanced and open definitions of play that allowed for the recognition of disabled children’s forms of play, which often operated outside of social norms. In their practices, each of these thinkers articulated new interpretations of play that expanded its meaning in social and therapeutic contexts. This recognition was important in questioning the isolation of disabled children, in identifying their belonging among other children, and in revealing the changing boundaries of definitions of childhood.

Sandcastles, Ball Games, and Scooters

By the interwar years, Parisian parks—artificial pockets of nature in the densely built city—had become a locus of debates around “child-friendly play spaces.” The diversity of Paris’s young population in age, gender, and social status meant that the criteria of what constituted “child-friendly” was constantly in flux and that definitions of childhood remained fluid. Interwar Parisian parks became spaces of debate over proper forms of outdoor play and the risks children faced while playing. Municipal administrators and elected municipal councilors, together with pedagogues and parents, mutually constructed the spaces of parks and park-use policies. Children’s presence in public acted both as an incentive and a challenge in creating municipal policies to regulate public spaces or in reconfiguring the organization of these spaces. Municipal council debates, parents’ petitions or complaints, reports filed by neighborhood representatives, and daily logs recorded by park guards all reveal how children’s actions in green spaces played a pivotal role in the making and remaking of the urban environment.

Histories of Childhood in the Caribbean: New Perspectives and Methodologies

Histories of Childhood in the CaribbeanNew Perspectives and Methodologies Shani Roper (bio) "Children are to be seen but not heard" is a popular refrain that reflects socio-cultural attitudes and beliefs that silence the voices of children in the present, in the traditional archive and in the past. In the Caribbean, existing socio-cultural attitudes towards children, child-welfare policies and institutions owe their existence to late nineteenth and early twentieth-century imperial concerns about creating civilized colonial states. Children were and continue to be at the centre of this discourse, especially as it relates to harnessing their potential labour and to creating good "citizens". Given the centrality of children to debates on national development, gender justice and public health, how do we uncover their historical lives and experiences? What methodologies do we use to centre children's experiences and perspectives and what are the tensions within age categories that delineate the boundaries between infancy, childhood, youth and adulthood? Childhood is a pliable social construct that varies based on time, geography, class, race, gender, economics, religion and cultural belief systems. Today, childhood is defined as a period of dependency and submission, necessitating adult guidance. This definition obscures the ways in which children express their ideas and challenge the landscapes they occupy. Limited archival data as well as changing age categories after Emancipation make it difficult to access children's historical perspectives. As scholars of Caribbean slave and post-slave societies, we recognize the inherent biases of the archives with which we work–archives constructed from the perspective of imperial and colonial agents which undermine, demean and dismiss the agency of oppressed [End Page 187] groups. Constructed as "othered" within these discourses, Afro-Caribbean are hyper-visible meanwhile more privileged children, considered normal, are rendered invisible. Colonial administrators singled out children of African descent as delinquents and victims of unstable families.1 It was the perpetual need to control the movement of black labour that brought Afro-Caribbean children to the forefront. Scholars are, therefore, forced to "read along biased grain of the archive" to reveal a more nuanced understanding of Caribbean societies and uncover the lives of children.2 Centring children within the histories of colonial and post-colonial Caribbean societies ultimately changes our understanding of significant historical events as children are never powerbrokers or decision makers. Attitudes towards children and their role in society changed in response to decolonization and political independence. These events had a direct impact on the quality of life of the average child. Studies of childhood in the early twentieth century must consider the impact of global and colonial child-saving movements in the colonies and their impact on local efforts to improve child nutrition, child welfare, and maternal and public health. How did attitudes towards children change over the course of the twentieth century? Did political independence change attitudes towards children or how did definitions of childhood and youth change in response to socio-political, religious and cultural discourse within colonial spaces? Very few historical studies on Africa and the Caribbean explore childhood or produce colonial histories from children's perspectives. Rather, children's experiences are linked to or explored within the context of women's experiences, Afro-Caribbean families and the education system. While histories of education and educational institutions position children as receptacles shaped by societal values, in the scholarship children and youth are rarely conceptualized as individuals who challenged, negotiated and reconceptualized colonial subject-hood. Saheed Aderinto's 2015 edited collection Children and Childhood in Colonial Nigerian Histories argues that the history of children is "submerged in a larger history of state and empire formation, colonialism, modernity and socio-political transformation".3 It is this submersion that silences children's roles as subjects challenging and shaping race, class and gender discourse within colonial societies. Beverley Grier, in her study of children's labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, posits that "children and adolescents are the 'invisible hands' whose labor [sic] was involved in substantial ways in the capitalist [End Page 188] transformation of Zimbabwe".4 For these scholars, childhood is a site of contention and negotiation. Studies of childhood in Africa, therefore, explore the conflict between colonial perspectives on childhood and local...

The parent: A cultural invention. The politics of parenting

The welfare state interventionist position vis-à-vis families in Sweden during the twentieth century was justified by claims of parental incompetence and children’s need for protection. Childhood was regarded as a period of growing but simultaneously a period with social rights. The development of government responsibility in support of parenting during the twentieth century reflected such an understanding of childhood. In social policy children were addressed as individual agents in the family. As a consequence, the competent child was discovered, and the need for government support of parents was cast in a new light. The need to develop parental competence became a focal point of government educational initiatives/programs at the same time as children were viewed as human moral models. Children were ascribed agency and competence with adult-like rights while the role of the welfare state scaled down in the wake of economic crises. This new imagery was underwritten by international conventions in the definition of childhood.

La infancia como sujeto de derechos. Un análisis crítico

The following work has the general objective of making a critical reflection on the definition of childhood as a subject of rights. For the analysis, a deconstruction of the concept “subjects of rights” is made in light of the theory of biopower, proposed by Foucault, and the contributions of the critical theory of Giroux. Likewise, it proceeds with a resignification of the face of childhoods, alluding to those devices of power that prevent the subjects, for whom the policies of “protection of childhood” were built, from accessing them. Finally, the situation of children in Colombia is analyzed, in relation to the four areas of law posed by the public policy of comprehensive attention.

"Child! Now you are": Identity Registration, Labor, and the Definition of Childhood in Colonial Tanganyika, 1910-1950.

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between identity registration and the regulation of child labor in colonial Tanganyika. The lack of identity registration in colonial Africa rendered childhood a malleable concept that could be variously manipulated. In Tanganyika, children were employed in both industrial and agricultural settings, working for both kin and non-kin, including in large colonial concerns. The lack of age data precluded regulation of labor and sparked debate about how to identify a child. Different actors defined “childhood” to suit their own ends, leading to both the exploitation and the empowerment of the Tanganyikan child. The discussion is situated against wider consideration of the role of civil registration in enabling child protection.

Un análisis de los usos de las lenguas (indígena y no indígena) entre niños toba/qom y mbýa de Argentina en experiencias lúdicas

In view of their bilingualism, these communities adopt specific strategies to everyday language use. This paper addresses the development of communication skills in less dominant languages in bilingual children from Argentina’s indigenous communities (Toba / Qom and Mbya). In particular, we set out to emphasize how certain recreational practices have impacted on use of less dominant languages among children in these groups (Toba / Qom in the first case, and Spanish in the second). The article is organized into five sections. It begins with a brief contextualization of the sociolinguistic situation of the languages spoken in the empirical referents analysed, to facilitate understanding of the importance and singularity of the case studies presented. We go on to develop the methodology supporting our research and finally consider the selected theoretical framework regarding the anthropology of childhood, while revisiting a number of anthropological contributions to studies on play and language. We also refer to the Toba / Qom and Mbya definitions of childhood and analyse games and language use among children.

Prohibiting the Use of Child Soldiers: Contested Norm in Contemporary Human Rights Discourse

ABSTRACTThe evolution of international instruments which address the phenomenon of child soldiers demonstrates the international legal community's endeavor to delineate childhood as a violence-free space, in need of special protection. This article explores the development of international legal thought and responses to the problem of child soldiers and addresses the research question: has the prohibition regime on child soldiers achieved the status of international customary law? This article will consider the development of legal responses within two domains of international law – International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law – in light of the broader debate on the definition of childhood. This article outlines contested elements of the norms and legal documents and argues that though some key elements of the prohibition regime have attained the status of international customary law; there is a need develop the international legal framework further and ensure a clear definition of the beneficiaries of the law.

A Legal Analysis of the Nebulous Concept of Childhood in Nigeria

The legal concept of childhood is a tinker for the application of different principles in diverse aspects of law including criminal law, contract, property law, family law and even international law. However, this concept has remained a puzzle because of its lack of uniformity in Nigerian domestic jurisdiction. Childhood is characterised differently in legal instruments depending on the purpose of the particular law. This paper analyzed the concept within Nigerian domestic legal system with the view of reconciling the different provisions on the determination of childhood and ascertaining the most probable stage of distinction between childhood and adulthood under Nigerian law. The paper concluded that despite the legal pluralism in Nigeria and the nebulous concept of childhood within the vast body of rules applicable in the country, it is possible to find a synthesis of these norms under the Child’s Rights Act in the definition of childhood.

Local Needs and Global Indicators : A Contextual Approach to Multidimensional Child Deprivation

This article focuses on the socio-political construction of childhood in Iran after the 1979 revolution and its influence on multidimensional child deprivation. It presents evidence that suggests that the revolution, and the ideological and political forces that emerged in its aftermath, established a particular definition of childhood based on Islamic law among the country’s policy makers. This particular definition in turn led to some normative legal and institutional changes that shaped children’s legal rights in Iran with significant differences between girls and boys. Therefore, the study claims that one important initial step in defining dimensions of child deprivation in Iran is defining childhood in the given historical period. The article applies a framework that combines two approaches in order to define different dimensions of child deprivation in Iran: the Capability Approach and the Rights Based Approach. Accordingly, a list of child deprivation dimensions are introduced for the Iranian context.

En la Argentina peronista «Los únicos privilegiados son los niños» (1946-1955). La doctrina desde la Biblioteca Infantil «General Perón»

Las definiciones y descripciones de los mecanismos para distinguir a los niños como <em>«privilegiados» </em>y augurarles un futuro promisorio, para el peronismo marchan unidas a dos cuestiones clave: 1) el enunciado de los medios para lograr una niñez sin carencias y 2) la valoración política que de ella se hace a partir de un discurso y de un mensaje que se alimenta del contraste entre la <em>«Nueva Argentina»</em> y la Argentina oligárquica. Estos temas —junto con el significado sociopolítico del trabajo y la educación— forman parte del objetivo propuesto en este estudio para hacer un balance del significado de aquella frase difundida en la Argentina de Perón, que señalaba con énfasis que <em>«los únicos privilegiados son los niños»</em>. ¿A qué hacía referencia la consigna?, ¿en qué consistían esos <em>«privilegios»</em>?, ¿qué lugar ocupan los textos dedicados a la recreación y la educación infantil de entonces, como los libros de la <em>Biblioteca Infantil «General Perón»</em> editados en 1948, que aquí se analizan?, ¿cómo son los espacios de socialización, educación y recreación para niños?, en el escenario del gobierno nacionalista y popular de Juan Domingo Perón.

Family-centered care for hospitalized children aged 0-12 years: a systematic review of qualitative studies

Review question/objective The objective of the review is to synthesise the existing evidence on family and/or health providers’ experience of family-centred models of care for hospitalised children aged 0-12 years (excluding premature neonates). (*Some sections of this protocol are adopted or adapted from the Cochrane Systematic Review of family-centred care in hospitalised children 0-12 years (2007)1 and its update (2012)2 and are published here with permission from Wiley. A more detailed discussion of the development of the concept of family-centred care is available in these publications.) This review will consider studies that include hospitalised children aged 0-12 years (but excluding premature neonates), their family and/or health providers. Definitions Child/children: throughout this review, the term 'child' or 'children' is used to include all newborn infants, babies and children up to the age of 12 years being cared for in hospital; and all parts of hospitals that provide a service to children. The definitions of childhood can vary, and age limits are arbitrary. For the purpose of this review the National Library of Medicine's medical subject headings were used to define the age cut off of 12 years. However, we have excluded neonates born prematurely and who are patients in a neonatal intensive or special care nursery, as their requirements for family-centred care, and the ethics and philosophies of care around this particular group, are different to those in a ward/unit where full term infants and children are nursed.40 We have excluded studies about adolescents for similar reasons. Families: throughout the review the following definition of the family will be applied: The family is a basic social unit having as its nucleus two or more persons, irrespective of age, in which each of the following conditions are present: the members are related by blood, or marriage, or adoption, or by a contract which is either explicit or implied;the members communicate with each other in terms of defined social roles such as mother, father, wife, husband, daughter, son, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt; and they adopt or create and maintain common customs and traditions. TRUNCATED AT 350 WORDS

Childhood as a question of critiques and justifications: Insights into Boltanski’s sociology

In France, definitions of childhood and relations between adults (parents, professionals, public authorities, scientists, even sociologists …) and children, continue to be matters of debate in everyday life, scientific practices and political arenas. This article intends to show how these debates can be analysed as an object of research, using Boltanski’s sociological model of Justification. The presentation of this framework highlights its relations to the contributions of two other French sociologists whose works are not directly interested in childhood: Bourdieu and Latour. It is centred on two main aspects of this model: the study of operations of critiques and justifications based on a pragmatic sociology of critique and the idea of its double requirement: equality and order between human beings. It shows how this framework can be useful for thinking about childhood–adulthood relations as a moral and political order which is an object of debates. Then, from an historical example, the author proposes a short case study of what may be called an analysis of the moral sense of justice towards children.

‘These Happen To Be My Own’: The loss of childhood identity and the idea of a self

Scholars of childhood and child-centered education draw attention to the multiple accounts of the child that have attended its brief history. In this article I read George Orwell’s ‘Such, such were the joys’ as a demonstration of the contradictions inherent in our notions of childhood, but also as a possible model for understanding how conflicted definitions of childhood contribute to the modern subject’s sense of identity. Following Orwell’s claim that he can hold two contradictory accounts of his childhood because ‘these happen to be my own memories’, I demonstrate his reliance on well-established ideas about childhood that are clearly not his own, but that nonetheless shape the way he understands his own childhood. Developing the inherent opposition between these two strands of thought on the child, I argue that holding both at once allows the modern subject to maintain a sense of self against the othering forces of formal education.

Taxonomy for systemic lupus erythematosus with onset before adulthood

To propose a common nomenclature to refer to individuals who fulfill the American College of Rheumatology classification criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) during childhood or adolescence. The medical literature was reviewed for studies conducted in the target population between 1960 and December 2011 to obtain information about the terms used to refer to such children and adolescents. We reviewed the threshold ages used and disease features considered to discriminate these individuals from patients with onset of SLE during adulthood. Furthermore, the nomenclature used in other chronic diseases with onset during both childhood and adulthood was assessed. There was an astonishing variability in the age cutoffs used to define SLE onset prior to adulthood, ranging from 14-21 years, but most studies used age 18 years. The principal synonyms in the medical literature were SLE without reference to the age at onset of disease, childhood-onset SLE, juvenile SLE, and pediatric (or paediatric) SLE. Based on the definition of childhood, in analogy with other complex chronic diseases commencing prior to adulthood, and given the current absence of definite genetic variations that discriminate adults from children, the term childhood-onset SLE is proposed when referring to individuals with onset of SLE prior to age 18 years.

Deliberative Democratic Evaluation in Preschools

In this study, the merit of using deliberative democratic evaluations is studied in light of ten questions asked by House and Howe, which defined the approach and raise issues of interests, representation, and choice of stakeholders, power balances and procedures for controlling them, participation, reflection and deliberation. Suggestions by Clark and Moss for using a mosaic approach were followed. This indicates, when listening to children, many fragments integrate into a whole picture. The emphasis here was on listening to children's views and defining values and evaluation criteria so that they reflect our definition of childhood and quality of childcare. Children had other priorities than parents and staff in some instances, for example regarding length of stay and autonomy. Greene's issues of power, core matters, and biases were utilized for reflection on issues.

Family-centred care for hospitalized children aged 0-12 Years: A systematic review of qualitative studies.

Review question/objective The objective of the review is to synthesise the existing evidence on family and/or health providers’ experience of family-centred models of care for hospitalised children aged 0-12 years (excluding premature neonates). (*Some sections of this protocol are adopted or adapted from the Cochrane Systematic Review of family-centred care in hospitalised children 0-12 years (2007)1 and its update (2012)2 and are published here with permission from Wiley. A more detailed discussion of the development of the concept of family-centred care is available in these publications.) This review will consider studies that include hospitalised children aged 0-12 years (but excluding premature neonates), their family and/or health providers. Definitions Child/children: throughout this review, the term 'child' or 'children' is used to include all newborn infants, babies and children up to the age of 12 years being cared for in hospital; and all parts of hospitals that provide a service to children. The definitions of childhood can vary, and age limits are arbitrary. For the purpose of this review the National Library of Medicine's medical subject headings were used to define the age cut off of 12 years. However, we have excluded neonates born prematurely and who are patients in a neonatal intensive or special care nursery, as their requirements for family-centred care, and the ethics and philosophies of care around this particular group, are different to those in a ward/unit where full term infants and children are nursed.40 We have excluded studies about adolescents for similar reasons. Families: throughout the review the following definition of the family will be applied: The family is a basic social unit having as its nucleus two or more persons, irrespective of age, in which each of the following conditions are present: the members are related by blood, or marriage, or adoption, or by a contract which is either explicit or implied;the members communicate with each other in terms of defined social roles such as mother, father, wife, husband, daughter, son, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt; and they adopt or create and maintain common customs and traditions. TRUNCATED AT 350 WORDS