Children as bearers of the dream

Abstract

These public programs have typically been advanced on the grounds that social and economic inequality is at least partly the result of a vicious cycle that can best be broken by intervening in the victim's childhood – that poor children have poor parents who will rear them poorly to lead poor lives unless society steps in to “help.” It has been generally assumed that programs of individual assistance to children caught in this cycle can enhance their social and intellectual development and therefore improve their life chances – that is, the likelihood that they will capitalize on opportunity to achieve secure, comfortable, or even rich status as adults. These are claims that programs to help individual children will help equalize opportunity for them, making the odds facing Bobby and Jimmy faker. Whether or not programs of assistance to individuals can do this is a matter of debate (and is discussed at some length in Chapter 3). But the interesting point is how quickly the hopes for more equal opportunity for all have been confused with the presumption that making opportunity more equal will reduce the overall extent of poverty or economic inequality in the society. For 150 years this has been a recurrent claim of public policy concerning children and concerning inequality.

Citation

de Lone, R.H. (2009), "Children as bearers of the dream", Qvortrup, J., Brown Rosier, K. and Kinney, D.A. (Ed.) Structural, Historical, and Comparative Perspectives (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 273-286. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-4661(2009)0000012016