Search results

This International Volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth shows the breadth of empirical research that focuses on children and youth around the world. Across these articles arranged by region, it becomes clear that we assume different ideas about what childhood is even though these are bound by both cultural and structural factors. We often take “children” or “youth” as a definitive given, and then seek to solve their problems or create policies that serve them. Rarely do we have the luxury of actually thinking about the meaning of these two words. This annual volume creates a space for this particular dialogue to take place. Across these research papers, cultural expectations influence how societies view children and how children view themselves. Immigrant children and youth provide particularly interesting insight as they navigate more than one cultural context and varying expectations for children as they negotiate who they are as individuals and children. Structural factors also become salient, as children come from unequal backgrounds and different levels of economic development, and face varying political concerns.

Identifying the qualities of primary care that have the potential to produce optimal health outcomes is only half the story. The Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) project has not only explored how to transfer these to other national contexts, but also which successful components should be transferred. It is important to assess the population criteria of the identified sociodemographic, cultural and social characteristics and the population perspectives on a care system’s components. The project analysed public experiences and perceptions of the quality of primary care for children from a representative sample of the general public in five European Union member states. The public perception of children’s primary care services, in particular the perceived quality of care and expectations with regard to care for children, is important to understand before MOCHA lessons can be effectively adopted in a country. We found that the socio-cultural characteristics of a country inform the population perceptions and preferences with regard to the care system. In the five countries surveyed, there was agreement about aspects of quality of care – such as accessible opening hours, confidential consultations for children and timeliness of consultation for an illness, but there was a difference in opinion about giving priority to items such as making an appointment without a referral, or a child’s right to a confidential consultation. The cultural context of transferability and the means of addressing this such as defining the target audience and the different means of disseminating important messages to the wider community to address contextual factors can act as barriers or facilitators to the introduction of new components of primary care models.

Whilst nations have overall responsibility for policies to protect and serve their populations, in many countries, health policy and policies for children are delegated to regions or other local administrations, which make it a challenging subject to explore at a national level. We sought to establish which countries had specific strategies for child and adolescent health care, and whether primary care, social care and the school–healthcare interface was described and planned for, within any policies that exist. In addition, we established the extent to which a child health strategy and meaningful reference to children’s records and care delivery exist in an e-health context. Of concern in the Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) context is that 40% of European Union and European Economic Area countries had reported no health strategy for children, and more than a half had no reference to supporting delivery of children’s health in their e-health strategy.

We investigated the differences in ownership and leadership of children’s policy, which was a range of ministry input (health, education, labour, welfare or ministries of youth and family); as well as cross-ministerial involvement. In terms of national policy planning and provider planning, we investigated the level of discussion, consultation and interaction between national healthcare bodies (including insurance bodies), providers and the public in policy implementation. The MOCHA project scrutinised the way countries aim to harness the latest technologies by means of e-health strategies, to support health services for children, and found that some had no explicit plans whereas a few were implementing significant innovation. Given that children are a key sector of the population, who by very nature have a need to rely on government and formally governed services for their well-being in the years when they cannot themselves seek or advocate for services, our findings are particularly worrying.

Purpose – This study aimed to describe the typhoid fever profiles based on the examination of IgM anti Salmonella in Cut Meutia Hospital, North Aceh, Indonesia, in 2016–2017.

Design/Methodology/Approach – IgM anti-Salmonella is a serological test which more quickly and accurately diagnoses typhoid fever. This is a cross-sectional study that used secondary data from medical records of a pediatric unit of patients diagnosed with typhoid fever from September 2016 to September 2017. This research identified 469 children based on age, sex, length of stay (LOS), and IgM anti-Salmonella test by univariate analysis.

Findings – The results showed that 56 children (12%) aged 1–5 years old, 164 children (34.9%) aged 6–11 years old, and 246 children (53.1%) > 12 years old, and among them, 46.8% were male. There were 53.7% who had +≥ 6 of IgM anti-Salmonella test and 46.3% had +4 to +5. We found that LOS less than 7 days was 81.4% and LOS more than 7 days was 18.6%. Typhoid fever profiles in Cut Meutia Hospital were common in children aged >12 years old, females, had +≥ 6 of IgM anti-Salmonella test, and LOS less than 7 days.

Research Limitations/Implications – Typhoid fever is an acute systemic infection caused by Salmonella enteric, a serotype typhi. Typhoid fever commonly attacks children and the symptoms experienced were lighter than adults.

Practical Implications – LOS in children with typhoid fever in this research concluded that there were more children with LOS < 7 days compared with those with a duration of ≥ 7 days, that is 382 children (81.4%) and 87 children (18.6%), respectively.

Originality value – From this research, it is concluded that there were 217 children (46.3%) diagnosed with typhoid fever with IgM anti-Salmonella test ranging from +4 up to +5 and 252 children (53.7%) with IgM anti-Salmonella test ≥ 6.

Over the course of a two-year project, we set out to investigate the mathematics in children's everyday lives. We recognised the fact that this was a challenging project and that gaining access to children's personal lives would take time and some careful research design. A particular challenge centred on the difficulty of ensuring that our participants shared our understanding of ‘mathematics in everyday life’ and were happy and confident in sharing examples with us. In this chapter, we describe the way that we gradually increased the depth of our understanding of children's experience of mathematics outside of school through a series of studies with groups of primary school children. A structured diary study, and parental survey, allowed us to start a conversation with our participants about the kinds of activities we were interested in. A photo elicitation study then encouraged participants to cross the home-school boundary and share representations of their lives outside of school. These studies enabled us to develop enough of a shared language to carry out small group interviews with children and explore the mathematical thinking and learning in their out-of-school lives.

In this chapter, we will look at the worldwide issues that children face and the recommendations made by international organisations (UNICEF, WHO, OECD) to help them salvage their future. Moreover, we attempt to identify and comprehend the elements that contribute to Norway's position as a top-performing country on worldwide children's indices. Norway outperformed nearly 200 other countries and was ranked first in the world. In 2017, it ranked first in the Child Development Index and the Kids Rights Index. ‘The greatest country in the world to be a child is Norway’ (De Neve & Krekel, 2020).

The child is humanity's future; childhood experiences shape future social life and culture. Happier children, and thus happier societies, are the result of a proper definition and comprehension of the child and his/her childhood period and the elimination of harmful behaviours and attitudes towards children during their formative years. Childhood is a distinct period in various communities and historical periods.

When dealing with childhood and the history of childhood around the world, all types of information, documents and items that are assumed to be directly or indirectly related to the child will contribute to understanding the place of childhood in the historical process. The importance of the child's role in history was recognised, and childhood was encouraged in historical research. Understanding the historical changes in the concept of childhood will influence children's positive development and perceptions of childhood. As a result, we wanted to examine childhood through the lens of history.