Journal articles on the topic 'Children and Young Persons Act 1933'

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1

Godsland, J. H., and N. G. Fielding. "Young Persons Convicted of Grave Crimes: the 1933 Children and Young Persons Act (S.53) and its Effect Upon Children's Rights." Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 24, no. 4 (November 1985): 282–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2311.1985.tb00536.x.

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2

Quéma, Anne. "A culture of retribution: symbolic violence in legal and literary discourses on juvenile delinquency." International Journal of Law in Context 2, no. 2 (June 2006): 159–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1744552306002035.

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This article seeks to establish law and literature as two distinct yet interacting fields through which the norms of a particular culture are filtered. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory, it suggests that legal and literary statements are contextualised by norms and values that exert symbolic violence to the extent that, through communication and knowledge, they define social subjects and their material practices. The specific objective of this article is to map out the network of relationships between the apparently separate fields of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and the Criminal Justice Act 1948 and Alan Sillitoe’s The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, and to understand the ways in which law and literature related to symbolic violence as they created, maintained or countered norms which constituted the English culture of juvenile offenders in the 1950s.
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3

Puri, B. K., M. T. Lambert, and C. C. Cordess. "Characteristics of Young Offenders Detained under Section 53(2) at a Young Offenders' Institution." Medicine, Science and the Law 36, no. 1 (January 1996): 69–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002580249603600113.

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The objective of the study was to investigate the medical and psychiatric characteristics and needs of detainees held under s.53(2) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. A case-note study of all subjects detained under s.53(2) at a young offenders' institution was carried out and their psychologists and medical officer interviewed. The subjects had a high risk of having experienced family disruption, of psychoactive substance abuse, and poor educational progress, and they were more likely than the general population to be Afro-Caribbean or of mixed race. They were psychologically vulnerable and could become suicidal when exposed to risk factors such as bullying and not being visited often by friends and relatives. However, there was a lack of information available about the subjects in many important areas including assessment of needs for special education, of truancy, expulsions, child guidance clinic attendance, and placement on child protection registers. It was not clear whether these young people had been significantly in contact with services as children or whether they had slipped through the net. In conclusion, the most important finding was a worrying lack of information about this group. From the information available they were clearly atypical. More research is needed; more adequate information, for example with respect to physical and sexual abuse, child rearing, education, peer relationships, and contact with specialist health and social services, would assist in the development of services for the treatment of these serious young offenders and for prevention.
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4

Leggett, Zach. "The Effect of s. 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 when a Person Attains the Age of 18: JC and RT v Central Criminal Court [2014] EWHC 1041 (QB)." Journal of Criminal Law 78, no. 5 (October 2014): 368–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/jcla.2014.78.5.935.

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5

Hassall, Ian. "The Children Young Persons and their Families Act 1989." Children Australia 17, no. 4 (1992): 5–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1035077200012645.

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Since November 1989 New Zealand has had new statutory care and protection and youth justice procedures. They differ substantially from the procedures under the old 1974 act. For the majority of cases, the disposition of the child, services provided and, in the case of offending, any penalties or restitution imposed are now the responsibility of the family rather than the Court.This responsibility is exercised through a new official process called the Family Group Conference, at which the State is represented but in which the decision-making power is expected to rest largely with the family. Only if this fails or if the offence falls into the most serious of categories is the matter passed to the Court. A new group of officials has been created to co-ordinate the process. They are known as Youth Justice and Care and Protection Co-ordinators.
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6

Dimond, Bridgit. "The Mental Capacity Act 2005: children and young persons." British Journal of Nursing 17, no. 4 (February 2008): 248–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2008.17.4.28720.

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7

Beverley, P. "The Scope of Safety Warrants Under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989." Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 27, no. 2 (July 1, 1997): 301. http://dx.doi.org/10.26686/vuwlr.v27i2.6116.

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The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 ("CYPF Act") recognises that the interests of a child will be generally best served within the family unit. This recognition is subject to the qualification that a child should be removed from that unit whenever there is an unacceptable risk of harm to that child. This analysis will consider one mechanism provided by the Act to facilitate such removal, and the effect of the Court of Appeal decision in R v Kahu.
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8

Wilson, Hannah. "Swings and Roundabouts: Evaluating the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Act 2010, s 14." Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 42, no. 3 (October 3, 2011): 561. http://dx.doi.org/10.26686/vuwlr.v42i3.5118.

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The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Act 2010, which came into effect on 1 October 2010, could be considered the most significant change to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act since its introduction in 1989. The new Act has two main functions: it extends the jurisdiction of the Youth Court and gives the Court a new range of orders. This paper analyses s 14 of the new Act which extends the jurisdiction to 12 and 13 year old serious and recidivist offenders. The paper assesses what problem Parliament was trying to address with this amendment. It argues that the change in jurisdiction could be said to be motivated by populist politics rather than addressing a known change in child offending. The paper then explores how s 14 changes the underlying assumptions about the level of responsibility we attribute to children. It then recommends that serious and recidivist offenders continue to be dealt with by the Family Court. The paper acknowledges, however, that changes could be made to strengthen the Family Court's existing powers to ensure children are dealt with more effectively.
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9

Ernst, Joy Swanson. "Culture and child welfare." International Social Work 44, no. 2 (April 2001): 163–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002087280104400203.

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This article examines child welfare practices under New Zealand’s Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act of 1989. Insights offered by New Zealand’s experiences fall under four interrelated areas: the recognition of culture, the meaning of family and belonging, partnership with families, and the issues surrounding support and supervision.
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10

Ainsworth, Frank, and Patricia Hansen. "Establishing Adoption as a Route Out of Care in New South Wales: A Commentary." Children Australia 41, no. 3 (August 17, 2016): 232–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cha.2016.26.

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Over the last 25 years (1990–2015), the number of adoptions of children (and young persons) in Australia declined from 1,142 to 292 (25.5 %). Of the 292 adoptions that took place in 2014–15, 83 (28%) were inter country adoptions, with the remaining 209 (72 %) adoptions of Australian children. Very few of the adoptions of Australian children were in New South Wales. In amendments in 2014 to the New South Wales Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 and the Adoptions Act 2000, a new emphasis on ‘open’ adoption was introduced. The focus of these amendments is on adoption of children who are in foster care where the New South Wales Children's Court has ruled that there is no realistic possibility of restoration of the child to parental care. This article is about the implementation of this new legislative emphasis on adoption. It does not examine the benefit or otherwise of adoption for children who cannot be safely restored to parental care as this issue has been extensively canvassed elsewhere. This article also highlights the US and English experience of adoption from care in order to place the New South Wales development in perspective. The article concludes with discussion of the issues adoption raises for the parents of a child who is being considered for adoption from care.
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11

Bae, Sunghyun, and Byoungin Lee. "A Study on Analysis of Domestic Research Trends related to Transition Support into Elementary School for Young Children with Disabilities Using the Integrative Literature Review." Korean Journal of Early Childhood Special Education 22, no. 4 (December 31, 2022): 135–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.21214/kecse.2022.22.4.135.

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This study analyzed the domestic research trends related to transition support for young children with disabilities using the Integrative Literature Review proposed by Whittemore and Knafl(2005). From 1999 to August 31, 2022, data were searched with related keywords among papers published in the domestic database, and 43 papers were finally selected according to specific selection and exclusion criteria. The research results are as follows. First, in 2007, when the「Act on Special Education for Persons with Disabilities」was enacted and in 2010, when compulsory education for 5-year-old children began, research on transition support for young children with disabilities was most actively conducted, and qualitative research targeting various related persons in various academic fields and quantitative and mixed studies were performed. As for the research topics, teachers’ and parents’ perceptions and experiences of transition support, elementary school selection factors/standards, connection with early childhood education, parenting stress, and the background of school probation were mentioned. Second, transition support for children with disabilities by level was analyzed at macro level, moderate level, and micro level. Third, problems such as lack of awareness among teachers, lack of awareness among related persons, lack of information on connection between early childhood and elementary school, and insufficient follow-up guidance were identified as obstacles hindering transition support for children with disabilities. Based on the results of this analysis, in the future, an institutional device for transition support should be prepared in which young children with disabilities and their families play a leading role while receiving professional support from related people rather than relying only on individual teachers’ capabilities.
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12

Rule, Sarah, Barbara Fiechtl, and Lisa Huntington. "Preparation of Early Intervention Personnel in a Rural State." Rural Special Education Quarterly 12, no. 1 (March 1993): 9–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/875687059301200103.

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There is a critical need to prepare early-intervention personnel resulting from the passage of the Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986. This paper presents the results of a survey of service providers regarding the competencies they considered essential to serve young children with disabilities. It also describes the organization of a program to prepare personnel in a rural state where persons who need preparation may not have access to on-campus training.
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13

Morris, Allison, and Gabrielle M. Maxwell. "Juvenile Justice in New Zealand: a New Paradigm." Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 26, no. 1 (March 1993): 72–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000486589302600108.

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This study describes the system of juvenile justice adopted in New Zealand under the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989. The Act sets out objectives and principles which stress a number of innovative features including the integration of a western and an indigenous approach; the empowerment of families and young people; the involvement of victims; and group consensus decision-making. The principal mechanism for achieving these objectives is the Family Group Conference which replaces or supplements the Youth Court as the principal decision-making forum in most of the more serious cases. Police involvement in decision-making is also increased by a greater emphasis on diversion and by their role in reaching agreements in the Family Group Conference. Research data are presented which enable an evaluation of the extent to which the Act is meeting its objectives. The tensions in the system are discussed: particularly the issue of victim involvement versus an offender focus and the conflict between accountability and welfare.
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14

Grover, Chris. "Understanding material assistance in the Children and Young Persons Act 1963: Idealism and classical liberalism in England and Wales." Qualitative Social Work 19, no. 5-6 (January 20, 2020): 1238–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1473325019900969.

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Drawing upon data held at the UK’s National Archives, this article focuses upon the introduction of Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963, which allowed local authorities in England and Wales to offer material assistance to families in order to prevent children being received into care or to facilitate their return from care to their families. To understand this development, the article frames its analysis in debates about the nature of the intellectual basis of post-WWII social welfare policy in Britain. Locating Section 1 support in idealist thought, the article argues that it should be understood as continuing classical liberal concerns with responsibility, self-sufficiency, and independence and constraining the size and scope of the state.
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15

Deleury, Édith, Jocelyn Lindsay, and Michèle Rivet. "La protection de la jeunesse en droit comparé." Les Cahiers de droit 21, no. 1 (April 12, 2005): 87–188. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/042369ar.

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This paper is an account of the last phase in the work of the Research Project on Children and Young Persons' Law set up in 1974 within the Faculty of Law, Laval University. Its aim is to throw light through a comparative exercise, on the main features and deficiencies of the Youth Protection Act adopted by the Quebec Legislature on December 13, 1977 and progressively put in force over the period ending January 15, 1979. Having in mind the social, legal and cultural context of Quebec, the authors selected for comparative study the legislation on youth protection in England, Belgium, France and the States of New York and California. These had in any case been the legal systems whose influence was most strongly felt in the preparation of the Quebec Act. The paper first attempts to outline the philosophy underlying each of these systems. It then focuses on the provisions for remedial action both in respect of children living in unhealthy or dangerous conditions and of young offenders.
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16

Roguski, Michael David. "The Reclamation of Whānau Decision-Making in the Context of Child Welfare. A Case Study of Iwi-Led Family Group Conferences." International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies 13, no. 1 (September 23, 2020): 86–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/ijcis.v13i1.1575.

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The Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act (1989) heralded family group conferences as an innovative mechanism to reinforce the role of family in child welfare decision-making. While many have regarded family group conferences as a culturally appropriate response, continued managerialism reflected a guise of cultural responsiveness and family involvement that has actively disempowered whānau and the young person in decision-making processes. Similar to concerns that led to the formation of the 1989 Act, institutional racism inspired Rangitāne o Wairarapa (Rangitāne) to reclaim the family group conference process, and child welfare decision-making, as an iwi function. The current study reports on the development of a family group conference practice model of one iwi (Rangitāne) as a case study of cultural reclamation. The success of the approach is juxtaposed against the iwi practice model, critical success factors and opportunities for the development of such practice models across Aotearoa New Zealand.
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17

Ainsworth, Frank, and Patricia Hansen. "A Study of the use of Section 106a of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 in the New South\Wales Children's Court." Children Australia 42, no. 3 (March 21, 2017): 198–204. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cha.2017.8.

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This study examines the use of section 106A of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 in the New South Wales in Children's Court. Section 106A was inserted into the Act by way of an amendment in November 2006. This amendment establishes that if a child has previously been removed from parental care and not restored to the parents, then that is prima facie evidence that any subsequent child born to these parents is in need of care and protection and can be subject to removal. The parents must then rebut this evidence if they are to recover or retain custody of the new born child. To date, no data exists about the use of this section of the Act, hence this study. The only significant finding was that if section 106A was cited in Court documents, then restoration of a child to family is less likely. The analysis did not show any significant relationship between Aboriginality and any of the other variables in the study.
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18

Delmage, Enys. "The Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility: A Medico-Legal Perspective." Youth Justice 13, no. 2 (August 2013): 102–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1473225413492053.

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The minimum age of criminal responsibility is set in England and Wales at 10 years of age (Children and Young Persons Act 1963), whilst the effective age of most civil responsibilities is 16. Research allows us to consider the speed of development of key brain structures in terms of decision-making and this in turn aids in discussion of where the minimum age should be set. This article reviews the evolution of the minimum age of criminal responsibility and examines the setting of this age in light of both civil attainment ages and the current scientific understanding of brain development.
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19

Nichols, Chad, Martin E. Block, Jason C. Bishop, and Brandon McIntire. "Physical activity in young adults with autism spectrum disorder: Parental perceptions of barriers and facilitators." Autism 23, no. 6 (November 29, 2018): 1398–407. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1362361318810221.

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The importance of physical activity in persons with disabilities is well known, yet the prevalence of inactivity remains high. The physical activity behaviors among adults on the autism spectrum are largely unexplored. It is presumed that sedentary behavior and obesity are a greater health issue among young adults on the autism spectrum who no longer receive Individuals with Disabilities Education Act services and supports such as school-based physical education. Using a phenomenology approach, the parents of eight young adults on the autism spectrum were interviewed about their perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to getting their young adults on the autism spectrum physically active. The purpose of this study was to investigate parent’s perspective of physical activity barriers and facilitators of their adult children on the autism spectrum. Common themes of both physical activity barriers and facilitators included parents, behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorder, and access and opportunities.
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20

Martin, Sarah. "Shifting power relations in New Zealand child welfare policy: The process and implications of the 2014 amendment to s13 of the CYP&tF Act." Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work 28, no. 2 (August 18, 2016): 40–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/anzswj-vol28iss2id223.

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INTRODUCTION: The Vulnerable Children (VC) Act 2014 amended section 13 (s13) of the Children, Young Persons and their Families (CYPtF) Act 1989 to re-emphasise the principle that the welfare and interests of the child should be the paramount consideration in child protection proceedings. This study examines the policy process behind the amendment, and investigates its possible implications, in particular its impact on the power relationship between the state and family/whanau.METHOD: Data was collected from semi-structured, confidential interviews with 10 key informants. Key themes were identified using thematic analysis. This was supplemented by document analysis of published and unpublished government papers, consultation papers and local and international research.FINDINGS: The policy process that preceded the decision to amend s13 of the CYPtF Act was controlled by a small policy elite that failed to consult broadly on either the need for the amendment, or its impact on vulnerable children and families. Government gave little consideration to the implications of the policy change, and the policy process used to develop the amendment lacked the characteristics of rational, comprehensive, policy development. No evaluation or monitoring of the policy change has been put in place, despite the known risk that it may result in an increase in unnecessary removals of children from their families/whanau.CONCLUSION: The s13 amendment, while appearing minor, has significant implications for vulnerable children and families and is part of a fundamental re-balancing of power relations in New Zealand’s child welfare policy.
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21

Levine, Murray. "The family group conference in the New Zealand children, young persons, and their families act of 1989 (CYP&F): review and evaluation." Behavioral Sciences & the Law 18, no. 4 (2000): 517–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1099-0798(2000)18:4<517::aid-bsl402>3.0.co;2-e.

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22

Ainsworth, Frank, and Patricia Hansen. "From the Front Line: The State as a Failed Parent." Children Australia 38, no. 2 (May 29, 2013): 70–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cha.2013.6.

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The focus of this article is young women aged 16–17 years who, while in State care in New South Wales gave birth, and from whom the child was then removed by the same department that is responsible for the mother's care. This topic is rarely examined due to two constraints. One is the lack of available data about the incidence of events of this kind. The second is the confidentiality provision in the New South Wales Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 which defines the Children's Court as a closed court and prohibits the reporting of identifiable case information.As a consequence much of this article is based on the authors' direct observation of cases involving young women of this age that they have encountered while undertaking professional duties in the Children's Court. The article also explores the further issue of the adoption of children removed from mothers who are still in State care.Because of the lack of data this article can be classified as an opinion piece which attempts to raise awareness about an important care issue. The article has a New South Wales focus but the authors expect that the same concerns are echoed in other Australian states and territories.
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23

Doolan, Mike. "Practice Notes: Understanding the purpose of youth justice in New Zealand." Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work 20, no. 3 (July 17, 2017): 63–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/anzswj-vol20iss3id343.

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The administration of justice can become an arid procedural concern when practitioners lose sight of purpose. This article focuses on the purposes of the youth justice provisions of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989. After traversing New Zealand’s historical responses to children who offend and contrasting the conceptual underpinnings of those approaches with current legislation, the article identifies the three key aims of youth justice reform which took place during the late 1980s – providing due process guarantees; finding alternatives to enmeshing young people and their families in the formal criminal justice system; and promoting culturally respectful processes. The author argues that almost all of the procedures of the legislation link to one or other of these aims and by understanding these linkages, all youth justice practitioners – judges, legal advocates, coordinators, social workers, police and community service providers – can ensure the intentions of the law are not lost in the exigencies of the day-to-day activity. The article concludes by proposing that all youth justice practitioners, in addition to their role-specific functions, have a collective responsibility to ensure the mandate of the law is given effect.
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24

Ainsworth, Frank, and Patricia Hansen. "Coaching Parents About Children's Needs and Navigating the Child Protection and Other Systems." Children Australia 43, no. 3 (June 25, 2018): 181–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cha.2018.27.

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This article reviews developments in the NSW child protection system which aim to reduce the number of children in state care. The first development was changes to the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1988 made in 2016 that created a permanency hierarchy for children who have been removed and not restored to parental or extended family care. Under Section 10A of the Act, guardianship and adoption becomes the priority if restoration is not possible, although Aboriginal children are exempt from adoption to some extent. The more recent development, during 2017, is the purchase by the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) of a license for two US models, namely Multi-Systemic Therapy for Child Abuse and Neglect (MST-CAN®) and Functional Family Therapy through Child Welfare (FFT-CW®). US studies have shown that these models reduce the number of children being taken into care. Related to this effort is the recognition by FaCS that the cost of out-of-home care (OOHC) is increasingly unmanageable given the 16,843 children in care in NSW. Added to this is the knowledge, confirmed by the Minister, that for many children in OOHC the outcomes are dismal. Finally, the article turns to the issue of poverty and seeks to address the established correlation (not causality) between poverty and child abuse and neglect. This remains the key issue that underscores child abuse and neglect that has to be addressed if a significant reduction in the number of children taken into state care is to be achieved.
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25

Hardono, Pita Jubaningtyas. "PERLINDUNGAN HUKUM TERHADAP PEKERJA ANAK TERKAIT UPAH DAN JAM KERJA." Jurist-Diction 1, no. 2 (January 7, 2019): 675. http://dx.doi.org/10.20473/jd.v1i2.11017.

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Jurnal ini berjudul “Perlindungan hukum terhadap pekerja anak terkait upah dan jam kerja”. Skripsi ini bertujuan untuk membandingkan perlindungan hukum pekerja anak di Indonesia dan Malaysia. Penelitian ini berbentuk penelitian normatif. dengan pendekatan perundang-undangan, pendekatan komparatif, dan pendekatan konseptual. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan sistem hukum ketenagakerjaan yang berlaku di Indonesia dibandingkan dengan sistem hukum ketenagakerjaan diMalaysia memiliki perbedaan karena Indonesia menganut sistem continental law dan Malaysia yang berbasis pada common law. Perlindungan hukum terhadap pekerja anak di Indonesia diatur dalamUndang-Undang Nomor 13 Tahun 2003 Tentang Ketenagakerjaan, sedangkan di Malaysia diatur dalam Children & Young Persons (Employment) Act 1966. Pengaturan hukum mengenai pekerja anak di Indonesia tidak memiliki undang-undang tersendiri namun menjadi satu dengan pekerja dewasa. Hal ini berbeda dengan negara Malaysia yang memiliki aturan tersendiri pengenai pekerja anak.
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26

Pejak-Prokeš, Olivera. "Family violence." Glasnik Advokatske komore Vojvodine 78, no. 9 (2006): 46–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.5937/gakv0602046p.

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The new Family Act of the Republic of Serbia establishes normative system in the field of family law matters, which is compatible to the contemporary European laws and practice. Family violence is for the first time legally regulated in the field of Serbian civil law. This paper intends to demonstrate different forms of family violence, its range, as well as legal solutions established in order to define the problem and rules of procedure for adopting safeguard measures against the family violence. The court practice in the matters of protection against violence is still being developed. The Family Act establishes specialized court panels for these kinds of legal matters. Judges are required to obtain special knowledge in the field of children's rights, while the lay judges are supposed to be persons who gained experience by working with children and young people. In order to provide the victims of the family violence with the appropriate court protection, it is necessary to establish coordinated action and cooperation between courts, police, prosecution, court for minor offences social service, health institutions, educational centers and non-governmental organizations.
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27

Croke, Rhian, Helen Dale, Ally Dunhill, Arwyn Roberts, Malvika Unnithan, and Jane Williams. "Integrating Sustainable Development and Children’s Rights: A Case Study on Wales." Social Sciences 10, no. 3 (March 11, 2021): 100. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci10030100.

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The global disconnect between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), has been described as ‘a missed opportunity’. Since devolution, the Welsh Government has actively pursued a ‘sustainable development’ and a ‘children’s rights’ agenda. However, until recently, these separate agendas also did not contribute to each other, although they culminated in two radical and innovative pieces of legislation; the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure (2013) and the Well-being and Future Generations (Wales) Act (2015). This article offers a case study that draws upon the SDGs and the CRC and considers how recent guidance to Welsh public bodies for implementation attempts to contribute to a more integrated approach. It suggests that successful integration requires recognition of the importance of including children in deliberative processes, using both formal mechanisms, such as local authority youth forums, pupil councils and a national youth parliament, and informal mechanisms, such as child-led research, that enable children to initiate and influence sustainable change.
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28

Wong, T. W., YC Chan, and HC Tan. "A Serological Study of the Immune Status to Rubella in a Community in Singapore." Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health 1, no. 2 (April 1987): 12–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/101053958700100204.

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In 1986, a seroepidemiological study on rubella antibody was conducted in a public housing community in Singapore using the direct latex agglutination method. The overall seropositive rate was 78.1% (95% confidence limit: 73.5% to 82.7%). There was no significant association between age and immune status for both sexes. However, the seropositive rates for females aged 15 to 19 years and 20 to 24 years were significantly higher than for females in other age groups, reflecting the impact of the rubella immunisation programme launched in 1976. There is still a considerable number of susceptible females in the reproductive age group. An extension of the present programme to cover all persons above 12 months of age is recommended, as this would reduce the overall incidence of rubella, and hence congenital rubella, by conferring immunity to young children who presently act as reservoirs of infections.
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29

Markiewicz, Anne. "The child welfare system in Victoria: Changing context and perspectives 1945-1995." Children Australia 21, no. 3 (1996): 32–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1035077200007185.

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This paper traces the history of child welfare in Victoria, from the formation of the Children's Welfare Department to the present time. It draws principally upon the Annual Reports of the responsible state government department, to illustrate trends in out-of-home placement for children and young people admitted to care. It describes substantial shifts in direction to the institutions in the 1960s, deinstitutionalisation of the 1980s, and the re-emergence of home-based care as a favoured, economical option.The paper traces the ebbs and flows in numbers, periods of overcrowding and the current reduced number of children and young people in care. It notes events impacting on evolving child welfare history in Victoria, the child migration program, building projects, the establishment of family group homes, regionalisation, external review, the Children and Young Persons Act (1989), and mandatory reporting legislation. Themes emerging include: early child welfare as a period of rescue and reform; the monitoring of standards and re-entry of the department to residential care; the building of institutions and rising numbers in care; redevelopment and the emergence of a community focus; the expansion of child protection; and the phasing out of old models and the search for cost efficient alternatives.A challenge for the 1990s is the need for deliberate and planned monitoring and evaluation as institutional and residential care give way to home-based care, and numbers of admissions decrease. The paper aims to provide useful, historical material for readers with an interest in child welfare work which would benefit from a descriptive review of the past.
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Young, Susan, Margaret McKenzie, Cecilie Omre, Liv Schjelderup, and Shayne Walker. "‘Warm Eyes’, ‘Warm Breath’, ‘Heart Warmth’: Using Aroha (Love) and Warmth to Reconceptualise and Work towards Best Interests in Child Protection." Social Sciences 9, no. 4 (April 17, 2020): 54. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci9040054.

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The attributes ‘warm eyes’, ‘breathe warm air’, ‘heart warmth’ and aroha (love) guide our work in child protection. These quotes are from a young person from the Change Factory 2020, a MFAMILY student in 2020 and Jan Erik Henricksen Key Note at the 4th International Indigenous Voices in Social Work Conference, Alta, Norway 2017 respectively, to describe the way young people and families want workers to be. We reflect on the child rights and family inclusion provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRoC), and the Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ) legislation Children, Young Persons and their Families Act (1989), in contributing to the best interests of the child. We examine current events in our locations, Aotearoa New Zealand, Norway and Western Australia, as demonstrating that these joint principles are far from universally used in child protection practice. The sole use of Article 3 of the UNCRoC, in particular, often results in excluding families as legitimate stakeholders. In seeking to achieve the best interests of the child, we apply a practice framework to example vignettes. Here, we have added micro-practices to address the identified gaps in relationship building, engagement and enabling practices in working towards the practice of best interests.
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Jonson, Hakan. "The Othering of Older People in Disability Policies." Innovation in Aging 5, Supplement_1 (December 1, 2021): 134. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.519.

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Abstract Disability policies in Sweden rest on the idea that all humans have equal value and a goal of policies has been to enable persons with disabilities to be able to live like other members of society, but older people do not seem to be included as part of this goal. The presentation concerns the Swedish support system’s legal discourse, and investigates the rationale for excluding people over the age of 65 from services that younger people with disabilities may obtain. Data consists of government texts and court decisions under the Severe Disability Act about services for people over the age of 65. It was found that little in the legal discourse concerns the needs and rights of older people, and the general belief is that the Severe Disability Act is primarily intended for children, young people, and adults of working age. The legal discourse contained a type of “residual ageism” that was justified through the indirect construction of older people as different. Othering of older people was present in assumptions about differences in categorizations (people with disabilities vs older people with support needs), needs (active age vs not active age), and comparisons (with people without disabilities of the same age vs with others receiving eldercare). The presentation outlines potential changes of these policies.
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Podobnik, Martina, and Antun Ilijaš. "UČINKOVITOST NAKNADA OPĆE SOCIJALNE POMOĆI I ULOGA CENTRA ZA SOCIJALNU SKRB U BORBI PROTIV SIROMAŠTVA." Annual of Social Work 27, no. 3 (April 24, 2021): 449–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.3935/ljsr.v27i3.350.

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THE EFFICIENCY OF GENERAL SOCIAL ASSISTANCE BENEFITS AND THE ROLE OF SOCIAL WELFARE CENTERS IN COMBATING POVERTY The social work profession is rooted in combating poverty and the fight for human rights. Social welfare centers represent a key institution in that area, particularly the cash benefits departments in which social workers daily work with the poorest members of society. The system of social assistance benefits in Croatia includes the general and categorical social assistance programs. This paper is focused on general assistance programs, guaranteed minimum benefit and one-time allowance. The aforementioned rights are regulated by the Social Welfare Act which has been amended six times since 2011, thus bringing novelties to the area of realization of the right to general social assistance benefits. The paper presents the most important changes and provides an overview of their practical applicability. It also provides guidelines for improving efficiency of the two most important cash benefits with regard to the amount of the benefits and their targeting, efficiency with regard to beneficiary groups including children and retired persons and work activation of young persons (and) beneficiaries who are capable for work. Considering the crucial role of social workers in the deciding on the recognition of the right to benefits, special attention was paid to a critical overview the role of social workers n the cash benefits departments.
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Senn, Lara, Giuseppe Cannazza, and Giuseppe Biagini. "Receptors and Channels Possibly Mediating the Effects of Phytocannabinoids on Seizures and Epilepsy." Pharmaceuticals 13, no. 8 (July 30, 2020): 174. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ph13080174.

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Epilepsy contributes to approximately 1% of the global disease burden. By affecting especially young children as well as older persons of all social and racial variety, epilepsy is a present disorder worldwide. Currently, only 65% of epileptic patients can be successfully treated with antiepileptic drugs. For this reason, alternative medicine receives more attention. Cannabis has been cultivated for over 6000 years to treat pain and insomnia and used since the 19th century to suppress epileptic seizures. The two best described phytocannabinoids, (−)-trans-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) are claimed to have positive effects on different neurological as well as neurodegenerative diseases, including epilepsy. There are different cannabinoids which act through different types of receptors and channels, including the cannabinoid receptor 1 and 2 (CB1, CB2), G protein-coupled receptor 55 (GPR55) and 18 (GPR18), opioid receptor µ and δ, transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) and 2 (TRPV2), type A γ-aminobutyric acid receptor (GABAAR) and voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSC). The mechanisms and importance of the interaction between phytocannabinoids and their different sites of action regarding epileptic seizures and their clinical value are described in this review.
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C., T. E. "HOW NOT TO EDUCATE YOUNG GIRLS—AS VIEWED IN 1853." Pediatrics 84, no. 4 (October 1, 1989): 716. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.84.4.716.

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A commonly held view of mid-nineteenth century physicians, especially in New England, was that young schoolgirls should not be worked too hard and too long at their studies. The editorial below from a highly-respected medical journal is evidence of this unwarranted belief. Every effort in the school now is to cultivate their minds at the expense of their bodies. They consequently have a sickly life, if perchance it is not cut off in early girlhood; they make poor mothers, are unable to nurse their children in many instances with a tendency to some of the most distressing complaints, and disease is propagated to their children. Much of this arises from the popular mistake that young misses must study algebra, chemistry, scientific botany, Latin, and perhaps Greek and Hebrew, by the time they are fifteen, in order to become ladies. They have no frolicking girlhood—because it is plebeian to romp out of doors with freedom, as nature intended in order to strengthen and perfect their delicate organization. A knowledge of domestic economy is decidely vulgar, and belongs to poor kitchen girls, whose red cheeks, round arms, splendid busts and fine health are perfectly contemptible. There is a kind of imagined gentility in always being under the care of a doctor, and jaunting through the country in pursuit of air, water, or expensive medical advice. Physicians deplore this wretched system, without being able to awaken public sentiment to its destructive character. Teachers are also aware of it, and exert themselves at times to counteract the evils which their every-day lessons exert on the frail, delicate pupils under their charge; but, alas, the poison and antidote are taken at once, and they exhibit the effects of their bad treatment, aided by silk hose in January, thin shoes, the impure atmosphere of crowded rooms and cold night air. Parents are the persons to blame and not the instructors of their children. Young girls are put to school too early and worked too hard and too long at their studies. More active play and fewer books, pudding-making in the place of algebraical equations, with a free exercise of their feet, which were actually designed for walking, would produce a race of women in our midst, such as cannot now be found, in regard to figure, capacity and beauty. What father has the moral courage to set the example, by allowing his daughters to become the angelic creatures they were designed to be, buoyant with spirit, vigor and health, fit companions of man, and the glory of an advanced civilization? Let them gambol in the open air, and, when indoors, act out the governing instincts of their nature in manufacturing rag dolls, till by means of bodily health and vigor, a foundation is laid for intellectual pursuits, and then and not before, may they with safety begin to be exercised in abstract, educational studies.
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Liesching, Marc, and Christoph J. M. Safferling. "Protection of Juveniles in Germany – A Report on the New Legislation." German Law Journal 4, no. 6 (June 1, 2003): 541–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s2071832200016217.

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In April, 2002, a 19 year-old pupil ran amok in a high school in Erfurt, killing several teachers and fellow pupils. The young man was reported to have played computer games, in particular games known as “ego-shooter,” quite excessively. These tragic events fueled the plans of the German government and the Federal states to reform the law for the protection of children and young persons. The legislative machinery issued new legislation at a rather impressive pace. Only one year after the tragedy in Erfurt, on 1 April 2003, two major legal documents entered into force: the Jugendschutzgesetz (JuSchG – Juvenile Protection Act) of the Federal government and the Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (JMStV – Agreement of the German Federal States regarding the Protection of Human Dignity and Juveniles in Radio and Televised Media). This complicated two-fold structure stems from the federal nature of the German state where the competence to legislate is divided between the Federal Government and the individual Laender (Federal States). The latter, in order to achieve uniformity among themselves and reaching the breadth of the Germany territory, must cooperate and legislate in the form of an interstate agreement. The JuSchG regulates mainly the protection of juveniles in the public and limits the distribution of items, which have been determined to be dangerous, like printed material, videos, DVDs or CD-Roms. In contrast thereto the JMStV pertains to the protection of juveniles in the radio broadcasting industry and in the so called “Telemedia,” in particular the internet. In the following, we will give a short overview of the developments wrought by these new laws.
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Haultain, Linda, Christa Fouche, Hannah Frost, and Shireen Moodley. "Walking the tight rope: Women’s health social workers’ role with vulnerable families in the maternity context." Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work 28, no. 2 (August 18, 2016): 64–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/anzswj-vol28iss2id225.

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INTRODUCTION: Keeping children in the centre of practice is an established mantra for the children’s workforce internationally and is also enshrined in the Aotearoa New Zealand Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989. The principle that the welfare and interests of the child are awarded paramount consideration (s6) when these are in conflict with others’ needs is incontestable. However, we suggest that how this translates into day-to-day social work practice is open to multiple interpretations. This interpretation emerged from a women’s health social work team, providing services to pregnant women experiencing complex social factors.METHOD: An audit collected and analysed data from cases that were identified as having achieved successful outcomes in this context. A metaphor emerged from the reflective analysis of these findings. This metaphor, ‘walking the tight rope, maintaining the balance’ was put to the practitioners via a reflective process. FINDINGS: Research findings indicate that by taking up a child welfare orientation to practice positive outcomes are possible. This practice was found to rely on a number of personal, professional and organisational factors, most dominant were those associated with relationship based practice. Findings suggest that women’s health social workers need to maintain a fine balance with several critical elements, such as the provision of reflective supervision acting as a practice safety net. CONCLUSION: It is argued that the binary either/or positions of adopting a child centred or a woman’s centred approach to practice should be avoided and an and / both orientation to practice be adopted. This reflects a child welfare orientation to practice – one in which prevention is a primary focus.
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Marzano, Gilberto, and Velta Lubkina. "CYBERBULLING AND REAL REALITY." SOCIETY, INTEGRATION, EDUCATION. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference 2 (May 30, 2015): 412. http://dx.doi.org/10.17770/sie2013vol2.598.

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There are various risks tied to cyberspace. Some of them are social risks because they are cultural risks, being related to new forms of relationships and interactions among people. In the last decade, toxic evils like cyberbullying and other malicious cyber violence are growing, and the search of antidotes is becoming a common concern for governments, educational authorities, teachers, parents and children alike. The available data shows clear evidence that the number of persons affected by cyber violence is increasing (Shariff e Churchill, 2009; U.S. Department of Education, 2011; Dilmac, 2012; Catalano, 2012): a Google search of the word “cyberbullying” finds more the 11 million of items. Despite the popularity of the word, there is a limited knowledge of this issue and many of the first conceptual formulations about it continue to be spread in literature, such as that the characteristics of bullies who act face-to-face and those who do so in cyberspace are very different. The paper analyzes the classic model of cyberbullying behavior, as described in literature, introducing a new element to be considered. It is that, especially for young people, Web and physical world are more and more becoming a whole: virtual-web and real reality are a continuum that we could define as an e-real-reality. Analyzing two of the most known cases of cyberbullying and considering some other evidences emerged by recent researches, we are theoretically convinced that a better understanding of this element could lead to the development of more effective strategies for combating cyberbullying.
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LEVCHUK, N. M. "LEVCHUK N. M. Age, Period, and Cohort Effects in the Long-Term Dynamics of Mortality in Ukraine." Demography and social economy 2 (July 20, 2022): 3–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.15407/dse2022.02.003.

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This study analyzes the effects of age, period, and birth cohorts on long-term mortality in Ukraine. For the first time, the APC model was used to analyze mortality in Ukraine for the 1850-2011 period and the cohorts born from 1850 to 1923. These estimations allow us to discriminate the impact of the historical and contemporary factors (at specific times) that could change the mortality rates. The following statistical methods are used: calculation of period and cohort death rates; age-period-birth cohort (APC) model that provides a method to assess the significance of the three interrelated factors (age, calendar period of death, and birth cohort) on mortality. As indicated by the results of APC analysis, the contribution of the period effect to the long-term mortality in Ukraine is likely to be larger than that of the cohort effect, and both effects are found to be more influential for men than for women. The analysis revealed intergenerational variations in death rates and inversion in cohort mortality when survival rates for the younger generations are worse than for the older generations. In particular, almost all generations born during the first half of the XX century had higher mortality rates than the reference cohort born in 1900, while lower mortality rates are found only for those born after 1945. At the same time, the overall decline in mortality among cohorts born after 1945 varied across different age groups: while death rates at the age 0 to 15 declined with each new generation, mortality in the 45 to 60 age group for younger generations tended to be higher than for older generations. The cohorts born in 1915—1925 and especially in 1917—1921 appeared to be the most disadvantaged and the hardest affected in terms of survival. A comparative analysis of the probability of dying in large age intervals for different generations showed that, first, among the cohorts of adult men who participated in World War II, those born in 1915—1925 were the most affected; second, during the First World War, the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917—1921 and the famine of 1921—1923 young and middle-aged men born in 1880—1890 suffered the greatest losses whereas the highest mortality due to Holodomor of 1932—1933 was observed among children and adolescents, as well as older persons born in the 1870s.
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SHYSHOVA, I. O. "PREPARATION OF FUTURE SPECIALISTS FOR LABOR EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATION OF STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS." Scientific papers of Berdiansk State Pedagogical University Series Pedagogical sciences 1, no. 3 (December 30, 2021): 241–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.31494/2412-9208-2021-1-3-241-247.

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Issues of labor education and vocational guidance of students with special educational needs are traditionally relevant for special education. Of fundamental importance is the need to modernize the content of labor training, the question of its prospects, employment and independent living of persons with special educational needs. An important factor in the activity is the motivation to act - motivation. The motives of human labor are sometimes difficult to determine, because they are not always clear, formed, understandable. However, you can offer to choose them from a list of motives, perform exercises to formulate motives in a business game or training. They can be related to the satisfaction of physiological needs, security needs, social needs, the need for self-affirmation, self-expression, the desire to succeed, to join, the desire for power, reward. A technique that complements the identification of motives for work is to discuss with a person his life prospects, life projects, thinking about his life strategies and tactics, ways to overcome psychological barriers, identify areas of activity, real steps to achieve the goal, planning skills, self-management. Trainings in a free, relaxed environment will help to master your own capabilities and prospects. Students must clearly identify the strengths and weaknesses of a person with special needs. Students must not only master the basic methods of teaching disciplines related to the labor training of people with special educational needs, but also be able to provide communication assistance in certain government agencies. Future professionals already during training should understand, practically use skills of financial literacy. During the preparation of future specialists of special education for labor education and vocational guidance of students with special educational needs, we consider it necessary during the study to provide students with teaching methods of disciplines «Manual labor», «Technology», «Social orientation», to acquaint young people with ways to master basic social skills, basics of professional orientation. Key words: future specialists in special education, children with special needs, labor education, vocational guidance, work motives, financial literacy.
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Hayden, Patricia W. "Adolescents with Meningomyelocele." Pediatrics In Review 6, no. 8 (February 1, 1985): 245–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/pir.6.8.245.

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The multiple physical and health problems that the child with myelodysplasia brings to adolescence have been described in some detail. The variations from the normal ranges of adolescent development, which this group of patients show, will exaggerate some of the problems of social and emotional adjustment, and the growth and hormonal changes of adolescence may exacerbate such problems as hydrocephalus, renal insufficiency, and scoliosis. Fortunately, not all of the problems are experienced by each patient and they do not occur suddenly and simultaneously but rather extend over the patient's life. Some of the problems can be minimized by the type of care undertaken in the child's earlier years. The complications of gross cephalomegaly due to untreated hydrocephalus and the risk of early death due to renal failure in those patients with treated hydrocephalus have now virtually disappeared for children who survive to the age of adolescence. It is realistic to think that improvements in stabilization of the spine and management of the bladder will as markedly reduce those serious complications in infants and young children now entering treatment programs. Unfortunately, no matter how much progress there is in the medical and surgical management of children with meningomyelocele, they will still have the problems of paraplegia. Our task, then, is to communicate to their families what previous patients have taught us about these problems: how to avoid unnecessary secondary complications and how to assist the children and other family members in their continual growth and development. With early emphasis on having the child develop appropriate self-care skills, we are seeing fewer children enter their adolescence still dependent upon adults for toileting and for care to prevent decubiti. The physician who has been caring for a child with myelodysplasia from early infancy, who is familiar with the family's ability to cope, and who is well informed about the patient's condition should be the best health guide through adolescence. Unfortunately, the complex nature of the early medical-surgical problems often side-tracks the family from local medical care. Current ease of telephone communication makes it possible to offer the consultation of the speciality clinic to the local physician and every effort should be made to establish and maintain primary care resources and responsibility in the local community. In some communities, there will be a pediatrician, in others a family physician, public health nurse, or visiting therapist. Probably the most effective advocate in lobbying for societal changes that will allow all of our citizens to reach their potential will come from those directly involved. Programs such as the Special Olympics and wheelchair sports, and volunteer groups that provide activities socially appropriate for this age group, need to be supported and expanded. Increased assistance under the Developmental Disabilities Act, which mandates educational programs for the physically handicapped as well as for retarded individuals, will help meet the special requirements of this population. Vocational counseling through such agencies as the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation is available in most states, and most involved professionals are aware that such counseling needs to be extended to younger age groups and mesh with early educational planning. Social workers and public health personnel should directly assist the young patient in obtaining funds for continued medical care, driver's training, and housing through such programs as Social Security Insurance, Medicaid, and special loans for housing for the physically disabled. Attachment to a citizen advocacy group, such as the Spina Bifida Association of America (343 S Dearborn Ave, Chicago, IL 60604), will afford the support of a large network of individuals who have already solved many of the problems and who will be most responsive to the need for further active involvement in improving the welfare of all handicapped persons.
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Do, Mai, Jennifer McCleary, Diem Nguyen, and Keith Winfrey. "2047 Mental illness public stigma, culture, and acculturation among Vietnamese Americans." Journal of Clinical and Translational Science 2, S1 (June 2018): 17–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cts.2018.93.

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OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Stigma has been recognized as a major impediment to accessing mental health care among Vietnamese and Asian Americans (Leong and Lau, 2001; Sadavoy et al., 2004; Wynaden et al., 2005; Fong and Tsuang, 2007). The underutilization of mental health care, and disparities in both access and outcomes have been attributed to a large extent to stigma and cultural characteristics of this population (Wynaden et al., 2005; Jang et al., 2009; Leung et al., 2010; Spencer et al., 2010; Jimenez et al., 2013; Augsberger et al., 2015). People with neurotic or behavioral disorders may be considered “bad” as many Vietnamese people believe it is a consequence of one’s improper behavior in a previous life, for which the person is now being punished (Nguyen, 2003). Mental disorders can also been seen as a sign of weakness, which contributes to ambivalence and avoidance of help-seeking (Fong and Tsuang, 2007). Equally important is the need to protect family reputation; having emotional problems often implies that the person has “bad blood” or is being punished for the sins of his/her ancestors (Herrick and Brown, 1998; Leong and Lau, 2001), which disgraces the entire family (Wynaden et al., 2005). In these cases, public stigma (as opposed to internal stigma) is the primary reason for delays in seeking help (Leong and Lau, 2001). Other research has also highlighted the influences of culture on how a disorder may be labeled in different settings, although the presentation of symptoms might be identical (see Angel and Thoits, 1987). In Vietnamese culture, mental disorders are often labeled điên (literally translated as “madness”). A điên person and his or her family are often severely disgraced; consequently the individuals and their family become reluctant to disclose and seek help for mental health problems for fear of rejection (Sadavoy et al., 2004). Despite the critical role of stigma in accessing mental health care, there has been little work in trying to understand how stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness among Vietnamese Americans manifest themselves and the influences of acculturation on these attitudes. Some previous work indicated a significant level of mental illness stigma among Vietnamese Americans, and experiences of living in the United States might interact with the way stigma manifests among this population (Do et al., 2014). Stigma is a complex construct that warrants a deeper and more nuanced understanding (Castro et al., 2005). Much of the development of stigma-related concepts was based on the classic work by Goffman (1963); he defined stigma as a process by which an individual internalizes stigmatizing characteristics and develops fears and anxiety about being treated differently from others. Public stigma (defined by Corrigan, 2004) includes the general public’s negative beliefs about specific groups, in this case individuals and families with mental illness concerns, that contribute to discrimination. Public stigma toward mental illness acts not only as a major barrier to care, but can also exacerbate anxiety, depression, and adherence to treatment (Link et al., 1999; Sirey et al., 2001; Britt et al., 2008; Keyes et al., 2010). Link and Phelan (2001) conceptualized public stigma through four major components. The first component, labeling, occurs when people distinguish and label human differences that are socially relevant, for example, skin color. In the second component, stereotyping, cultural beliefs link the labeled persons to undesirable characteristics either in the mind or the body of such persons, for example people who are mentally ill are violent. The third component is separating “us” (the normal people) from “them” (the mentally ill) by the public. Finally, labeled persons experience status loss and discrimination, where they are devalued, rejected and excluded. Link and Phelan (2001) emphasized that stigmatization also depends on access to social, economic, and political power that allows these components to unfold. This study aims to answer the following research questions: (1) how does public stigma related to mental illness manifest among Vietnamese Americans? and (2) in what ways does acculturation influence stigma among this population? We investigate how the 4 components of stigma according to Link and Phelan (2001) operationalized and how they depend on the level of acculturation to the host society. Vietnamese Americans is the key ethnic minority group for this study for several reasons. Vietnamese immigration, which did not start in large numbers until the 1970s, has features that allow for a natural laboratory for comparisons of degree of acculturation. Previous research has shown significant intergenerational differences in the level of acculturation and mental health outcomes (e.g., Shapiro et al., 1999; Chung et al., 2000; Ying and Han, 2007). In this study, we used age group as a proxy indicator of acculturation, assuming that those who were born and raised in the United States (the 18–35 year olds) would be more Americanized than those who were born in Vietnam but spent a significant part of their younger years in the United States (the 36–55 year olds), and those who were born and grew up in Vietnam (the 56–75 year olds) would be most traditional Vietnamese. The language used in focus group discussions (FGDs) reflected some of the acculturation, where all FGDs with the youngest groups were done in English, and all FGDs with the oldest groups were done in Vietnamese. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Data were collected through a set of FGDs and key informant interviews (KIIs) with experts to explore the conceptualization and manifestation of mental illness public stigma among Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans. Six FGDs with a total of 51 participants were conducted. Participants were Vietnamese American men and women ages 18–75. Stratification was used to ensure representation in the following age/immigration pattern categories: (1) individuals age 56–75 who were born and grew up in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States after age 35; (2) individuals age 36–55 who were born in Vietnam but spent a significant part of their youth in the United States; and (3) individuals age 18–35 who were born and grew up in the United States. These groups likely represent different levels of acculturation, assuming that people who migrate at a younger age are more likely to assimilate to the host society than those who do at a later age. Separate FGDs were conducted with men and women. Eleven KIIS were conducted with 6 service providers and 5 community and religious leaders. In this analysis, we focused on mental illness public stigma from the FGD participants’ perspectives. FGDs were conducted in either English or Vietnamese, whichever participants felt more comfortable with, using semistructured interview guides. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and translated into English if conducted in Vietnamese. Data coding and analysis was done using NVivo version 11 (QSR International, 2015). The analysis process utilized a Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) approach, a validated and well-established approach to collecting and analyzing qualitative data. CQR involves gathering textual data through semistructured interviews or focus groups, utilizing a data analysis process that fosters multiple perspectives, a consensus process to arrive at judgments about the meaning of data, an auditor to check the work of the research team, and the development of domains, core-ideas, and cross-analysis (Hill et al., 2005). The study was reviewed and approved by Tulane University’s Internal Review Board. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Components of public stigma related to mental illness. The 4 components of public stigma manifest to different extents within the Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans. Labeling was among the strongest stigma components, while the evidence of the other components was mixed. Across groups of participants, Vietnamese Americans agreed that it was a common belief that people with mental disorders were “crazy,” “acting crazy,” or “madness.” “Not normal,” “sad,” and “depressed” were among other words used to describe the mentally ill. However, there were clear differences between younger and older Vietnamese on how they viewed these conditions. The youngest groups of participants tended to recognize the “craziness” and “madness” as a health condition that one would need to seek help for, whereas the oldest groups often stated that these conditions were short term and likely caused by family or economic problems, such as a divorce, or a bankruptcy. The middle-aged groups were somewhere in between. The evidence supporting the second component, stereotyping, was not strong among Vietnamese Americans. Most FGD participants agreed that although those with mental disorders may act differently, they were not distinguishable. In a few extreme cases, mentally ill individuals were described as petty thefts or being violent towards their family members. Similarly to the lack of strong evidence of stereotyping, there was also no evidence of the public separating the mentally ill (“them”) from “us”. It was nearly uniformly reported that they felt sympathetic to those with mental disorders and their family, and that they all recognized that they needed help, although the type of help was perceived differently across groups. The older participants often saw that emotional and financial support was needed to help individuals and families to pass through a temporary phase, whereas younger participants often reported that professional help was necessary. The last component, status loss and discrimination, had mixed evidence. While nearly no participants reported any explicit discriminatory behaviors observed and practiced towards individuals with mental disorders and their families, words like “discrimination” and “stigma” were used in all FGDs to describe direct social consequences of having a mental disorder. Social exclusion was common. Our older participants said: “They see less of you, when they see a flaw in you they don’t talk to you or care about you. That’s one thing the Vietnamese people are bad at, spreading false rumors and discrimination” (Older women FGD). One’s loss of status seemed certain if their or their loved one’s mental health status was disclosed. Shame, embarrassment, and being “frowned upon” were direct consequences of one’s mental health status disclosure and subsequently gossiped about. Anyone with mental disorders was certain to experience this, and virtually everyone in the community would reportedly do this to such a family. “You get frowned upon. In the Vietnamese culture, that’s [a family identified as one with mental health problems] the big no-no right there. When everybody frowns upon your family and your family name, that’s when it becomes a problem” (Young men FGD). This is tied directly to what our participants described as Vietnamese culture, where pride and family reputation were such a high priority that those with mental disorders needed to go to a great extent to protect—“We all know what saving face means” as reported by our young participants. Even among young participants, despite their awareness of mental illness and the need for professional help, the desire to avoid embarrassment and save face was so strong that one would think twice about seeking help. “No, you just don’t want to get embarrassed. I don’t want to go to the damn doctor and be like ‘Oh yeah, my brother got an issue. You can help him?’ Why would I do that? That’s embarrassing to myself…” (Young men FGD). Our middle-aged participants also reported: “If I go to that clinic [mental health or counseling clinic], I am hoping and praying that I won’t bump into somebody that I know from the community” (Middle-aged women FGD). Vietnamese people were also described as being very competitive among themselves, which led to the fact that if a family was known for having any problem, gossips would start and spread quickly wherever they go, and pretty soon, the family would be looked down by the entire community. “I think for Vietnamese people, they don’t help those that are in need. They know of your situation and laugh about it, see less of you, and distant themselves from you” (Older women FGD). Culture and mental illness stigma, much of the described stigma and discrimination expressed, and consequently the reluctance to seek help, was attributed to the lack of awareness of mental health and of mental health disorders. Many study participants across groups also emphasized a belief that Vietnamese Americans were often known for their perseverance and resilience, overcoming wars and natural disasters on their own. Mental disorders were reportedly seen as conditions that individuals and families needed to overcome on their own, rather than asking for help from outsiders. This aspect of Vietnamese culture is intertwined with the need to protect one’s family’s reputation, being passed on from one generation to the next, reinforcing the beliefs that help for mental disorders should come from within oneself and one’s family only. Consequently persons with mental health problems would be “Keeping it to themselves. Holding it in and believing in the power of their friends” (Middle-aged FGD) instead of seeking help. Another dimension of culture that was apparent from FGDs (as well as KIIs) was the mistrust in Western medicine. Not understanding how counseling or medicines work made one worry about approaching service providers or staying in treatment. The habit of Vietnamese people to only go see a doctor if they are sick with physical symptoms was also a hindrance to acknowledging mental illness and seeking care for it. Challenges, including the lack of vocabulary to express mental illness and symptoms, in the Vietnamese language, exaggerated the problem, even among those who had some understanding of mental disorders. It was said in the young men FGD that: “when you classify depression as an illness, no one wants to be sick,… if you call it an illness, no one wants to have that sort of illness, and it’s not an illness that you can physically see…” (Young men FGD). Another young man summarized so well the influence of culture on mental illness stigma: “Us Southeast Asian, like, from my parents specifically has Vietnam War refugees. I think the reason why they don’t talk about it is because it’s a barrier that they have to overcome themselves, right? As refugees, as people who have been through the war… [omitted]They don’t want to believe that they need help, and so the trauma that they carry when they give birth to us is carried on us as well. But due to the language barrier and also the, like, they say with the whole health care, in Vietnam I know that they don’t really believe in Western and Eurocentric medicine. So, from their understanding of how, like from their experience with colonization or French people, and how medicine works, they don’t believe in it” (Young men FGD). One characteristic of the Vietnamese culture that was also often mentioned by our FGD participants (as well as KIIs) was the lack of sharing and openness between generations, even within a family. Grandparents, parents, and children do not usually share and discuss each other’s problems. Parents and grandparents do not talk about problems because they need to appear strong and good in front of their children; children do not talk about problems because they are supposed to do well in all aspects, particularly in school. The competitiveness of Vietnamese and high expectations of younger generations again come into play here and create a vicious cycle. Young people are expected to do well in school, which put pressure on them and may result in mental health problems, yet, they cannot talk about it with their parents because they are not supposed to feel bad about school, and sharing is not encouraged. The Asian model minority myth and the expectations of parents that their children would do well in school and become doctors and lawyers were cited by many as a cause of mental health problems among young people. “Our parents are refugees, they had nothing and our parents want us to achieve this American Dream…. [omitted] It set expectations and images for us…. It was expected for all the Asians to be in the top 10, and for, like a little quick minute I thought I wasn’t going to make it, I was crying” (Yong men FGD). As a result, the mental health problems get worse. “If you’re feeling bad about something, you don’t feel like you can talk about it with anyone else, especially your family, because it is not something that is encouraged to be talked about anyway, so if you are feeling poorly and you don’t feel like you could talk to anybody, I think that just perpetuates the bad feelings” (Middle-aged women FGD). Acculturation and mental illness stigma Acculturation, the degree of assimilation to the host society, has changed some of the understanding of mental illness and stigmatizing attitudes. Differences across generations expressed in different FGDs indicated differences in perceptions towards mental illness that could be attributed to acculturation. For example, the young generation understood that mental illness was a health problem that was prevalent but less recognized in the Vietnamese community, whereas a prominent theme among the older participants was that mental illness was a temporary condition due to psychological stress, that it was a condition that only Caucasians had. Some of the components of public stigma related to mental illness seemed to vary between generations, for example the youngest participants were less likely to put a label on a person with mental health problems, or to stereotype them, compared to the oldest and middle-aged participants. This was attributed to their education, exposure to the media and information, and to them “being more Americanized.” However, there was no evidence that acculturation played an important role in changing the other components of public stigma, including stereotyping, separating, and status loss and discrimination. For example, the need to protect the family reputation was so important that our young participants shared: “If you damage their image, they will disown you before you damage that image” (Young men FGD). Young people, more likely to recognize mental health problems, were also more likely to share within the family and to seek help, but no more likely than their older counterparts to share outside of the family—“maybe you would go to counseling or go to therapy, but you wouldn’t tell people you’re doing that” (Young women FGD). The youngest participants in our study were facing a dilemma, in which they recognized mental health problems and the need for care, yet were still reluctant to seek care or talk about it publicly because of fears of damaging the family reputation and not living up to the parents’ expectations. Many young participants reported that it actually made it very difficult for them to navigate mental health issues between the 2 cultures, despite the awareness of the resources available. “I think it actually makes it harder. Only because you know to your parents and the culture, and your own people, it’s taboo, and it’s something that you don’t talk about. Just knowing that you have the resources to go seek it… You want advice from your family also, but you can’t connect the appointment to your family because you’re afraid to express that to your parents, you know? So I think that plays a big part, and knowing that you are up and coming, but you don’t want to do something to disappoint your family because they are so traditional” (Young men FGD). Some participants felt more comfortable talking about mental health problems, like depression, if it was their friend who experienced it and confided in them, but they would not necessarily felt open if it was their problem. Subtle cultural differences like this are likely overlooked by Western service providers. One older participant summarized it well “They [the young generation] are more Americanized. They are more open to other things [but] I think that mental health is still a barrier.” DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: This study investigated how different components of public stigma related to mental illness manifest among Vietnamese Americans, a major ethnic group in the United States, and how acculturation may influence such stigma. The findings highlighted important components of public stigma, including labeling and status loss, but did not provide strong evidence of the other components within our study population. Strong cultural beliefs underlined the understanding of mental health and mental illness in general, and how people viewed people with mental illness. Several findings have been highlighted in previous studies with Asian immigrants elsewhere; for example, a study from the perspectives of health care providers in Canada found that the unfamiliarity with Western biomedicine and spiritual beliefs and practices of immigrant women interacted with social stigma in preventing immigrants from accessing care (O’Mahony and Donnelly, 2007). Fancher et al. (2010) reported similar findings regarding stigma, traditional beliefs about medicine, and culture among Vietnamese Americans. Acculturation played a role in changing stigmatizing attitudes as evidenced in intergenerational differences. However, being more Americanized did not equate to being more open, having less stigmatizing attitudes, or being more willing to seek care for mental health issues. Consistent with previous studies (Pedersen and Paves, 2014), we still found some level of stigma among young people aged 18–35, although some components were lessened with an increased level of acculturation. There was also a conflict among the younger generation, in which the need for mental health care was recognized but accessing care was no easier for them than for their parent and grandparent generations. The study’s findings are useful to adapt existing instruments to measure stigma to this population. The findings also have important program implications. One, they can be directly translated into basic supports for local primary and behavioral health care providers. Two, they can also be used to guide and inform the development and evaluation of an intervention and an additional study to validate the findings in other immigrant ethnic groups in the United States. Finally, based on results of the study, we can develop a conceptual framework that describes pathways through which social, cultural, and ecological factors can influence stigma and the ways in which stigma acts as a barrier to accessing mental health care among Vietnamese Americans. The guiding framework then can be validated and applied in future programs aimed to improve mental health care utilization among ethnic minorities.
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42

Roman, Nicolette Vanessa. "Editorial: Community Development through Family Well-Being." Open Family Studies Journal 7, no. 1 (March 31, 2015): 1–2. http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1874922401507010001.

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The year 2014 was considered as the twentieth anniversary year of the family and in a sense acknowledges the important role of the family in society. Families are central to communities and one could almost consider the family-community connection to be a loop. In other words, when families are functioning well communities fare very well, which then relates back to families. But how are we to understand this important role of the family? Families are defined in different ways. According to Braithwaite and Baxter [1] “a family is a social group of two or more persons characterized by ongoing interdependence, with long term commitments that stem from blood, law and affection”. Chambers [2] believes that families are not a fixed concept but can rather be described beyond blood lines into a socially constructed concept. In South Africa, in terms of family policy, the family is defined “as a public group of people that is directly related (by blood), related by adoption or fostering or through marriage” [3]. In describing a family, there are often two very broad terms used which are functional and dysfunctional families. These descriptions are often determined by the processes or functions/practices between and amongst family members. Family functioning includes the manner in which family members relate to and with one another including how they search for goals, activities the family engages in together and separately, and acceptance of family practices. Furthermore, when a family is functioning well, family members hardly develop psychological problems, they perform tasks together, are able to deal with problems, and have understandable restrictions [4]. These are well functioning families, but families also do not function very well and these families could be considered as unhealthy and dysfunctional, often described as at-risk [5]. Both terms have consequences especially for future adults. In describing a family, there are often two very broad terms used which are functional and dysfunctional families. These descriptions are often determined by the processes or functions/practices between and amongst family members. Family functioning includes the manner in which family members relate to and with one another including how they search for goals, activities the family engages in together and separately, and acceptance of family practices. Furthermore, when a family is functioning well, family members hardly develop psychological problems, they perform tasks together, are able to deal with problems, and have understandable restrictions [4]. These are well functioning families, but families also do not function very well and these families could be considered as unhealthy and dysfunctional, often described as at-risk [5]. Both terms have consequences especially for future adults.the control and responsibility rests with the family. In this special issue, six articles highlight issues in the family which have consequences for family members and the community, either overtly or covertly. The article of Frantz, Sixaba & Smith focuses on family structure and the effects on health risk behavior of young people in Africa. This article highlights the plight of orphans living with caregivers, the definitive relationship between sexual risk behavior and family structure and provides the evidence that sexual risk behaviors loops back to HIV/AIDS in African countries. In this article gender, race and culture play a role in the relationship. In the article by Ryan, Roman & Okwany parental monitoring and communication are explored as important in the prevention, delay and reduction of substance abuse and risky sexual activity. These studies suggest that culture acts as a buffer against adolescent risk behaviors and that the mental health of parents is also important in the monitoring and communication with their adolescents. The Jacobs & Jacobs study focuses on mothers who are alcoholics and provides family narrations of secrecy, shame and silence but also highlights coping and recovery for alcoholics. Londt, Davids & Wilson used Social Learning Theory as a lens to understand the role of the family in the chronic denial of imprisoned sex offenders. These imprisoned sex offenders were raised in single-parent households with absent fathers, domestic violence substance abuse, unsatisfactory support and compromised parenting styles were prevalent. In the Mukasano, Schenck & van der Merwe article, a qualitative study explores parents’ experiences of their adolescents engaging in mobile texting. Parents find themselves having to monitor and negotiate rules and expectations with their adolescents. The study emphasizes the importance of communication and trust, respect and preparing for the disengagement process between members. Furthermore, substances are abused, physical, sexual and emotional abuse are present and children lack support and care. Within these families, there is the daily challenge of meeting the needs of family members. This could be due to the socio-economic circumstances of the family which in turn deprives family members of necessary resources and other social support. As a result, this undermines the ability of family members to perform expected functions and consequently results in the exposure to risk. Subsequently, at-risk families need additional support in order to cope with the myriad of challenges they face. This support may be in the form of other family members, community members or from government. Additionally, this support could also strengthen the family. Families should be seen as the entry point for service delivery and the subsequent building and development of communities [3]. Therefore, family relations, which are good and strong are important for the wellbeing of the individual, family and community [7]. In other words, family wellbeing is a concept that goes beyond economic wealth and includes physical and emotional health as well as safety and good quality relationships [7]. Similarly, family well-being and family functioning assume that families work best and contribute to society when there is a balance between the economic and non-economic factors [8] but it is very complex because family wellbeing is a multi-dimensional concept with different dimensions. These include providing financial support, good housing or access to services [9]. How does family well-being then relate to community development? The creation, development and growth of communities is dependent on families. For example, when families are not doing well, the family members will act out that is outside of the family. This acting out often occurs within the community and could be the engaging in antisocial behavior, substance abuse, violence, etc. These behaviours subsequently break down communities instead of building them up. The same could be said for the effects of family wellbeing. Tsey et al. [10] found that family wellbeing is an enabler for people to take control and responsibility of their own situations but more importantly, once they are able to do this, there is a ripple effect on increasing harmony and capacity to address issues within the wider community. Clearly, there is a relationship between family wellbeing and the overt and covert development of communities but parent and child. The final article of Jooste & Maritz is an exploration of the perceptions of healthcare professionals and family members regarding youth’s experiences of trauma. This article found that when youth experience trauma, there is a ripple effect onto other family members and the larger community which resulted in the entire system feeling helpless and depleted of resources to cope.
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43

Andersen, Harald. "Nu bli’r der ballade." Kuml 50, no. 50 (August 1, 2001): 7–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.7146/kuml.v50i50.103098.

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We’ll have trouble now!The Archaeological Society of Jutland was founded on Sunday, 11 March 1951. As with most projects with which P.V Glob was involved, this did not pass off without drama. Museum people and amateur archaeologists in large numbers appeared at the Museum of Natural History in Aarhus, which had placed rooms at our disposal. The notable dentist Holger Friis, the uncrowned king of Hjørring, was present, as was Dr Balslev from Aidt, Mr and Mrs Overgaard from Holstebro Museum, and the temperamental leader of Aalborg Historical Museum, Peter Riismøller, with a number of his disciples. The staff of the newly-founded Prehistoric Museum functioned as the hosts, except that one of them was missing: the instigator of the whole enterprise, Mr Glob. As the time for the meeting approached, a cold sweat broke out on the foreheads of the people present. Finally, just one minute before the meeting was to start, he arrived and mounted the platform. Everything then went as expected. An executive committee was elected after some discussion, laws were passed, and then suddenly Glob vanished again, only to materialise later in the museum, where he confided to us that his family, which included four children, had been enlarged by a daughter.That’s how the society was founded, and there is not much to add about this. However, a few words concerning the background of the society and its place in a larger context may be appropriate. A small piece of museum history is about to be unfolded.The story begins at the National Museum in the years immediately after World War II, at a time when the German occupation and its incidents were still terribly fresh in everyone’s memory. Therkel Mathiassen was managing what was then called the First Department, which covered the prehistoric periods.Although not sparkling with humour, he was a reliable and benevolent person. Number two in the order of precedence was Hans Christian Broholm, a more colourful personality – awesome as he walked down the corridors, with his massive proportions and a voice that sounded like thunder when nothing seemed to be going his way, as quite often seemed to be the case. Glob, a relatively new museum keeper, was also quite loud at times – his hot-blooded artist’s nature manifested itself in peculiar ways, but his straight forward appearance made him popular with both the older and the younger generations. His somewhat younger colleague C.J. Becker was a scholar to his fingertips, and he sometimes acted as a welcome counterbalance to Glob. At the bottom of the hierarchy was the student group, to which I belonged. The older students handled various tasks, including periodic excavations. This was paid work, and although the salary was by no means princely, it did keep us alive. Student grants were non-existent at the time. Four of us made up a team: Olfert Voss, Mogens Ørsnes, Georg Kunwald and myself. Like young people in general, we were highly discontented with the way our profession was being run by its ”ruling” members, and we were full of ideas for improvement, some of which have later been – or are being – introduced.At the top of our wish list was a central register, of which Voss was the strongest advocate. During the well over one hundred years that archaeology had existed as a professional discipline, the number of artefacts had grown to enormous amounts. The picture was even worse if the collections of the provincial museums were taken into consideration. We imagined how it all could be registered in a card index and categorised according to groups to facilitate access to references in any particular situation. Electronic data processing was still unheard of in those days, but since the introduction of computers, such a comprehensive record has become more feasible.We were also sceptical of the excavation techniques used at the time – they were basically adequate, but they badly needed tightening up. As I mentioned before, we were often working in the field, and not just doing minor jobs but also more important tasks, so we had every opportunity to try out our ideas. Kunwald was the driving force in this respect, working with details, using sections – then a novelty – and proceeding as he did with a thoroughness that even his fellow students found a bit exaggerated at times, although we agreed with his principles. Therkel Mathiassen moaned that we youngsters were too expensive, but he put up with our excesses and so must have found us somewhat valuable. Very valuable indeed to everyon e was Ejnar Dyggve’s excavation of the Jelling mounds in the early 1940s. From a Danish point of view, it was way ahead of its time.Therkel Mathiassen justly complained about the economic situation of the National Museum. Following the German occupation, the country was impoverished and very little money was available for archaeological research: the total sum available for the year 1949 was 20,000 DKK, which corresponded to the annual income of a wealthy man, and was of course absolutely inadequate. Of course our small debating society wanted this sum to be increased, and for once we didn’t leave it at the theoretical level.Voss was lucky enough to know a member of the Folketing (parliament), and a party leader at that. He was brought into the picture, and between us we came up with a plan. An article was written – ”Preserve your heritage” (a quotation from Johannes V. Jensen’s Denmark Song) – which was sent to the newspaper Information. It was published, and with a little help on our part the rest of the media, including radio, picked up the story.We informed our superiors only at the last minute, when everything was arranged. They were taken by surprise but played their parts well, as expected, and everything went according to plan. The result was a considerable increase in excavation funds the following year.It should be added that our reform plans included the conduct of exhibitions. We found the traditional way of presenting the artefacts lined up in rows and series dull and outdated. However, we were not able to experiment within this field.Our visions expressed the natural collision with the established ways that comes with every new generation – almost as a law of nature, but most strongly when the time is ripe. And this was just after the war, when communication with foreign colleagues, having been discontinued for some years, was slowly picking up again. The Archaeological Society of Jutland was also a part of all this, so let us turn to what Hans Christian Andersen somewhat provocatively calls the ”main country”.Until 1949, only the University of Copenhagen provided a degree in prehistoric archaeology. However, in this year, the University of Aarhus founded a chair of archaeology, mainly at the instigation of the Lord Mayor, Svend Unmack Larsen, who was very in terested in archaeology. Glob applied for the position and obtained it, which encompassed responsibility for the old Aarhus Museum or, as it was to be renamed, the Prehistoric Museum (now Moesgaard Museum).These were landmark events to Glob – and to me, as it turned out. We had been working together for a number of years on the excavation of Galgebakken (”Callows Hill”) near Slots Bjergby, Glob as the excavation leader, and I as his assistant. He now offered me the job of museum curator at his new institution. This was somewhat surprising as I had not yet finished my education. The idea was that I was to finish my studies in remote Jutland – a plan that had to be given up rather quickly, though, for reasons which I will describe in the following. At the same time, Gunner Lange-Kornbak – also hand-picked from the National Museum – took up his office as a conservation officer.The three of us made up the permanent museum staff, quickly supplemented by Geoffrey Bibby, who turned out to be an invaluable colleague. He was English and had been stationed in the Faeroe Islands during the war, where he learned to speak Danish. After 1945 he worked for some years for an oil company in the Gulf of Persia, but after marrying Vibeke, he settled in her home town of Aarhus. As his academic background had involved prehistoric cultures he wanted to collaborate with the museum, which Glob readily permitted.This small initial flock governed by Glob was not permitted to indulge inidleness. Glob was a dynamic character, full of good and not so good ideas, but also possessing a good grasp of what was actually practicable. The boring but necessary daily work on the home front was not very interesting to him, so he willingly handed it over to others. He hardly noticed the lack of administrative machinery, a prerequisite for any scholarly museum. It was not easy to follow him on his flights of fancy and still build up the necessary support base. However, the fact that he in no way spared himself had an appeasing effect.Provincial museums at that time were of a mixed nature. A few had trained management, and the rest were run by interested locals. This was often excellently done, as in Esbjerg, where the master joiner Niels Thomsen and a staff of volunteers carried out excavations that were as good as professional investigations, and published them in well-written articles. Regrettably, there were also examples of the opposite. A museum curator in Jutland informed me that his predecessor had been an eager excavator but very rarely left any written documentation of his actions. The excavated items were left without labels in the museum store, often wrapped in newspapers. However, these gave a clue as to the time of unearthing, and with a bit of luck a look in the newspaper archive would then reveal where the excavation had taken place. Although somewhat exceptional, this is not the only such case.The Museum of Aarhus definitely belonged among the better ones in this respect. Founded in 1861, it was at first located at the then town hall, together with the local art collection. The rooms here soon became too cramped, and both collections were moved to a new building in the ”Mølleparken” park. There were skilful people here working as managers and assistants, such as Vilhelm Boye, who had received his archaeological training at the National Museum, and later the partners A. Reeh, a barrister, and G.V. Smith, a captain, who shared the honour of a number of skilfully performed excavations. Glob’s predecessor as curator was the librarian Ejler Haugsted, also a competent man of fine achievements. We did not, thus, take over a museum on its last legs. On the other hand, it did not meet the requirements of a modern scholarly museum. We were given the task of turning it into such a museum, as implied by the name change.The goal was to create a museum similar to the National Museum, but without the faults and shortcomings that that museum had developed over a period of time. In this respect our nightly conversations during our years in Copenhagen turned out to be useful, as our talk had focused on these imperfections and how to eradicate them.We now had the opportunity to put our theories into practice. We may not have succeeded in doing so, but two areas were essentially improved:The numerous independent numbering systems, which were familiar to us from the National Museum, were permeating archaeological excavation s not only in the field but also during later work at the museum. As far as possible this was boiled down to a single system, and a new type of report was born. (In this context, a ”report” is the paper following a field investigation, comprising drawings, photos etc. and describing the progress of the work and the observations made.) The instructions then followed by the National Museum staff regarding the conduct of excavations and report writing went back to a 19th-century protocol by the employee G.V. Blom. Although clear and rational – and a vast improvement at the time – this had become outdated. For instance, the excavation of a burial mound now involved not only the middle of the mound, containing the central grave and its surrounding artefacts, but the complete structure. A large number of details that no one had previously paid attention to thus had to be included in the report. It had become a comprehensive and time-consuming work to sum up the desultory notebook records in a clear and understandable description.The instructions resulting from the new approach determined a special records system that made it possible to transcribe the notebook almost directly into a report following the excavation. The transcription thus contained all the relevant information concerning the in vestigation, and included both relics and soil layers, the excavation method and practical matters, although in a random order. The report proper could then bereduced to a short account containing references to the numbers in the transcribed notebook, which gave more detailed information.As can be imagined, the work of reform was not a continuous process. On the contrary, it had to be done in our spare hours, which were few and far between with an employer like Glob. The assignments crowded in, and the large Jutland map that we had purchased was as studded with pins as a hedge hog’s spines. Each pin represented an inuninent survey, and many of these grew into small or large excavations. Glob himself had his lecture duties to perform, and although he by no means exaggerated his concern for the students, he rarely made it further than to the surveys. Bibby and I had to deal with the hard fieldwork. And the society, once it was established, did not make our lives any easier. Kuml demanded articles written at lightning speed. A perusal of my then diary has given me a vivid recollection of this hectic period, in which I had to make use of the evening and night hours, when the museum was quiet and I had a chance to collect my thoughts. Sometimes our faithful supporter, the Lord Mayor, popped in after an evening meeting. He was extremely interested in our problems, which were then solved according to our abilities over a cup of instant coffee.A large archaeological association already existed in Denmark. How ever, Glob found it necessary to establish another one which would be less oppressed by tradition. Det kongelige nordiske Oldsskriftselskab had been funded in 1825 and was still influenced by different peculiarities from back then. Membership was not open to everyone, as applications were subject to recommendation from two existing members and approval by a vote at one of the monthly lecture meetings. Most candidates were of course accepted, but unpopular persons were sometimes rejected. In addition, only men were admitted – women were banned – but after the war a proposal was brought forward to change this absurdity. It was rejected at first, so there was a considerable excitement at the January meeting in 1951, when the proposal was once again placed on the agenda. The poor lecturer (myself) did his best, although he was aware of the fact that just this once it was the present and not the past which was the focus of attention. The result of the voting was not very courteous as there were still many opponents, but the ladies were allowed in, even if they didn’t get the warmest welcome.In Glob’s society there were no such restrictions – everyone was welcome regardless of sex or age. If there was a model for the society, it was the younger and more progressive Norwegian Archaeological Society rather than the Danish one. The main purpose of both societies was to produce an annual publication, and from the start Glob’s Kuml had a closer resemblance to the Norwegian Viking than to the Danish Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie. The name of the publication caused careful consideration. For a long time I kept a slip of paper with different proposals, one of which was Kuml, which won after having been approved by the linguist Peter Skautrup.The name alone, however, was not enough, so now the task became to find so mething to fill Kuml with. To this end the finds came in handy, and as for those, Glob must have allied him self with the higher powers, since fortune smiled at him to a considerable extent. Just after entering upon his duties in Aarhus, an archaeological sensation landed at his feet. This happened in May 1950 when I was still living in the capital. A few of us had planned a trip to Aarhus, partly to look at the relics of th e past, and partly to visit our friend, the professor. He greeted us warmly and told us the exciting news that ten iron swords had been found during drainage work in the valley of lllerup Aadal north of the nearby town of Skanderborg. We took the news calmly as Glob rarely understated his affairs, but our scepticism was misplaced. When we visited the meadow the following day and carefully examined the dug-up soil, another sword appeared, as well as several spear and lance heads, and other iron artefacts. What the drainage trench diggers had found was nothing less than a place of sacrifice for war booty, like the four large finds from the 1800s. When I took up my post in Aarhus in September of that year I was granted responsibility for the lllerup excavation, which I worked on during the autumn and the following six summers. Some of my best memories are associated with this job – an interesting and happy time, with cheerful comradeship with a mixed bunch of helpers, who were mainly archaeology students. When we finished in 1956, it was not because the site had been fully investigated, but because the new owner of the bog plot had an aversion to archaeologists and their activities. Nineteen years later, in 1975, the work was resumed, this time under the leadership of Jørgen Ilkjær, and a large amount of weaponry was uncovered. The report from the find is presently being published.At short intervals, the year 1952 brought two finds of great importance: in Februar y the huge vessel from Braa near Horsens, and in April the Grauballe Man. The large Celtic bronze bowl with the bulls’ heads was found disassembled, buried in a hill and covered by a couple of large stones. Thanks to the finder, the farmer Søren Paaske, work was stopped early enough to leave areas untouched for the subsequent examination.The saga of the Grauballe Man, or the part of it that we know, began as a rumour on the 26th of April: a skeleton had been found in a bog near Silkeborg. On the following day, which happened to be a Sunday, Glob went off to have a look at the find. I had other business, but I arrived at the museum in the evening with an acquaintance. In my diary I wrote: ”When we came in we had a slight shock. On the floor was a peat block with a corpse – a proper, well-preserved bog body. Glob brought it. ”We’ll be in trouble now.” And so we were, and Glob was in high spirits. The find created a sensation, which was also thanks to the quick presentation that we mounted. I had purchased a tape recorder, which cost me a packet – not a small handy one like the ones you get nowadays, but a large monstrosity with a steel tape (it was, after all, early days for this device) – and assisted by several experts, we taped a number of short lectures for the benefit of the visitors. People flocked in; the queue meandered from the exhibition room, through the museum halls, and a long way down the street. It took a long wait to get there, but the visitors seemed to enjoy the experience. The bog man lay in his hastily – procured exhibition case, which people circled around while the talking machine repeatedly expressed its words of wisdom – unfortunately with quite a few interruptions as the tape broke and had to be assembled by hand. Luckily, the tape recorders now often used for exhibitions are more dependable than mine.When the waves had died down and the exhibition ended, the experts examined the bog man. He was x-rayed at several points, cut open, given a tooth inspection, even had his fingerprints taken. During the autopsy there was a small mishap, which we kept to ourselves. However, after almost fifty years I must be able to reveal it: Among the organs removed for investigation was the liver, which was supposedly suitable for a C-14 dating – which at the time was a new dating method, introduced to Denmark after the war. The liver was sent to the laboratory in Copenhagen, and from here we received a telephone call a few days later. What had been sent in for examination was not the liver, but the stomach. The unfortunate (and in all other respects highly competent) Aarhus doctor who had performed the dissection was cal1ed in again. During another visit to the bogman’s inner parts he brought out what he believed to be the real liver. None of us were capable of deciding th is question. It was sent to Copenhagen at great speed, and a while later the dating arrived: Roman Iron Age. This result was later revised as the dating method was improved. The Grauballe Man is now thought to have lived before the birth of Christ.The preservation of the Grauballe Man was to be conservation officer Kornbak’s masterpiece. There were no earlier cases available for reference, so he invented a new method, which was very successful. In the first volumes of Kuml, society members read about the exiting history of the bog body and of the glimpses of prehistoric sacrificial customs that this find gave. They also read about the Bahrain expeditions, which Glob initiated and which became the apple of his eye. Bibby played a central role in this, as it was he who – at an evening gathering at Glob’s and Harriet’s home in Risskov – described his stay on the Persian Gulf island and the numerous burial mounds there. Glob made a quick decision (one of his special abilities was to see possibilities that noone else did, and to carry them out successfully to everyone’s surprise) and in December 1952 he and Bibby left for the Gulf, unaware of the fact that they were thereby beginning a series of expeditions which would continue for decades. Again it was Glob’s special genius that was the decisive factor. He very quickly got on friendly terms with the rulers of the small sheikhdoms and interested them in their past. As everyone knows, oil is flowing plentifully in those parts. The rulers were thus financially powerful and some of this wealth was quickly diverted to the expeditions, which probably would not have survived for so long without this assistance. To those of us who took part in them from time to time, the Gulf expeditions were an unforgettable experience, not just because of the interesting work, but even more because of the contact with the local population, which gave us an insight into local manners and customs that helped to explain parts of our own country’s past which might otherwise be difficult to understand. For Glob and the rest of us did not just get close to the elite: in spite of language problems, our Arab workers became our good friends. Things livened up when we occasionally turned up in their palm huts.Still, co-operating with Glob was not always an easy task – the sparks sometimes flew. His talent of initiating things is of course undisputed, as are the lasting results. He was, however, most attractive when he was in luck. Attention normally focused on this magnificent person whose anecdotes were not taken too seriously, but if something went wrong or failed to work out, he could be grossly unreasonable and a little too willing to abdicate responsibility, even when it was in fact his. This might lead to violent arguments, but peace was always restored. In 1954, another museum curator was attached to the museum: Poul Kjærum, who was immediately given the important task of investigating the dolmen settlement near Tustrup on Northern Djursland. This gave important results, such as the discovery of a cult house, which was a new and hitherto unknown Stone Age feature.A task which had long been on our mind s was finally carried out in 1955: constructing a new display of the museum collections. The old exhibitio n type consisted of numerous artefacts lined up in cases, accompaied ony by a brief note of the place where it was found and the type – which was the standard then. This type of exhibition did not give much idea of life in prehistoric times.We wanted to allow the finds to speak for themselves via the way that they were arranged, and with the aid of models, photos and drawings. We couldn’t do without texts, but these could be short, as people would understand more by just looking at the exhibits. Glob was in the Gulf at the time, so Kjærum and I performed the task with little money but with competent practical help from conservator Kornbak. We shared the work, but in fairness I must add that my part, which included the new lllerup find, was more suitable for an untraditional display. In order to illustrate the confusion of the sacrificial site, the numerous bent swords and other weapons were scattered a.long the back wall of the exhibition hall, above a bog land scape painted by Emil Gregersen. A peat column with inlaid slides illustrated the gradual change from prehistoric lake to bog, while a free-standing exhibition case held a horse’s skeleton with a broken skull, accompanied by sacrificial offerings. A model of the Nydam boat with all its oars sticking out hung from the ceiling, as did the fine copy of the Gundestrup vessel, as the Braa vessel had not yet been preserved. The rich pictorial decoration of the vessel’s inner plates was exhibited in its own case underneath. This was an exhibition form that differed considerably from all other Danish exhibitions of the time, and it quickly set a fashion. We awaited Glob’s homecoming with anticipation – if it wasn’t his exhibition it was still made in his spirit. We hoped that he would be surprised – and he was.The museum was thus taking shape. Its few employees included Jytte Ræbild, who held a key position as a secretary, and a growing number of archaeology students who took part in the work in various ways during these first years. Later, the number of employees grew to include the aforementioned excavation pioneer Georg Kunwald, and Hellmuth Andersen and Hans Jørgen Madsen, whose research into the past of Aarhus, and later into Danevirke is known to many, and also the ethnographer Klaus Ferdinand. And now Moesgaard appeared on the horizon. It was of course Glob’s idea to move everything to a manor near Aarhus – he had been fantasising about this from his first Aarhus days, and no one had raised any objections. Now there was a chance of fulfilling the dream, although the actual realisation was still a difficult task.During all this, the Jutland Archaeological Society thrived and attracted more members than expected. Local branches were founded in several towns, summer trips were arranged and a ”Worsaae Medal” was occasionally donated to persons who had deserved it from an archaeological perspective. Kuml came out regularly with contributions from museum people and the like-minded. The publication had a form that appealed to an inner circle of people interested in archaeology. This was the intention, and this is how it should be. But in my opinion this was not quite enough. We also needed a publication that would cater to a wider public and that followed the same basic ideas as the new exhibition.I imagined a booklet, which – without over-popularsing – would address not only the professional and amateur archaeologist but also anyone else interested in the past. The result was Skalk, which (being a branch of the society) published its fir t issue in the spring of 1957. It was a somewhat daring venture, as the financial base was weak and I had no knowledge of how to run a magazine. However, both finances and experience grew with the number of subscribers – and faster than expected, too. Skalk must have met an unsatisfied need, and this we exploited to the best of our ability with various cheap advertisements. The original idea was to deal only with prehistoric and medieval archaeology, but the historians also wanted to contribute, and not just the digging kind. They were given permission, and so the topic of the magazine ended up being Denmark’s past from the time of its first inhabitant s until the times remembered by the oldest of us – with the odd sideways leap to other subjects. It would be impossible to claim that Skalk was at the top of Glob’s wish list, but he liked it and supported the idea in every way. The keeper of national antiquities, Johannes Brøndsted, did the same, and no doubt his unreserved approval of the magazine contributed to its quick growth. Not all authors found it easy to give up technical language and express themselves in everyday Danish, but the new style was quickly accepted. Ofcourse the obligations of the magazine work were also sometimes annoying. One example from the diary: ”S. had promised to write an article, but it was overdue. We agreed to a final deadline and when that was overdue I phoned again and was told that the author had gone to Switzerland. My hair turned grey overnight.” These things happened, but in this particular case there was a happy ending. Another academic promised me three pages about an excavation, but delivered ten. As it happened, I only shortened his production by a third.The 1960s brought great changes. After careful consideration, Glob left us to become the keeper of national antiquities. One important reason for his hesitation was of course Moesgaard, which he missed out on – the transfer was almost settled. This was a great loss to the Aarhus museum and perhaps to Glob, too, as life granted him much greater opportunities for development.” I am not the type to regret things,” he later stated, and hopefully this was true. And I had to choose between the museum and Skalk – the work with the magazine had become too timeconsuming for the two jobs to be combined. Skalk won, and I can truthfully say that I have never looked back. The magazine grew quickly, and happy years followed. My resignation from the museum also meant that Skalk was disengaged from the Jutland Archaeological Society, but a close connection remained with both the museum and the society.What has been described here all happened when the museum world was at the parting of the ways. It was a time of innovation, and it is my opinion that we at the Prehistoric Museum contributed to that change in various ways.The new Museum Act of 1958 gave impetus to the study of the past. The number of archaeology students in creased tremendously, and new techniques brought new possibilities that the discussion club of the 1940s had not even dreamt of, but which have helped to make some of the visions from back then come true. Public in terest in archaeology and history is still avid, although to my regret, the ahistorical 1960s and 1970s did put a damper on it.Glob is greatly missed; not many of his kind are born nowadays. He had, so to say, great virtues and great fault s, but could we have done without either? It is due to him that we have the Jutland Archaeological Society, which has no w existed for half a century. Congr tulat ion s to the Society, from your offspring Skalk.Harald AndersenSkalk MagazineTranslated by Annette Lerche Trolle
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"An Act of Empowerment: The Children, Young Persons and their Families Act (1989)." British Journal of Social Work, February 1994. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjsw.a056042.

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Ab Kadir, Nor Aida, Maheran Makhtar, Naziree Md Yusof, and Norhasliza Ghapa. "Protection of Best Interest: A Study on Children Working in the Entertainment Industry in Malaysia and Their Right to Education." Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 29, S2 (May 17, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.47836/pjssh.29.s2.04.

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In Malaysia, there is no law prohibiting children from working in the entertainment industry. Malaysia only provides general law on the employment of children and young persons in the entertainment industry. There are possibilities that children in the entertainment business will endure neglect and exploitation. Their working environment may expose them to possible harms, physically as well as psychologically. Like other children, child performers must have adequate access to education. However, their right to education is affected since the nature of their work impedes them from attending school at times. This study discussed the effects of working in the entertainment industry towards children, especially on hard access to education. The relevant laws in the Malaysian legal framework was be construed. The recent amendment to The Children and Young Persons (Employment) Act 1966; known as The Children and Young Persons (Employment) (Amendment) Act 2019 which came into force on 1st February 2019 would be discussed. Under Article 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (CRC), which emphasises the protection of the best interest of children all over the world; this study recommends a proper guideline to be implied upon the players in the entertainment industry. This guideline will be a part of the child protection policy, drafted specifically for children working in the entertainment industry. This study shows that law, policy, and legal enforcement are needed to fully protect children from risks and harm, including their right to education.
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Becroft, Andrew. "Are there lessons to be learned from the youth justice system?" Policy Quarterly 5, no. 2 (May 1, 2009). http://dx.doi.org/10.26686/pq.v5i2.4297.

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It has been almost 20 years since the introduction of the ground-breaking Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 (CYPF Act). When introduced the act revolutionised New Zealand youth justice practices (Watt, 2003). It was responding to significant perceived problems with the existing system, including: • too many young people being brought before the courts; • too much reliance on an institutionalised, residential approach (often criminalising behaviour which was really the result of care and protection deficits); and • insufficient opportunity for family and cultural input.
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"Pediatrician's Role in the Development and Implementation of an Individual Education Plan (IEP) and/or an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP)." Pediatrics 89, no. 2 (February 1, 1992): 340–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.89.2.340.

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Approximately 10% of young persons between the ages of 6 and 17 years receive special education and related services.1 An additional 750 000 neonates each year may have or be at risk for having developmental disabilities.2 Therefore, pediatricians have many patients who have disabling conditions or are at risk for them. Federal legislation requires each child identified as having a disability to have a written plan of service: an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for children aged 3 through 21 years or an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) for children aged birth through 2 years. The pediatrician is in a unique position to be involved in planning and providing care for both groups of children. BACKGROUND The Individual Education Plan In 1975 Congress passed Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, as an educational bill of rights to guarantee handicapped children a free and appropriate education. The law required that identification, diagnosis, education, and related services be provided for children 5 to 18 years of age. In 1977, the age range was extended to include children aged 3 to 21 years, with services for children aged 3 to 5 years remaining optional. Not only were these services to be provided, but states also were encouraged to seek out children who had not been served previously. Conditions eligible under Public Law 94-142 include mental retardation, hearing deficiencies, speech and language impairments, specific learning disabilities, visual handicaps, emotional disturbances, orthopedic impairments, and a variety of other medical conditions categorized as "other health impaired."
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Pedersen, Isabel, and Kristen Aspevig. "Being Jacob: Young Children, Automedial Subjectivity, and Child Social Media Influencers." M/C Journal 21, no. 2 (April 25, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1352.

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Introduction Children are not only born digital, they are fashioned toward a lifestyle that needs them to be digital all the time (Palfrey and Gasser). They click, tap, save, circulate, download, and upload the texts of their lives, their friends’ lives, and the anonymous lives of the people that surround them. They are socialised as Internet consumers ready to participate in digital services targeted to them as they age such as Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube. But they are also fashioned as producers, whereby their lives are sold as content on these same markets. As commodities, the minutiae of their lives become the fodder for online circulation. Paradoxically, we also celebrate these digital behaviours as a means to express identity. Personal profile-building for adults is considered agency-building (Beer and Burrows), and as a consequence, we praise children for mimicking these acts of adult lifestyle. This article reflects on the Kids, Creative Storyworlds, and Wearables project, which involved an ethnographic study with five young children (ages 4-7), who were asked to share their autobiographical stories, creative self-narrations, and predictions about their future mediated lives (Atkins et al.). For this case study, we focus on commercialised forms of children’s automedia, and we compare discussions we had with 6-year old Cayden, a child we met in the study who expresses the desire to make himself famous online, with videos of Jacob, a child vlogger on YouTube’s Kinder Playtime, who clearly influences children like Cayden. We argue that child social influencers need consideration both as autobiographical agents and as child subjects requiring a sheltered approach to their online lives.Automedia Automedia is an emergent genre of autobiography (Smith and Watson Reading 190; “Virtually Me” 78). Broadcasting one’s life online takes many forms (Kennedy “Vulnerability”). Ümit Kennedy argues “Vlogging on YouTube is a contemporary form of autobiography in which individuals engage in a process of documenting their life on a daily or weekly basis and, in doing so, construct[ing] their identity online” (“Exploring”). Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson write that “visual and digital modes are projecting and circulating not just new subjects but new notions of subjectivity through the effects of automediality” with the result that “the archive of the self in time, in space and in relation expands and is fundamentally reorganized” (Reading 190). Emma Maguire addresses what online texts “tell us about cultural understandings of selfhood and what it means to communicate ‘real’ life through media” naming one tool, “automedia”. Further, Julie Rak calls on scholars “to rethink ‘life’ and ‘writing’ as automedia” to further “characterize the enactment of a personal life story in a new media environment.” We define automedia as a genre that involves the practices of creating, performing, sharing, circulating, and (at times) preserving one’s digital life narrative meant for multiple publics. Automedia revises identity formation, embodiment, or corporealities in acts of self-creation (Brophy and Hladki 4). Automedia also emphasizes circulation. As shared digital life texts now circulate through the behaviours of other human subjects, and automatically via algorithms in data assemblages, we contend that automediality currently involves a measure of relinquishing control over perpetually evolving mediatised environments. One cannot control how a shared life narrative will meet a public in the future, which is a revised way of thinking about autobiography. For the sake of this paper, we argue that children’s automedia ought to be considered a creative, autobiographical act, in order to afford child authors who create them the consideration they deserve as agents, now and in the future. Automedial practices often begin when children receive access to a device. The need for a distraction activity is often the reason parents hand a young child a smartphone, iPad, or even a wearable camera (Nansen). Mirroring the lives of parents, children aspire to share representations of their own personal lives in pursuit of social capital. They are often encouraged to use technologies and apps as adults do–to track aspects of self, broadcast life stories and eventually “live share” them—effectively creating, performing, sharing, and at times, seeking to preserve a public life narrative. With this practice, society inculcates children into spheres of device ubiquity, “socializing them to a future digital lifestyle that will involve always carrying a computer in some form” (Atkins et al. 49). Consequently, their representations become inculcated in larger media assemblages. Writing about toddlers, Nansen describes how the “archiving, circulation and reception of these images speaks to larger assemblages of media in which software protocols and algorithms are increasingly embedded in and help to configure everyday life (e.g. Chun; Gillespie), including young children’s media lives (Ito)” (Nansen). Children, like adult citizens, are increasingly faced with choices “not structured by their own preferences but by the economic imperatives of the private corporations that have recently come to dominate the internet” (Andrejevic). Recent studies have shown that for children and youth in the digital age, Internet fame, often characterized by brand endorsements, is a major aspiration (Uhls and Greenfield, 2). However, despite the ambition to participate as celebrity digital selves, children are also mired in the calls to shield them from exposure to screens through institutions that label these activities detrimental. In many countries, digital “protections” are outlined by privacy commissioners and federal or provincial/state statutes, (e.g. Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada). Consequently, children are often caught in a paradox that defines them either as literate digital agents able to compose or participate with their online selves, or as subjectified wards caught up in commercial practices that exploit their lives for commercial gain.Kids, Creative Storyworlds and Wearables ProjectBoth academic and popular cultural critics continually discuss the future but rarely directly engage the people who will be empowered (or subjugated) by it as young adults in twenty years. To address children’s lack of agency in these discussions, we launched the Kids, Creative Storyworlds and Wearables project to bring children into a dialogue about their own digital futures. Much has been written on childhood agency and participation in culture and mediated culture from the discipline of sociology (James and James; Jenks; Jenkins). In previous work, we addressed the perspective of child autobiographical feature filmmakers to explore issues of creative agency and consent when adult gatekeepers facilitate children in film production (Pedersen and Aspevig “My Eyes”; Pedersen and Aspevig “Swept”). Drawing on that previous work, this project concentrates on children’s automediated lives and the many unique concerns that materialize with digital identity-building. Children are categorised as a vulnerable demographic group necessitating special policy and legislation, but the lives they project as children will eventually become subsumed in their own adult lives, which will almost certainly be treated and mediated in a much different manner in the future. We focused on this landscape, and sought to query the children on their futures, also considering the issues that arise when adult gatekeepers get involved with child social media influencers. In the Storyworlds ethnographic study, children were given a wearable toy, a Vtech smartwatch called Kidizoom, to use over a month’s timeframe to serve as a focal point for ethnographic conversations. The Kidizoom watch enables children to take photos and videos, which are uploaded to a web interface. Before we gave them the tech, we asked them questions about their lives, including What are machines going to be like in the future? Can you imagine yourself wearing a certain kind of computer? Can you tell/draw a story about that? If you could wear a computer that gave you a super power, what would it be? Can you use your imagination to think of a person in a story who would use technology? In answering, many of them drew autobiographical drawings of technical inventions, and cast themselves in the images. We were particularly struck by the comments made by one participant, Cayden (pseudonym), a 6-year-old boy, and the stories he told us about himself and his aspirations. He expressed the desire to host a YouTube channel about his life, his activities, and the wearable technologies his family already owned (e.g. a GroPro camera) and the one we gave him, the Kidizoom smartwatch. He talked about how he would be proud to publically broadcast his own videos on YouTube, and about the role he had been allowed to play in the making of videos about his life (that were not broadcast). To contextualize Cayden’s commentary and his automedial aspirations, we extended our study to explore child social media influencers who broadcast components of their personal lives for the deliberate purpose of popularity and the financial gain of their parents.We selected the videos of Jacob, a child vlogger because we judged them to be representative of the kinds that Cayden watched. Jacob reviews toys through “unboxing videos,” a genre in which a child tells an online audience her or his personal experiences using new toys in regular, short videos on a social media site. Jacob appears on a YouTube channel called Kinder Playtime, which appears to be a parent-run channel that states that, “We enjoy doing these things while playing with our kids: Jacob, Emily, and Chloe” (see Figure 1). In one particular video, Jacob reviews the Kidizoom watch, serving as a child influencer for the product. By understanding Jacob’s performance as agent-driven automedia, as well as being a commercialised, mediatised form of advertising, we get a clearer picture of how the children in the study are coming to terms with their own digital selfhood and the realisation that circulated, life-exposing videos are the expectation in this context.Children are implicated in a range of ways through “family” influencer and toy unboxing videos, which are emergent entertainment industries (Abidin 1; Nansen and Nicoll; Craig and Cunningham 77). In particular, unboxing videos do impact child viewers, especially when children host them. Jackie Marsh emphasizes the digital literacy practices at play here that co-construct viewers as “cyberflâneur[s]” and she states that “this mode of cultural transmission is a growing feature of online practices for this age group” (369). Her stress, however, is on how the child viewer enjoys “the vicarious pleasure he or she may get from viewing the playing of another child with the toy” (376). Marsh writes that her study subject, a child called “Gareth”, “was not interested in being made visible to EvanHD [a child celebrity social media influencer] or other online peers, but was content to consume” the unboxing videos. The concept of the cyberflâneur, then, is fitting as a mediatising co-constituting process of identity-building within discourses of consumerism. However, in our study, the children, and especially Cayden, also expressed the desire to create, host, and circulate their own videos that broadcast their lives, also demonstrating awareness that videos are valorised in their social circles. Child viewers watch famous children perform consumer-identities to create an aura of influence, but viewers simultaneously aspire to become influencers using automedial performances, in essence, becoming products, themselves. Jacob, Automedial Subjects and Social Media InfluencersJacob is a vlogger on YouTube whose videos can garner millions of views, suggesting that he is also an influencer. In one video, he appears to be around the age of six as he proudly sits with folded hands, bright eyes, and a beaming, but partly toothless smile (see Figure 2). He says, “Welcome to Kinder Playtime! Today we have the Kidi Zoom Smartwatch DX. It’s from VTech” (Kinder Playtime). We see the Kidi Zoom unboxed and then depicted in stylized animations amid snippets of Jacob’s smiling face. The voice and hands of a faceless parent guide Jacob as he uses his new wearable toy. We listen to both parent and child describe numerous features for recording and enhancing the wearer’s daily habits (e.g. calculator, calendar, fitness games), and his dad tells him it has a pedometer “which tracks your steps” (Kinder Playtime). But the watch is also used by Jacob to mediate himself and his world. We see that Jacob takes pictures of himself on the tiny watch screen as he acts silly for the camera. He also uses the watch to take personal videos of his mother and sister in his home. The video ends with his father mentioning bedtime, which prompts a “thank you” to VTech for giving him the watch, and a cheerful “Bye!” from Jacob (Kinder Playtime). Figure 1: Screenshot of Kinder Playtime YouTube channel, About page Figure 2: Screenshot of “Jacob,” a child vlogger at Kinder Playtime We chose Jacob for three reasons. First, he is the same age as the children in the Storyworlds study. Second, he reviews the smart watch artifact that we gave to the study children, so there was a common use of automedia technology. Third, Jacob’s parents were involved with his broadcasts, and we wanted to work within the boundaries of parent-sanctioned practices. However, we also felt that his playful approach was a good example of how social media influence overlaps with automediality. Jacob is a labourer trading his public self-representations in exchange for free products and revenue earned through the monetisation of his content on YouTube. It appears that much of what Jacob says is scripted, particularly the promotional statements, like, “Today we have the Kidizoom Smartwatch DX. It’s from VTech. It’s the smartest watch for kids” (Kinder Playtime). Importantly, as an automedial subject Jacob reveals aspects of his self and his identity, in the manner of many child vloggers on public social media sites. His product reviews are contextualised within a commoditised space that provides him a means for the public performance of his self, which, via YouTube, has the potential to reach an enormous audience. YouTube claims to have “over a billion users—almost one-third of all people on the Internet—and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views” (YouTube). Significantly, he is not only filmed by others, Jacob is also a creative practitioner, as Cayden aspired to become. Jacob uses high-tech toys, in this case, a new wearable technology for self-compositions (the smart watch), to record himself, friends, family or simply the goings-on around him. Strapped to his wrist, the watch toy lets him play at being watched, at being quantified and at recording the life stories of others, or constructing automediated creations for himself, which he may upload to numerous social media sites. This is the start of his online automediated life, which will be increasingly under his ownership as he ages. To greater or lesser degrees, he will later be able to curate, add to, and remediate his body of automedia, including his digital past. Kennedy points out that “people are using YouTube as a transformative tool, and mirror, to document, construct, and present their identity online” (“Exploring”). Her focus is on adult vloggers who consent to their activities. Jacob’s automedia is constructed collaboratively with his parents, and it is unclear how much awareness he has of himself as an automedia creator. However, if we don’t afford Jacob the same consideration as we afford adult autobiographers, that the depiction of his life is his own, we will reduce his identity performance to pure artifice or advertisement. The questions Jacob’s videos raise around agency, consent, and creativity are important here. Sidonie Smith asks “Can there be a free, agentic space; and if so, where in the world can it be found?” (Manifesto 188). How much agency does Jacob have? Is there a liberating aspect in the act of putting personal technology into the hands of a child who can record his life, himself? And finally, how would an adult Jacob feel about his childhood self advertising these products online? Is this really automediality if Jacob does not fully understand what it means to publicly tell a mediated life story?These queries lead to concerns over child social media influence with regard to legal protection, marketing ethics, and user consent. The rise of “fan marketing” presents a nexus of stealth marketing to children by other children. Stealth marketing involves participants, in this case, fans, who do not know they are involved in an advertising scheme. For instance, the popular Minecon Minecraft conference event sessions have pushed their audience to develop the skills to become advocates and advertisers of their products, for example by showing audiences how to build a YouTube channel and sharing tips for growing a community. Targeting children in marketing ploys seems insidious. Marketing analyst Sandy Fleisher describes the value of outsourcing marketing to fan labourers:while Grand Theft Auto spent $120 million on marketing its latest release, Minecraft fans are being taught how to create and market promotional content themselves. One [example] is Minecraft YouTuber, SkydoesMinecraft. His nearly 7 million strong YouTube army, almost as big as Justin Bieber’s, means his daily videos enjoy a lot of views; 1,419,734,267 to be precise. While concerns about meaningful consent that practices like this raise have led some government bodies, and consumer and child protection groups to advocate restrictions for children, other critics have questioned the limits placed on children’s free expression by such restrictions. Tech commentator Larry Magid has written that, “In the interest of protecting children, we sometimes deny them the right to access material and express themselves.” Meghan M. Sweeney notes that “the surge in collaborative web models and the emphasis on interactivity—frequently termed Web 2.0—has meant that children are not merely targets of global media organizations” but have “multiple opportunities to be active, critical, and resistant producers”...and ”may be active agents in the production and dissemination of information” (68). Nevertheless, writes Sweeney, “corporate entities can have restrictive effects on consumers” (68), by for example, limiting imaginative play to the choices offered on a Disney website, or limiting imaginative topics to commercial products (toys, video games etc), as in YouTube review videos. Automedia is an important site from which to consider young children’s online practices in public spheres. Jacob’s performance is indeed meant to influence the choice to buy a toy, but it is also meant to influence others in knowing Jacob as an identity. He means to share and circulate his self. Julie Rak recalls Paul John Eakin’s claims about life-writing that the “process does not even occur at the level of writing, but at the level of living, so that identity formation is the result of narrative-building.” We view Jacob’s performance along these lines. Kinder Playtime offers him a constrained, parent-sanctioned (albeit commercialised) space for role-playing, a practice bound up with identity-formation in the life of most children. To think through the legality of recognising Jacob’s automedial content as his life, Rak is also useful: “In Eakin’s work in particular, we can see evidence of John Locke’s contention that identity is the expression of consciousness which is continuous over time, but that identity is also a product, one’s own property which is a legal entity”. We have argued that children are often caught in the paradox that defines them either as literate digital creators composing and circulating their online selves or as subjectified personas caught up in commercial advertising practices that use their lives for commercial gain. However, through close observation of individual children, one who we met and questioned in our study, Cayden, the other who we met through his mediated, commercialized, and circulated online persona, Jacob, we argue that child social influencers need consideration as autobiographical agents expressing themselves through automediality. As children create, edit, and grow digital traces of their lives and selves, how these texts are framed becomes increasingly important, in part because their future adult selves have such a stake in the matter: they are being formed through automedia. Moreover, these children’s coming of age may bring legal questions about the ownership of their automedial products such as YouTube videos, an enduring legacy they are leaving behind for their adult selves. Crucially, if we reduce identity performances such as unboxing, toy review videos, and other forms of children’s fan marketing to pure advertisement, we cannot afford Jacob and other child influencers the agency that their self representation is legally and artistically their own.ReferencesAbidin, Crystal. “#familygoals: Family Influencers, Calibrated Amateurism, and Justifying Young Digital Labor.” Social Media + Society 3.2 (2017): 1-15.Andrejevic, Mark. “Privacy, Exploitation, and the Digital Enclosure.” Amsterdam Law Forum 1.4 (2009). <http://amsterdamlawforum.org/article/view/94/168>.Atkins, Bridgette, Isabel Pedersen, Shirley Van Nuland, and Samantha Reid. “A Glimpse into the Kids, Creative Storyworlds and Wearables Project: A Work-in-Progress.” ICET 60th World Assembly: Teachers for a Better World: Creating Conditions for Quality Education – Pedagogy, Policy and Professionalism. 2017. 49-60.Beer, David, and Roger Burrows. “Popular Culture, Digital Archives and the New Social Life of Data.” Theory, Culture & Society 30.4 (2013): 47–71.Brophy, Sarah, and Janice Hladki. Introduction. Pedagogy, Image Practices, and Contested Corporealities. Eds. Sarah Brophy and Janice Hladki. New York, NY: Routledge, 2014. 1-6.Craig, David, and Stuart Cunningham. “Toy Unboxing: Living in a(n Unregulated) Material World.” Media International Australia 163.1 (2017): 77-86.Fleischer, Sandy. “Watch Out for That Creeper: What Minecraft Teaches Us about Marketing.” Digital Marketing Magazine. 30 May 2014. <http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/articles/watch-out-for-that-creeper-what-minecraft-teaches-us-about-marketing>.James, Allison, and Adrian James. Key Concepts in Childhood Studies. London: Sage, 2012.Jenkins, Henry. The Childhood Reader. New York: NYU P, 1998.Jenks, Chris. Childhood. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2015.Kennedy, Ümit. "Exploring YouTube as a Transformative Tool in the 'The Power of MAKEUP!' Movement." M/C Journal 19.4 (2016). <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1127>.———. “The Vulnerability of Contemporary Digital Autobiography” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 32.2 (2017): 409-411.Kinder Playtime. “VTech Kidizoom Smart Watch DX Review by Kinder Playtime.” YouTube, 4 Nov. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaxCSjwZjcA&t=28s>.Magid, Larry. “Protecting Children Online Needs to Allow for Their Right to Free Speech.” ConnectSafely 29 Aug. 2014. <http://www.connectsafely.org/protecting-children-online-needs-to-allow-for-their-right-to-free-speech/>.Maguire, Emma. “Home, About, Shop, Contact: Constructing an Authorial Persona via the Author Website.” M/C Journal 17.3 (2014). <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/821>.Marsh, Jackie. “‘Unboxing’ Videos: Co-construction of the Child as Cyberflâneur.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 37.3 (2016): 369-380.Nansen, Bjorn. “Accidental, Assisted, Automated: An Emerging Repertoire of Infant Mobile Media Techniques.” M/C Journal 18.5 (2015). <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1026>.———, and Benjamin Nicoll. “Toy Unboxing Videos and the Mimetic Production of Play.” Paper presented at the 18th Annual Conference of Internet Researchers (AoIR), Tartu, Estonia. 2017.Palfrey, John, and Urs Gasser. Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age. New York: Basic Books, 2016.Pedersen, Isabel, and Kristen Aspevig. “‘My Eyes Ended Up at My Fingertips, My Ears, My Nose, My Mouth’: Antoine, Autobiographical Documentary, and the Cinematic Depiction of a Blind Child Subject.” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 34.4 (2011).Pedersen, Isabel, and Kristen Aspevig. “‘Swept to the Sidelines and Forgotten’: Cultural Exclusion, Blind Persons’ Participation, and International Film Festivals.” Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 3.3 (2014): 29-52.Rak, Julie. “First Person? Life Writing versus Automedia.” International Association for Biography and Autobiography Europe (IABA Europe). Vienna, Austria. 30 Oct. – 3 Nov. 2013.Smith, Sidonie. “The Autobiographical Manifesto.” Ed. Shirely Neuman. Autobiography and Questions of Gender. London: Frank Cass, 1991.———, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010.———. “Virtually Me: A Toolbox about Online Self-Presentation.” Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online. Eds. Anna Poletti and Julie Rak. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2014. 70-95.Sweeney, Meghan. “‘Where Happily Ever After Happens Every Day’: Disney's Official Princess Website and the Commodification of Play.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 3.2 (2011): 66-87.Uhls, Yalda, and Particia Greenfield. “The Value of Fame: Preadolescent Perceptions of Popular Media and Their Relationship to Future Aspirations.” Developmental Psychology 48.2 (2012): 315-326.YouTube. “YouTube for Press.” 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press/>.
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Abidin, Crystal. "Micro­microcelebrity: Branding Babies on the Internet." M/C Journal 18, no. 5 (October 14, 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1022.

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Abstract:
Babies and toddlers are amassing huge followings on social media, achieving microcelebrity status, and raking in five figure sums. In East Asia, many of these lucrative “micro­-microcelebrities” rise to fame by inheriting exposure and proximate microcelebrification from their social media Influencer mothers. Through self-branding techniques, Influencer mothers’ portrayals of their young’ children’s lives “as lived” are the canvas on which (baby) products and services are marketed to readers as “advertorials”. In turning to investigate this budding phenomenon, I draw on ethnographic case studies in Singapore to outline the career trajectory of these young children (under 4yo) including their social media presence, branding strategies, and engagement with their followers. The chapter closes with a brief discussion on some ethical considerations of such young children’s labour in the social media age.Influencer MothersTheresa Senft first coined the term “microcelebrity” in her work Camgirls as a burgeoning online trend, wherein people attempt to gain popularity by employing digital media technologies, such as videos, blogs, and social media. She describes microcelebrities as “non-actors as performers” whose narratives take place “without overt manipulation”, and who are “more ‘real’ than television personalities with ‘perfect hair, perfect friends and perfect lives’” (Senft 16), foregrounding their active response to their communities in the ways that maintain open channels of feedback on social media to engage with their following.Influencers – a vernacular industry term albeit inspired by Katz & Lazarsfeld’s notion of “personal influence” that predates Internet culture – are one type of microcelebrity; they are everyday, ordinary Internet users who accumulate a relatively large following on blogs and social media through the textual and visual narration of their personal lives and lifestyles, engage with their following in “digital” and “physical” spaces, and monetize their following by integrating “advertorials” into their blog or social media posts and making physical appearances at events. A pastiche of “advertisement” and “editorial”, advertorials in the Influencer industry are highly personalized, opinion-laden promotions of products/services that Influencers personally experience and endorse for a fee. Influencers in Singapore often brand themselves as having “relatability”, or the ability to persuade their followers to identify with them (Abidin). They do so by make consciously visible the backstage (Goffman) of the usually “inaccessible”, “personal”, and “private” aspects of mundane, everyday life to curate personae that feel “authentic” to fans (Marwick 114), and more accessible than traditional celebrity (Senft 16).Historically, the Influencer industry in Singapore can be traced back to the early beginnings of the “blogshop” industry from the mid-2000s and the “commercial blogging” industry. Influencers are predominantly young women, and market products and services from diverse industries, although the most popular have been fashion, beauty, F&B, travel, and electronics. Most prominent Influencers are contracted to management agencies who broker deals in exchange for commission and assist in the production of their vlogs. Since then, the industry has grown, matured, and expanded so rapidly that Influencers developed emergent models of advertorials, with the earliest cohorts moving into different life stages and monetizing several other aspects of their personal lives such as the “micro-microcelebrity” of their young children. What this paper provides is an important analysis of the genesis and normative practices of micro-microcelebrity commerce in Singapore from its earliest years, and future research trajectories in this field.Micro-Microcelebrity and Proximate MicrocelebrificationI define micro-microcelebrities as the children of Influencers who have themselves become proximate microcelebrities, having derived exposure and fame from their prominent Influencer mothers, usually through a more prolific, deliberate, and commercial form of what Blum-Ross defines as “sharenting”: the act of parents sharing images and stores about their children in digital spaces such as social networking sites and blogs. Marwick (116-117), drawing from Rojek’s work on types of celebrity – distinguishes between two types of microcelebrity: “ascribed microcelebrity” where the online personality is made recognizable through the “production of celebrity media” such as paparazzi shots and user-produced online memes, or “achieved microcelebrity” where users engage in “self-presentation strateg[ies]”, such as fostering the illusion of intimacy with fans, maintaining a persona, and selective disclosure about oneself.Micro-microcelebrities lie somewhere between the two: In a process I term “proximate microcelebrification”, micro-microcelebrities themselves inherit celebrity through the preemptive and continuous exposure from their Influencer mothers, many beginning even during the pre-birth pregnancy stages in the form of ultrasound scans, as a form of “achieved microcelebrity”. Influencer mothers whose “presentational strategies” (cf. Marshall, “Promotion” 45) are successful enough (as will be addressed later) gain traction among followers, who in turn further popularize the micro-microcelebrity by setting up fan accounts, tribute sites, and gossip forums through which fame is heightened in a feedback loop as a model of “ascribed microcelebrity”.Here, however, I refrain from conceptualizing these young stars as “micro-Influencers” for unlike Influencers, these children do not yet curate their self-presentation to command the attention of followers, but instead are used, framed, and appropriated by their mothers for advertorials. In other words, Influencer mothers “curate [micro-microcelebrities’] identities into being” (Leaver, “Birth”). Following this, many aspects of their micro-microcelebrities become rapidly commodified and commercialized, with advertisers clamoring to endorse anything from maternity hospital stays to nappy cream.Although children of mommybloggers have the prospect to become micro-microcelebrities, both groups are conceptually distinct. Friedman (200-201) argues that among mommybloggers arose a tension between those who adopt “the raw authenticity of nonmonetized blogging”, documenting the “unglamorous minutiae” of their daily lives and a “more authentic view of motherhood” and those who use mommyblogs “primarily as a source of extra income rather than as a site for memoir”, focusing on “parent-centered products” (cf. Mom Bloggers Club).In contrast, micro-microcelebrities and their digital presence are deliberately commercial, framed and staged by Influencer mothers in order to maximize their advertorial potential, and are often postured to market even non-baby/parenting products such as fast food and vehicles (see later). Because of the overt commerce, it is unclear if micro-microcelebrity displays constitute “intimate surveillance”, an “almost always well-intentioned surveillance of young people by parents” (Leaver, “Born” 4). Furthermore, children are generally peripheral to mommybloggers whose own parenting narratives take precedence as a way to connect with fellow mothers, while micro-microcelebrities are the primary feature whose everyday lives and digital presence enrapture followers.MethodologyThe analysis presented is informed by my original fieldwork with 125 Influencers and related actors among whom I conducted a mixture of physical and digital personal interviews, participant observation, web archaeology, and archival research between December 2011 and October 2014. However, the material presented here is based on my digital participant observation of publicly accessible and intentionally-public digital presence of the first four highly successful micro-microcelebrities in Singapore: “Baby Dash” (b.2013) is the son of Influencer xiaxue, “#HeYurou” (b.2011) is the niece of Influencer bongqiuqiu, “#BabyElroyE” (b.2014) is the son of Influencer ohsofickle, and “@MereGoRound” (b.2015) is the daughter of Influencer bongqiuqiu.The microcelebrity/social media handles of these children take different forms, following the platform on which their parent/aunt has exposed them on the most. Baby Dash appears in all of xiaxue’s digital platforms under a variety of over 30 indexical, ironic, or humourous hashtags (Leaver, “Birth”) including “#pointylipped”, #pineappledash”, and “#面包脸” (trans. “bread face”); “#HeYurou” appears on bongqiuqiu’s Instagram and Twitter; “#BabyElroyE” appears on ohsofickle’s Instagram and blog, and is the central figure of his mother’s new YouTube channel; and “@MereGoRound” appears on all of bongqiuqiu’s digital platforms but also has her own Instagram account and dedicated YouTube channel. The images reproduced here are screenshot from Influencer mothers’ highly public social media: xiaxue, bongqiuqiu, and ohsofickle boast 593k, 277k, and 124k followers on Instagram and 263k, 41k, and 17k followers on Twitter respectively at the time of writing.Anticipation and Digital EstatesIn an exclusive front-pager (Figure 1) on the day of his induced birth, it was announced that Baby Dash had already received up to SGD25,000 worth of endorsement deals brokered by his Influencer mother, xiaxue. As the first micro-microcelebrity in his cohort (his mother was among the pioneer Influencers), Baby Dash’s Caesarean section was even filmed and posted on xiaxue’s YouTube channel in three parts (Figure 2). xiaxue had announced her pregnancy on her blog while in her second trimester, following which she consistently posted mirror selfies of her baby bump.Figure 1 & 2, screenshot April 2013 from ‹instagram.com/xiaxue›In her successful attempt at generating anticipation, the “bump” itself seemed to garner its own following on Twitter and Instagram, with many followers discussing how the Influencer dressed “it”, and how “it” was evolving over the weeks. One follower even compiled a collage of xiaxue’s “bump” chronologically and gifted it to the Influencer as an art image via Twitter on the day she delivered Baby Dash (Figure 3 & 4). Followers also frequently speculated and bantered about how her baby would look, and mused about how much they were going to adore him. Figure 3 & 4, screenshot March 2013 from ‹twitter.com/xiaxue› While Lupton (42) has conceptualized the sharing of images that precede birth as a “rite of passage”, Influencer mothers who publish sonograms deliberately do so in order to claim digital estates for their to-be micro-microcelebrities in the form of “reserved” social media handles, blog URLs, and unique hashtags for self-branding. For instance, at the 3-month mark of her pregnancy, Influencer bongqiuqiu debuted her baby’s dedicated hashtag, “#MereGoRound” in a birth announcement on her on Instagram account. Shortly after, she started an Instagram account, “@MereGoRound”, for her baby, who amassed over 5.5k followers prior to her birth. Figure 5 & 6, screenshot March 2015 from instagram.com/meregoround and instagram.com/bongqiuqiuThe debut picture features a heavily pregnant belly shot of bongqiuqiu (Figure 5), creating much anticipation for the arrival of a new micro-microcelebrity: in the six months leading up to her birth, various family, friends, and fans shared Instagram images of their gifts and welcome party for @MereGoRound, and followers shared congratulations and fan art on the dedicated Instagram hashtag. During this time, bongqiuqiu also frequently updated followers on her pregnancy progress, not without advertising her (presumably sponsored) gynecologist and hospital stay in her pregnancy diaries (Figure 6) – like Baby Dash, even as a foetus @MereGoRound was accumulating advertorials. Presently at six months old, @MereGoRound boasts almost 40k followers on Instagram on which embedded in the narrative of her growth are sponsored products and services from various advertisers.Non-Baby-Related AdvertorialsPrior to her pregnancy, Influencer bongqiuqiu hopped onto the micro-microcelebrity bandwagon in the wake of Baby Dash’s birth, by using her niece “#HeYurou” in her advertorials. Many Influencers attempt to naturalize their advertorials by composing their post as if recounting a family event. With reference to a child, parent, or partner, they may muse or quip about a product being used or an experience being shared in a bid to mask the distinction between their personal and commercial material. bongqiuqiu frequently posted personal, non-sponsored images engaging in daily mundane activities under the dedicated hashtag “#HeYurou”.However, this was occasionally interspersed with pictures of her niece holding on to various products including storybooks (Figure 8) and shopping bags (Figure 9). At first glance, this might have seemed like any mundane daily update the Influencer often posts. However, a close inspection reveals the caption bearing sponsor hashtags, tags, and campaign information. For instance, one Instagram post shows #HeYurou casually holding on to and staring at a burger in KFC wrapping (Figure 7), but when read in tandem with bongqiuqiu’s other KFC-related posts published over a span of a few months, it becomes clear that #HeYurou was in fact advertising for KFC. Figure 7, 8, 9, screenshot December 2014 from ‹instagram.com/bongqiuqiu›Elsewhere, Baby Dash was incorporated into xiaxue’s car sponsorship with over 20 large decals of one of his viral photos – dubbed “pineapple Dash” among followers – plastered all over her vehicle (Figure 10). Followers who spot the car in public are encouraged to photograph and upload the image using its dedicated hashtag, “#xiaxuecar” as part of the Influencer’s car sponsorship – an engagement scarcely related to her young child. Since then, xiaxue has speculated producing offshoots of “pineapple Dash” products including smartphone casings. Figure 10, screenshot December 2014 from ‹instagram.com/xiaxue›Follower EngagementSponsors regularly organize fan meet-and-greets headlined by micro-microcelebrities in order to attract potential customers. Photo opportunities and the chance to see Baby Dash “in the flesh” frequently front press and promotional material of marketing campaigns. Elsewhere on social media, several Baby Dash fan and tribute accounts have also emerged on Instagram, reposting images and related media of the micro-microcelebrity with overt adoration, no doubt encouraged by xiaxue, who began crowdsourcing captions for Baby Dash’s photos.Influencer ohsofickle postures #BabyElroyE’s follower engagement in a more subtle way. In her YouTube channel that debut in the month of her baby’s birth, ohsofickle produces video diaries of being a young, single, mother who is raising a child (Figure 11). In each episode, #BabyElroyE is the main feature whose daily activities are documented, and while there is some advertising embedded, ohsofickle’s approach on YouTube is much less overt than others as it features much more non-monetized personal content (Figure 12). Her blog serves as a backchannel to her vlogs, in which she recounts her struggles with motherhood and explicitly solicits the advice of mothers. However, owing to her young age (she became an Influencer at 17 and gave birth at 24), many of her followers are teenagers and young women who respond to her solicitations by gushing over #BabyElroyE’s images on Instagram. Figure 11 & 12, screenshot September 2015 from ‹instagram.com/ohsofickle›PrivacyAs noted by Holloway et al. (23), children like micro-microcelebrities will be among the first cohorts to inherit “digital profiles” of their “whole lifetime” as a “work in progress”, from parents who habitually underestimate or discount the privacy and long term effects of publicizing information about their children at the time of posting. This matters in a climate where social media platforms can amend privacy policies without user consent (23), and is even more pressing for micro-microcelebrities whose followers store, republish, and recirculate information in fan networks, resulting in digital footprints with persistence, replicability, scalability, searchability (boyd), and extended longevity in public circulation which can be attributed back to the children indefinitely (Leaver, “Ends”).Despite minimum age restrictions and recent concerns with “digital kidnapping” where users steal images of other young children to be re-posted as their own (Whigham), some social media platforms rarely police the proliferation of accounts set up by parents on behalf of their underage children prominently displaying their legal names and life histories, citing differing jurisdictions in various countries (Facebook; Instagram), while others claim to disable accounts if users report an “incorrect birth date” (cf. Google for YouTube). In Singapore, the Media Development Authority (MDA) which governs all print and digital media has no firm regulations for this but suggests that the age of consent is 16 judging by their recommendation to parents with children aged below 16 to subscribe to Internet filtering services (Media Development Authority, “Regulatory” 1). Moreover, current initiatives have been focused on how parents can impart digital literacy to their children (Media Development Authority, “Empowered”; Media Literacy Council) as opposed to educating parents about the digital footprints they may be unwittingly leaving about their children.The digital lives of micro-microcelebrities pose new layers of concern given their publicness and deliberate publicity, specifically hinged on making visible the usually inaccessible, private aspects of everyday life (Marshall, “Persona” 5).Scholars note that celebrities are individuals for whom speculation of their private lives takes precedence over their actual public role or career (Geraghty 100-101; Turner 8). However, the personae of Influencers and their young children are shaped by ambiguously blurring the boundaries of privacy and publicness in order to bait followers’ attention, such that privacy and publicness are defined by being broadcast, circulated, and publicized (Warner 414). In other words, the publicness of micro-microcelebrities is premised on the extent of the intentional publicity rather than simply being in the public domain (Marwick 223-231, emphasis mine).Among Influencers privacy concerns have aroused awareness but not action – Baby Dash’s Influencer mother admitted in a national radio interview that he has received a death threat via Instagram but feels that her child is unlikely to be actually attacked (Channel News Asia) – because privacy is a commodity that is manipulated and performed to advance their micro-microcelebrities’ careers. As pioneer micro-microcelebrities are all under 2-years-old at present, future research warrants investigating “child-centred definitions” (Third et al.) of the transition in which they come of age, grow an awareness of their digital presence, respond to their Influencer mothers’ actions, and potentially take over their accounts.Young LabourThe Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in Singapore, which regulates the employment of children and young persons, states that children under the age of 13 may not legally work in non-industrial or industrial settings (Ministry of Manpower). However, the same document later ambiguously states underaged children who do work can only do so under strict work limits (Ministry of Manpower). Elsewhere (Chan), it is noted that national labour statistics have thus far only focused on those above the age of 15, thus neglecting a true reflection of underaged labour in Singapore. This is despite the prominence of micro-microcelebrities who are put in front of (video) cameras to build social media content. Additionally, the work of micro-microcelebrities on digital platforms has not yet been formally recognized as labour, and is not regulated by any authority including Influencer management firms, clients, the MDA, and the MOM. Brief snippets from my ethnographic fieldwork with Influencer management agencies in Singapore similarly reveal that micro-microcelebrities’ labour engagements and control of their earnings are entirely at their parents’ discretion.As models and actors, micro-microcelebrities are one form of entertainment workers who if between the ages of 15 days and 18 years in the state of California are required to obtain an Entertainment Work Permit to be gainfully employed, adhering to strict work, schooling, and rest hour quotas (Department of Industrial Relations). Furthermore, the Californian Coogan Law affirms that earnings by these minors are their own property and not their parents’, although they are not old enough to legally control their finances and rely on the state to govern their earnings with a legal guardian (Screen Actors Guild). However, this similarly excludes underaged children and micro-microcelebrities engaged in creative digital ecologies. Future research should look into safeguards and instruments among young child entertainers, especially for micro-micrcocelebrities’ among whom commercial work and personal documentation is not always distinct, and are in fact deliberately intertwined in order to better engage with followers for relatabilityGrowing Up BrandedIn the wake of moral panics over excessive surveillance technologies, children’s safety on the Internet, and data retention concerns, micro-microcelebrities and their Influencer mothers stand out for their deliberately personal and overtly commercial approach towards self-documenting, self-presenting, and self-publicizing from the moment of conception. As these debut micro-microcelebrities grow older and inherit digital publics, personae, and careers, future research should focus on the transition of their ownership, engagement, and reactions to a branded childhood in which babies were postured for an initimate public.ReferencesAbidin, Crystal. “Communicative Intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness.” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, & Technology. Forthcoming, Nov 2015.Aiello, Marianne. “Mommy Blog Banner Ads Get Results.” Healthcare Marketing Advisor 17 Nov. 2010. HealthLeaders Media. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://healthleadersmedia.com/content/MAR-259215/Mommy-Blog-Banner-Ads-Get-Results›.Azzarone, Stephanie. “When Consumers Report: Mommy Blogging Your Way to Success.” Playthings 18 Feb. 2009. 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Lund, Curt. "For Modern Children." M/C Journal 24, no. 4 (August 12, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2807.

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“...children’s play seems to become more and more a product of the educational and cultural orientation of parents...” — Stephen Kline, The Making of Children’s Culture We live in a world saturated by design and through design artefacts, one can glean unique insights into a culture's values and norms. In fact, some academics, such as British media and film theorist Ben Highmore, see the two areas so inextricably intertwined as to suggest a wholesale “re-branding of the cultural sciences as design studies” (14). Too often, however, everyday objects are marginalised or overlooked as objects of scholarly attention. The field of material culture studies seeks to change that by focussing on the quotidian object and its ability to reveal much about the time, place, and culture in which it was designed and used. This article takes on one such object, a mid-century children's toy tea set, whose humble journey from 1968 Sears catalogue to 2014 thrift shop—and subsequently this author’s basement—reveals complex rhetorical messages communicated both visually and verbally. As material culture studies theorist Jules Prown notes, the field’s foundation is laid upon the understanding “that objects made ... by man reflect, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, the beliefs of individuals who made, commissioned, purchased or used them, and by extension the beliefs of the larger society to which they belonged” (1-2). In this case, the objects’ material and aesthetic characteristics can be shown to reflect some of the pervasive stereotypes and gender roles of the mid-century and trace some of the prevailing tastes of the American middle class of that era, or perhaps more accurately the type of design that came to represent good taste and a modern aesthetic for that audience. A wealth of research exists on the function of toys and play in learning about the world and even the role of toy selection in early sex-typing, socialisation, and personal identity of children (Teglasi). This particular research area isn’t the focus of this article; however, one aspect that is directly relevant and will be addressed is the notion of adult role-playing among children and the role of toys in communicating certain adult practices or values to the child—what sociologist David Oswell calls “the dedifferentiation of childhood and adulthood” (200). Neither is the focus of this article the practice nor indeed the ethicality of marketing to children. Relevant to this particular example I suggest, is as a product utilising messaging aimed not at children but at adults, appealing to certain parents’ interest in nurturing within their child a perceived era and class-appropriate sense of taste. This was fuelled in large part by the curatorial pursuits of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, coupled with an interest and investment in raising their children in a design-forward household and a desire for toys that reflected that priority; in essence, parents wishing to raise modern children. Following Prown’s model of material culture analysis, the tea set is examined in three stages, through description, deduction and speculation with each stage building on the previous one. Figure 1: Porcelain Toy Tea Set. Description The tea set consists of twenty-six pieces that allows service for six. Six cups, saucers, and plates; a tall carafe with spout, handle and lid; a smaller vessel with a spout and handle; a small round bowl with a lid; a larger oval bowl with a lid, and a coordinated oval platter. The cups are just under two inches tall and two inches in diameter. The largest piece, the platter is roughly six inches by four inches. The pieces are made of a ceramic material white in colour and glossy in texture and are very lightweight. The rim or edge of each piece is decorated with a motif of three straight lines in two different shades of blue and in different thicknesses, interspersed with a set of three black wiggly lines. Figure 2: Porcelain Toy Tea Set Box. The set is packaged for retail purposes and the original box appears to be fully intact. The packaging of an object carries artefactual evidence just as important as what it contains that falls into the category of a “‘para-artefact’ … paraphernalia that accompanies the product (labels, packaging, instructions etc.), all of which contribute to a product’s discourse” (Folkmann and Jensen 83). The graphics on the box are colourful, featuring similar shades of teal blue as found on the objects, with the addition of orange and a silver sticker featuring the logo of the American retailer Sears. The cover features an illustration of the objects on an orange tabletop. The most prominent text that confirms that the toy is a “Porcelain Toy Tea Set” is in an organic, almost psychedelic style that mimics both popular graphics of this era—especially album art and concert posters—as well as the organic curves of steam that emanate from the illustrated teapot’s spout. Additional messages appear on the box, in particular “Contemporary DESIGN” and “handsome, clean-line styling for modern little hostesses”. Along the edges of the box lid, a detail of the decorative motif is reproduced somewhat abstracted from what actually appears on the ceramic objects. Figure 3: Sears’s Christmas Wishbook Catalogue, page 574 (1968). Sears, Roebuck and Co. (Sears) is well-known for its over one-hundred-year history of producing printed merchandise catalogues. The catalogue is another important para-artefact to consider in analysing the objects. The tea set first appeared in the 1968 Sears Christmas Wishbook. There is no date or copyright on the box, so only its inclusion in the catalogue allows the set to be accurately dated. It also allows us to understand how the set was originally marketed. Deduction In the deduction phase, we focus on the sensory aesthetic and functional interactive qualities of the various components of the set. In terms of its function, it is critical that we situate the objects in their original use context, play. The light weight of the objects and thinness of the ceramic material lends the objects a delicate, if not fragile, feeling which indicates that this set is not for rough use. Toy historian Lorraine May Punchard differentiates between toy tea sets “meant to be used by little girls, having parties for their friends and practising the social graces of the times” and smaller sets or doll dishes “made for little girls to have parties with their dolls, or for their dolls to have parties among themselves” (7). Similar sets sold by Sears feature images of girls using the sets with both human playmates and dolls. The quantity allowing service for six invites multiple users to join the party. The packaging makes clear that these toy tea sets were intended for imaginary play only, rendering them non-functional through an all-capitals caution declaiming “IMPORTANT: Do not use near heat”. The walls and handles of the cups are so thin one can imagine that they would quickly become dangerous if filled with a hot liquid. Nevertheless, the lid of the oval bowl has a tan stain or watermark which suggests actual use. The box is broken up by pink cardboard partitions dividing it into segments sized for each item in the set. Interestingly even the small squares of unfinished corrugated cardboard used as cushioning between each stacked plate have survived. The evidence of careful re-packing indicates that great care was taken in keeping the objects safe. It may suggest that even though the set was used, the children or perhaps the parents, considered the set as something to care for and conserve for the future. Flaws in the glaze and applique of the design motif can be found on several pieces in the set and offer some insight as to the technique used in producing these items. Errors such as the design being perfectly evenly spaced but crooked in its alignment to the rim, or pieces of the design becoming detached or accidentally folded over and overlapping itself could only be the result of a print transfer technique popularised with decorative china of the Victorian era, a technique which lends itself to mass production and lower cost when compared to hand decoration. Speculation In the speculation stage, we can consider the external evidence and begin a more rigorous investigation of the messaging, iconography, and possible meanings of the material artefact. Aspects of the set allow a number of useful observations about the role of such an object in its own time and context. Sociologists observe the role of toys as embodiments of particular types of parental messages and values (Cross 292) and note how particularly in the twentieth century “children’s play seems to become more and more a product of the educational and cultural orientation of parents” (Kline 96). Throughout history children’s toys often reflected a miniaturised version of the adult world allowing children to role-play as imagined adult-selves. Kristina Ranalli explored parallels between the practice of drinking tea and the play-acting of the child’s tea party, particularly in the nineteenth century, as a gendered ritual of gentility; a method of socialisation and education, and an opportunity for exploratory and even transgressive play by “spontaneously creating mini-societies with rules of their own” (20). Such toys and objects were available through the Sears mail-order catalogue from the very beginning at the end of the nineteenth century (McGuire). Propelled by the post-war boom of suburban development and homeownership—that generation’s manifestation of the American Dream—concern with home décor and design was elevated among the American mainstream to a degree never before seen. There was a hunger for new, streamlined, efficient, modernist living. In his essay titled “Domesticating Modernity”, historian Jeffrey L. Meikle notes that many early modernist designers found that perhaps the most potent way to “‘domesticate’ modernism and make it more familiar was to miniaturise it; for example, to shrink the skyscraper and put it into the home as furniture or tableware” (143). Dr Timothy Blade, curator of the 1985 exhibition of girls’ toys at the University of Minnesota’s Goldstein Gallery—now the Goldstein Museum of Design—described in his introduction “a miniaturised world with little props which duplicate, however rudely, the larger world of adults” (5). Noting the power of such toys to reflect adult values of their time, Blade continues: “the microcosm of the child’s world, remarkably furnished by the miniaturised props of their parents’ world, holds many direct and implied messages about the society which brought it into being” (9). In large part, the mid-century Sears catalogues capture the spirit of an era when, as collector Thomas Holland observes, “little girls were still primarily being offered only the options of glamour, beauty and parenthood as the stuff of their fantasies” (175). Holland notes that “the Wishbooks of the fifties [and, I would add, the sixties] assumed most girls would follow in their mother’s footsteps to become full-time housewives and mommies” (1). Blade grouped toys into three categories: cooking, cleaning, and sewing. A tea set could arguably be considered part of the cooking category, but closer examination of the language used in marketing this object—“little hostesses”, et cetera—suggests an emphasis not on cooking but on serving or entertaining. This particular category was not prevalent in the era examined by Blade, but the cultural shifts of the mid-twentieth century, particularly the rapid popularisation of a suburban lifestyle, may have led to the use of entertaining as an additional distinct category of role play in the process of learning to become a “proper” homemaker. Sears and other retailers offered a wide variety of styles of toy tea sets during this era. Blade and numerous other sources observe that children’s toy furniture and appliances tended to reflect the style and aesthetic qualities of their contemporary parallels in the adult world, the better to associate the child’s objects to its adult equivalent. The toy tea set’s packaging trumpets messages intended to appeal to modernist values and identity including “Contemporary Design” and “handsome, clean-line styling for modern little hostesses”. The use of this coded marketing language, aimed particularly at parents, can be traced back several decades. In 1928 a group of American industrial and textile designers established the American Designers' Gallery in New York, in part to encourage American designers to innovate and adopt new styles such as those seen in the L’ Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes (1925) in Paris, the exposition that sparked international interest in the Art Deco or Art Moderne aesthetic. One of the gallery founders, Ilonka Karasz, a Hungarian-American industrial and textile designer who had studied in Austria and was influenced by the Wiener Werkstätte in Vienna, publicised her new style of nursery furnishings as “designed for the very modern American child” (Brown 80). Sears itself was no stranger to the appeal of such language. The term “contemporary design” was ubiquitous in catalogue copy of the nineteen-fifties and sixties, used to describe everything from draperies (1959) and bedspreads (1961) to spice racks (1964) and the Lady Kenmore portable dishwasher (1961). An emphasis on the role of design in one’s life and surroundings can be traced back to efforts by MoMA. The museum’s interest in modern design hearkens back almost to the institution’s inception, particularly in relation to industrial design and the aestheticisation of everyday objects (Marshall). Through exhibitions and in partnership with mass-market magazines, department stores and manufacturer showrooms, MoMA curators evangelised the importance of “good design” a term that can be found in use as early as 1942. What Is Good Design? followed the pattern of prior exhibitions such as What Is Modern Painting? and situated modern design at the centre of exhibitions that toured the United States in the first half of the nineteen-fifties. To MoMA and its partners, “good design” signified the narrow identification of proper taste in furniture, home decor and accessories; effectively, the establishment of a design canon. The viewpoints enshrined in these exhibitions and partnerships were highly influential on the nation’s perception of taste for decades to come, as the trickle-down effect reached a much broader segment of consumers than those that directly experienced the museum or its exhibitions (Lawrence.) This was evident not only at high-end shops such as Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s. Even mass-market retailers sought out well-known figures of modernist design to contribute to their offerings. Sears, for example, commissioned noted modernist designer and ceramicist Russel Wright to produce a variety of serving ware and decor items exclusively for the company. Notably for this study, he was also commissioned to create a toy tea set for children. The 1957 Wishbook touts the set as “especially created to delight modern little misses”. Within its Good Design series, MoMA exhibitions celebrated numerous prominent Nordic designers who were exploring simplified forms and new material technologies. In the 1968 Wishbook, the retailer describes the Porcelain Toy Tea Set as “Danish-inspired china for young moderns”. The reference to Danish design is certainly compatible with the modernist appeal; after the explosion in popularity of Danish furniture design, the term “Danish Modern” was commonly used in the nineteen-fifties and sixties as shorthand for pan-Scandinavian or Nordic design, or more broadly for any modern furniture design regardless of origin that exhibited similar characteristics. In subsequent decades the notion of a monolithic Scandinavian-Nordic design aesthetic or movement has been debunked as primarily an economically motivated marketing ploy (Olivarez et al.; Fallan). In the United States, the term “Danish Modern” became so commonly misused that the Danish Society for Arts and Crafts called upon the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to legally restrict the use of the labels “Danish” and “Danish Modern” to companies genuinely originating in Denmark. Coincidentally the FTC ruled on this in 1968, noting “that ‘Danish Modern’ carries certain meanings, and... that consumers might prefer goods that are identified with a foreign culture” (Hansen 451). In the case of the Porcelain Toy Tea Set examined here, Sears was not claiming that the design was “Danish” but rather “Danish-inspired”. One must wonder, was this another coded marketing ploy to communicate a sense of “Good Design” to potential customers? An examination of the formal qualities of the set’s components, particularly the simplified geometric forms and the handle style of the cups, confirms that it is unlike a traditional—say, Victorian-style—tea set. Punchard observes that during this era some American tea sets were actually being modelled on coffee services rather than traditional tea services (148). A visual comparison of other sets sold by Sears in the same year reveals a variety of cup and pot shapes—with some similar to the set in question—while others exhibit more traditional teapot and cup shapes. Coffee culture was historically prominent in Nordic cultures so there is at least a passing reference to that aspect of Nordic—if not specifically Danish—influence in the design. But what of the decorative motif? Simple curved lines were certainly prominent in Danish furniture and architecture of this era, and occasionally found in combination with straight lines, but no connection back to any specific Danish motif could be found even after consultation with experts in the field from the Museum of Danish America and the Vesterheim National Norwegian-American Museum (personal correspondence). However, knowing that the average American consumer of this era—even the design-savvy among them—consumed Scandinavian design without distinguishing between the various nations, a possible explanation could be contained in the promotion of Finnish textiles at the time. In the decade prior to the manufacture of the tea set a major design tendency began to emerge in the United States, triggered by the geometric design motifs of the Finnish textile and apparel company Marimekko. Marimekko products were introduced to the American market in 1959 via the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based retailer Design Research (DR) and quickly exploded in popularity particularly after would-be First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy appeared in national media wearing Marimekko dresses during the 1960 presidential campaign and on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. (Thompson and Lange). The company’s styling soon came to epitomise a new youth aesthetic of the early nineteen sixties in the United States, a softer and more casual predecessor to the London “mod” influence. During this time multiple patterns were released that brought a sense of whimsy and a more human touch to classic mechanical patterns and stripes. The patterns Piccolo (1953), Helmipitsi (1959), and Varvunraita (1959), all designed by Vuokko Eskolin-Nurmesniemi offered varying motifs of parallel straight lines. Maija Isola's Silkkikuikka (1961) pattern—said to be inspired by the plumage of the Great Crested Grebe—combined parallel serpentine lines with straight and angled lines, available in a variety of colours. These and other geometrically inspired patterns quickly inundated apparel and decor markets. DR built a vastly expanded Cambridge flagship store and opened new locations in New York in 1961 and 1964, and in San Francisco in 1965 fuelled in no small part by the fact that they remained the exclusive outlet for Marimekko in the United States. It is clear that Marimekko’s approach to pattern influenced designers and manufacturers across industries. Design historian Lesley Jackson demonstrates that Marimekko designs influenced or were emulated by numerous other companies across Scandinavia and beyond (72-78). The company’s influence grew to such an extent that some described it as a “conquest of the international market” (Hedqvist and Tarschys 150). Subsequent design-forward retailers such as IKEA and Crate and Barrel continue to look to Marimekko even today for modern design inspiration. In 2016 the mass-market retailer Target formed a design partnership with Marimekko to offer an expansive limited-edition line in their stores, numbering over two hundred items. So, despite the “Danish” misnomer, it is quite conceivable that designers working for or commissioned by Sears in 1968 may have taken their aesthetic cues from Marimekko’s booming work, demonstrating a clear understanding of the contemporary high design aesthetic of the time and coding the marketing rhetoric accordingly even if incorrectly. Conclusion The Sears catalogue plays a unique role in capturing cross-sections of American culture not only as a sales tool but also in Holland’s words as “a beautifully illustrated diary of America, it’s [sic] people and the way we thought about things” (1). Applying a rhetorical and material culture analysis to the catalogue and the objects within it provides a unique glimpse into the roles these objects played in mediating relationships, transmitting values and embodying social practices, tastes and beliefs of mid-century American consumers. Adult consumers familiar with the characteristics of the culture of “Good Design” potentially could have made a connection between the simplified geometric forms of the components of the toy tea set and say the work of modernist tableware designers such as Kaj Franck, or between the set’s graphic pattern and the modernist motifs of Marimekko and its imitators. But for a much broader segment of the population with a less direct understanding of modernist aesthetics, those connections may not have been immediately apparent. The rhetorical messaging behind the objects’ packaging and marketing used class and taste signifiers such as modern, contemporary and “Danish” to reinforce this connection to effect an emotional and aspirational appeal. These messages were coded to position the set as an effective transmitter of modernist values and to target parents with the ambition to create “appropriately modern” environments for their children. 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Teglasi, Hedwig. “Children’s Choices of and Value Judgments about Sex-Typed Toys and Occupations.” Journal of Vocational Behavior 18.2 (1981): 184–95. Thompson, Jane, and Alexandra Lange. Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes. Chronicle, 2010.
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