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The Choking Game (TCG), practiced by adolescents, involves forced asphyxiation to obtain a 'high', occasionally causing seizures or death. Few parents report discussing TCG with their child despite their critical role in injury‐prevention. This paper examined parental knowledge of TCG and perceptions of TCG‐related discussions with their child. From parent responses, eight thematic elements were identified: Risks; Awareness; Peer Context; External Resources; Basic Information; Prevention Strategy; Participation; and Told Not To. We propose a guide for parents planning a TCG prevention discussion is offered based on naturally occurring parental conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not enough is known about the relationship between socio‐economic deprivation and places where young people purchase food at lunchtime on a school day. This paper draws on qualitative data from 600 +  young people aged 13–15 years and illustrates that socioeconomic factors form boundaries that young people have a feeling for when buying food. This informs where they seek out lunch (at school or in local food outlets) and what products, service and prices they access and find acceptable. Such insights help to understand why inequalities in young people's health and eating practices prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a method for working with children who are the subjects of care planning and review under the Children Act 1989. The person centred planning method, as it is termed, has been well established in working with adults with special needs but can be extrapolated to encounters with children. It focuses on three fundamental areas: relationship, meaning and narrative. In underscoring these areas, the method restrains the bureaucracy and experience of stigma that is often present for those residing in state care. On a wider plane, the paper argues that the method stands as a veritable example of Habermas's ideas concerning the application of communicative rationality and discursive democracy in social life. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum documents from the USA, UK and Australia show remarkable harmony on the need for a develop mentally-based curriculum in producing quality early childhood programmes. This paper uses a detailed discussion ofa grass roots level research project in Australia to explore the contention that a curriculum built solely on these principles and the practices that develop from them is likely to be sexist. Several aspects of the curriculum that need rethinking in relation to gender equity goals are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do children in the U.S. represent the ideal society? A scientific understanding of how children engage in utopian thinking—and how their ideas relate to cross‐cultural standards developed by the United Nations—is potentially useful for the development of social movements aimed at progressive social change. In this article we report the results of group projects created by 56 fifth‐grade students (27 boys, 29 girls) in New York City who were instructed to work together in small groups to represent their ideal society of the future. We found that themes of economic prosperity and cultural sensitivity, especially the need to promote social and economic equality and to prevent discrimination and prejudice, were central to children's conceptions of the good society. On several major issues, the utopian societies that were proposed dovetailed with the sustainability development goals identified by the United Nations, especially 'Decent Work and Economic Growth', 'Reduced Inequality', and 'Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions'. The children were acutely aware of the need for environmental protection and climate action but understandably lacked a clear sense of how to provide 'Affordable and Clean Energy' and 'Clean Water and Sanitation' in their ideal societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focused on young people's perspectives about family relationships and how they can be strengthened or weakened through digital media practices. Located in Melbourne, Australia, 20 participants aged between 13 and 17 years were interviewed about how digital devices and practices shaped the way they interacted with family. The thematic analysis points to the young people's commitment to family cohesion. This was demonstrated through responsible use of social media, admitting the need for device‐free time, acknowledging the challenges of being online, and their sense of responsibility as a family member, which informed and shaped the way they individually acted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated social interactions between students and school foodservice staff in six US school districts. Qualitative data was analysed from 23 in‐depth interviews with school foodservice managers and 17 focus groups in five high schools, seven middle schools and five elementary schools. Applying the lens of school connectedness, findings highlight the various forms of care experienced by students and staff. However, structural constraints limit opportunities for staff and students to interact and demonstrate care, suggesting potential opportunities for interventions to enhance the role of the cafeteria in contributing to students' social‐emotional well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children and youth exposed to toxic stress are at a greater risk for negative outcomes on health, well‐being and occupational performance. Focus groups were conducted to gain understanding of the experiences and perspectives of youth at‐risk who were currently receiving services from a community‐based agency in a small city in the Western United States. Participants discussed acquiring life skills through agency programming including social skills and coping/self‐regulation skills. Participants also reported a positive culture of the agency, expressing feelings of safety, trust and supportive relationships. Community‐based programming may be in a pivotal position to provide services and supports that act as buffering protection against the effects of toxic stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared residence is often presented as an arrangement that is in the best interests of the child following the divorce of its parents. Based on in-depth interviews with Norwegian children who have experienced shared residence, this article seeks to explore some dilemmas concerning time, agency and the children’s emotions. Three characteristics of shared residence and time-sharing are presented — flexibility, ambiguity and rigidity — which points to different challenges in understanding the circumstances in which shared residence become a valuable arrangement for children. The article argues that both time and emotional dilemmas regarding shared residence should be further investigated both empirically and theoretically, and that children’s agency should be acknowledged more fully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines middle class children's and parents' complex engagements with contemporary practices of cultivation, care and surveillance focused on children's social and emotional capacities and differences. Emblematic of a sociality and emotion‐focused biopolitics of childhood, such care provokes moments of spontaneous connection and self‐expression for children even as they engage dynamics of disciplining control and normalisation, an outcome that may work against and towards the objectives of care. Moreover, parental investments in social–emotional care reveal adults' conflicted implication in dynamics of child normalisation, and the potential of this form of caretaking to generate politically valuable empathic insight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores children's perspectives regarding migration and family separation on both sides of the Mexico‐U.S. border. 'Transnational care constellations'1 that connect separated siblings allow children to imagine the other side of the border and to explore their thoughts and perspectives through the lenses of inequality, as well as through a sense of belonging and family. This article presents ethnographic data of families that capture the dynamism of families that are both 'here and there' as children assemble their ideas and narratives of how transnational lives exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from age 3 of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, the current study explores the complex relationships between U.S. childcare subsidies and neglect. Specifically, the study examines two research questions: (i) Are U.S. childcare subsidies associated with self‐reported neglect among low‐income mothers? (ii) What individual types of self‐reported neglect are significantly reduced by receipt of childcare subsidy? Using negative binomial regression examining the relationships among mothers who were income‐eligible for childcare subsidy, we found that childcare subsidy was associated with lower levels of supervisory neglect, indicating an important role of subsidy in the lives of low‐income families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given their key role in overall programme quality, it is critical to examine how early childhood programme centre directors in the United States perceive challenging behaviour. Participants completed a survey asking which behaviours they perceive to be most problematic, the number of children dismissed or expelled from the programme during the last year, and the most commonly used strategies for addressing challenging behaviours. Results point to several promising practices and highlight the variability in access to evidence‐based practices based on programme type. Areas that warrant more targeted professional development are discussed, and findings are situated within the larger early childhood context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines online gaming practices of 7‐ to 11‐year‐olds in home settings in the United States. Based on observations and interviews with children and parents, the analysis considers the specificity of preteen experiences within domestic settings. Employing a socio‐cultural approach, the article analyses ways online gaming is strongly shaped by specific social and developmental factors that relate specifically to preteens. Children's online gaming is analysed as a form of independent entertainment time that reflects limitations experienced by preteens in this study as well as developmental characteristics of this age range. Further, the analysis indicates that gaming practices of preteens are embedded in wider transmedia play practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study investigates how kindergarten children thought and talked about their school in three socially stratified school settings: public, charter and private, and the extent to which they grasped sociocultural understandings related to social class. Data included field notes, interviews with the children and teachers, and parent surveys. A Bourdieuian lens illuminated emergent themes. Results indicate that children in the elite setting had developed sophisticated understandings of their privileged social locations and understood their position as distinct from other children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that the likelihood of runaway episodes among children in out-of-home care varies across different communities/regions. However, the potential regional variation has rarely been reflected in attempts to understand runaway episodes in out-of-home care systems. The current study examines the effects of child characteristics, family characteristics and child welfare system-related characteristics on the likelihood of runaway episodes among children in out-of-home care, while accounting for county-level variations in the risk of runaway behaviours. The authors employed multilevel analyses using data on children aged 12-17 from the 2009 AFCARS database. Results demonstrate that the likelihood of runaway episodes varied across counties. Accounting for county variation, children's ages, gender, diagnosed clinical conditions, family structures, number of removals, number of placements, removal manner, and case plan goals significantly predicted runaway status. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike the United Kingdom and other nations that mandate youth participation to some degree, U.S. policies instead tend to inhibit child participation rather than encourage it. Given these policy contexts, it can be challenging to locate spaces where robust opportunities for democratic participation and student voice exist. We use this article as an opportunity to examine the disciplinary, philosophical and methodological approaches that have framed youth participation in youth contexts. We conclude by identifying critical issues of citizenship and belonging that must be considered in participatory research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For adults training to be professional educators, the phrase, in loco parentis, communicates the intention that schools and educators are meant to act in the role of the parent, commonly interpreted to mean acting in accordance with what is optimal for the development of the child or young person. The limits of this relationship have been debated under legal interpretations pursuant to elements, such as protection of private property and punishing hate speech. In this article, I draw attention to the ways in which schools in the USA have acted as extensions of state designs to establish and maintain sovereignty, with schooling as a primary site of political economy. In particular, I explore the ways in which immigrant youth are positioned in schools that are meant to act in loco emporium, in the place of the empire. Drawing on policy analysis and critical race ethnography, I provide analysis that is both from above and below about immigrant youth, education, and immigration policy enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a comparative study of the free-time activity preferences of 9- to 11-year-old children in the UK and USA, as drawn by them in art workshops. Six themes emerged relating to sport, outdoor play, family/peers, media, special occasions and other (indefinable) activities. The children's talk about their drawings revealed additional preferences for 'obsessive hobbies', 'doing nothing', relationships with others, and the local environment. Whilst the emergent patterns displayed strong cross-cultural similarities in free-time activity choices and participation, as well as compliance with the conventional construction of 'childhood', the findings were context-specific and locally inflected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the history of debates over the US Head Start programme (1965), Early Head Start (1994) and the UK Sure Start initiative (1998), as a window on to policy transfer. In all the three, the aim was that early intervention could offer a means of boosting children’s educational attainment and of countering the wider effects of poverty on development. Nevertheless, there were also important differences between them. The first part of the article looks at UK responses to Head Start, the second at Early Head Start and the creation and subsequent direction taken by Sure Start. In the Conclusion, we sum up the arguments relating to Head Start and Sure Start and offer some broader reflections on policy transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported in this article is part of a wider research project on the adaptation of South Asians in Britain. It examines and compares the acculturation attitudes and cultural identity of Indian and Pakistani second-generation adolescents Indian (Punjabi Sikh and Gujarati Hindu) and Pakistani (Muslim) in Britain. The research project integrates a social psychological approach to ethnic identity, Berry’s (Cross-cultural Perspectives. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1990) acculturation strategy and stress models, and Phinney’s (Journal of Early Adolescence, 9, 1989:34) model of ethnic identification. There were 240 adolescents, aged 13–18 years, with an even split between the genders. Results from this study suggested that the majority of Indian youth adopted integration strategies as opposed to Pakistani Muslims who adopted a separation strategy. Cultural identity is a term used to include both ethnic and national identities. Ethnic identity scores were high for Indian and Pakistani adolescents. National identity was more important for Indian adolescents but ethnic identity was more important than national identity for all groups. Perceived discrimination was related to acculturation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lesbian and gay youth face a great many challenges as they grow up. In this article, research focusing upon the social-developmental factors that affect the positive development of a lesbian or gay identity are reviewed, comparing and contrasting data from the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK). Consideration is also given to the efficacy of behaviours utilised by young lesbians and gay men to avoid harassment and discrimination. It is suggested that lesbian and gay youth represent a particularly vulnerable group of young people who engage in a number of health risk behaviours that are associated not only with sexual orientation, but also fears for personal safety. Finally the authors discuss whether or not strategies to conceal sexual orientation hold benefits for lesbian and gay youth in terms of their physical safety and mental health. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large sample of British children (n=994) of varying ages (7–18 years) and a large sample of American children (n=886) of varying ages (7–16 years) were rated by their mothers using respectively the Rutter Child Scale A and the Behaviour Problems Index both of which cover a variety of behavioural problems. Factor analysis of the behavioural scales distinguished externalising and internalising dimensions of behaviour in both countries. We examined whether children's experiences of family change, cognitive ability and family adversity including economic deprivation were associated with differences in the prevalence of the behavioural dimensions. Mean cognitive scores decreased significantly with increasing level of externalising behavioural problems in British and American children but showed no significant relationship to levels of internalising behaviour problems in either sample. Among American children internalising and externalising behavioural problems were related to experience of non-intact family structures and measures of family adversity. Externalising behavioural problems were related to measures of family adversity among British boys and girls but were only related to experience of non-intact family structures in the sample of British girls. Among British girls, internalising behavioural problems were also related to non-intact family structures. The associations between non-intact family structures and behavioural problems were independent of measures of economic deprivation in both samples of children. This study documents some of the background factors which affect children's behavioural and cognitive outcomes. Unlike children's family structure economic deprivation can be influenced through policy intervention, and the analysis supports the view that relieving economic deprivation would help improve children's behavioural outcomes. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major paradoxes in child protective services in the United States is that children removed from their homes on protective orders and placed in foster and group care face continued abuse. These children are reported at two to three tunes the rates of children living with their families. Investigations are performed by the very .system that makes placements. In the US, some recommend resolving these problems by withdrawing from the active protection of children in care. Others hold that because children are in the care and custody of the state, and demand a higher standard of care, specialised prevention, identification, reporting and investigation initiatives are necessary to ensure their safety. This has important implications for other countries, especially the United Kingdom with its recent spate of inquiries into abuse in residential care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their recognition of the need for teacher training to enable them to respond effectively to the problems of child sexual abuse (DES Circular 4/88) measures taken by the Government to provide that training appear, so far, to be inadequate. Further cause for concern lies in the introduction into schools of child sexual abuse prevention programmes, many of which are seriously flawed, have not been scientifically evaluated and contain unintended negative consequences for both children and teachers. Here, a number of these shortcomings are examined, recent research is reviewed and a wider, more unified and coordinated approach is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This retrospective study considers all referrals received by child health, social services and police of suspected child sexual abuse between the year 1986-1989, within South Glamorgan. Some 410 children were referred and of these 197 were found to have been abused. Of those cases where abuse was not proven, only 63 were judged to be due to false allegations, some of which were considered malicious. This pattern, of approximately half of referrals being unsubstantiated, is similar to that reported from the United States, where reporting is mandatory. The criteria for diagnosis, and the identifying and presenting features surrounding possible explanations of false allegations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by John Welshman examining the process of policy transfer through history of early poverty programmes in the U.S. and Great Britain including head start programs and sure start programs, another by Myfanwy Franks and Haridhan Goswami considering the needs of rural runaways in Great Britain, and one by Gry Mette D. Haugen identifying three approaches to time-sharing.