Ebook: Measuring and Monitoring Children’s Well-Being

Today, any regular newspaper reader is likely to be exposed to reports on manifold forms of (physical, emotional, sexual) child abuse on the one hand, and abnormal behavior, misconduct or offences of children and minors on the other hand. Occasionally reports on children as victims and children as offenders may appear on the same issue or even the same page. Rather seldom the more complex and largely hidden phenomena of structural hostility or indifference of society with a view to children are being dealt with in the press. Such fragmentary, ambiguous, incoherent or even contradictory perception of children in modem society indicates that, firstly, there is a lack of reliable information on modem childhood, and secondly, children are still treated as a comparatively irrelevant population group in society. This conclusion may be surprising in particular when drawn at the end of The Century of the Child proclaimed by Ellen Key as early as 1902. Actually, there exist unclarities and ambiguities about the evolution of childhood in the last century not only in public opinion, but also in scientific literature. While De Mause with his psycho-historic model of the evolution of childhood, comprising different stages from infanticide, abandonment, ambivalence, intrusion, socialisation to support, underlines the continuous improvement of the condition of childhood throughout history and thus rather confirms Key's expectations, Aries, with his social history of childhood, seems to hold a more culturally pessimistic view.

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This book is an outcome of a very innovative and unique endeavor: that of the international project "Measuring and Monitoring Children's Well-Being", which involved some 80 experts from 27 countries working together for four years to redefine the concept of children's well-being and to suggest new indicators - beyond survival and basic needs - to measure and monitor the status of children.
The reader will find a sound rationale for conducting such studies and for a consistent and thorough attempt to study and monitor children's well-being. Furthermore, the book presents the most extensive analysis to date of the current field of child well-being indicators and the various projects and studies that are currently under way.
A newly defined context for children's well-being is presented, as well as a set of five "new" domains and some 49 indicators that are recommended for measuring and monitoring children's well-being. Finally, the book discusses how such indicators could be used in the communities where children are living and in the policy making process in order to promote children's well-being.
Readership: Sociologists, anthropologists, social psychologists, social workers, social paedagogues, social paediatricians and other child-related professionals.