Additional Information
Book Details
Abstract
This book shows how children's work can take on widely differing forms; and how it can both harm and benefit children. Differing in approach from most other work in the field, it endeavours to understand working children from their own perspective.
Manfred Liebel is Professor of Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin. His main area is international and intercultural research on childhood and youth. He is staff-member of the TU-Centre for Global Education and International Cooperation and consultant of working children and youth movements in Latin America and Africa.
'A controversial and thought-provoking book which prioritizes working children's own views on their work situation.'
Madeleine Leonard, Queen's University
'This exciting book marks a new departure for ways of thinking about children's work in contemporary societies.'
Virginia Morrow, Brunel University
'Manfred Liebel's work exemplifies a rare and successful blend of passionate advocacy and creative thinking. A champion of the international working children's movement, he reaches a depth of analysis that is both interesting for academics and inspiring for activists, policy makers and the wider public. I am thrilled that the work of one of the major champions of NATS is now also available in English.'
O. Nieuwenhuys, University of Amsterdam
'Manfred Liebel's new book gives the reader an excellent overview of the plight of children who are working in several continents and it places this important issue in both its theoretical and political contexts.'
Jens Qvortrup, Norwegian University for Science and Technology
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bookmark | Cover | ||
| Contents | v | ||
| Preface | ix | ||
| Introduction | 1 | ||
| Voices of working children in the societies of the South | 1 | ||
| Many children work in Northern societies too | 3 | ||
| A new look at children’s work | 4 | ||
| A new view of childhood | 6 | ||
| Subject-oriented approaches to children’s work | 7 | ||
| Some concepts used in the book | 12 | ||
| The structure of the book | 15 | ||
| Notes | 17 | ||
| 1 | Working children’s movements in Africa, Latin America and Asia1 | 19 | ||
| Common ground between working children’s organizations | 20 | ||
| The children’s organizations’ view of the ‘subject’ | 25 | ||
| Social transformations through children’s organizations? | 33 | ||
| Notes | 36 | ||
| 2 | Children’s work from the perspective of social research: an international stock-taking | 38 | ||
| The ILO and the NGOs as pioneers | 38 | ||
| The influence of political interests | 42 | ||
| Definitions and evaluations of children’s work | 43 | ||
| Differentiating analyses of children’s work | 46 | ||
| Notes | 49 | ||
| 3 | The working child has a will of its own: subject-oriented and participative research | 50 | ||
| Discovering working children as subjects | 51 | ||
| Participative research on working children | 66 | ||
| Notes | 75 | ||
| 4 | Childhood and work in non-Western cultures | 77 | ||
| Age categories and economic responsibilities | 78 | ||
| Allotting of tasks and recognition of work | 83 | ||
| Learning while working | 87 | ||
| Autonomous children’s groups | 93 | ||
| The conveyance of property and the rights of children | 96 | ||
| Enslavement and exploitation of children | 99 | ||
| Problems of ethnological childhood research and conclusions | 106 | ||
| Notes | 109 | ||
| 5 | Working children in Europe - loss or new perspectives of childhood? | 112 | ||
| The extent and areas of children’s work | 113 | ||
| Forms and conditions of children’s work | 115 | ||
| Reasons and motives for working | 119 | ||
| A new look at children’s work | 123 | ||
| Working children as actors | 125 | ||
| Theoretical conceptions of children’s work | 128 | ||
| Children’s work and perspectives of childhood in Europe | 142 | ||
| Notes | 146 | ||
| 6 | Working children and adolescents in the USA - juggling school and work | 148 | ||
| What is understood by children’s work in US research? | 149 | ||
| Paid work: its extent and historical development | 150 | ||
| Household work: its extent and significance | 155 | ||
| Reasons and motives for children’s work | 158 | ||
| Costs and benefits of children’s work | 164 | ||
| A critical stock-taking | 170 | ||
| Notes | 173 | ||
| 7 | Work and play in the lives of children | 176 | ||
| Theories of children’s play | 176 | ||
| Work and play in non-Western societies | 181 | ||
| Work and play in Western societies today | 186 | ||
| Notes | 192 | ||
| 8 | The economic exploitation of children: towards a subject-oriented praxis | 194 | ||
| Typologies of children’s work | 194 | ||
| The ILO definition of the exploitation of children | 196 | ||
| Moralization and exploitation | 198 | ||
| Exploitation beyond the sphere of work? | 199 | ||
| The exploitation of children as a structural phenomenon of capitalist societies | 201 | ||
| More detailed approaches to explaining the exploitation of children | 204 | ||
| Working children’s potential for coping and resistance | 208 | ||
| What can be done about the exploitation of children? | 211 | ||
| Notes | 214 | ||
| 9 | How working children resist exploitation and strive to share in decisions about their work | 216 | ||
| Early working children’s history of action | 216 | ||
| Contemporary working children’s actions | 221 | ||
| Self-determined work by children in the South | 225 | ||
| Self-determined work by European children | 228 | ||
| An interim stock-taking | 230 | ||
| Notes | 231 | ||
| 10 | Ways to self-determined children’s work? | 232 | ||
| Initiatives for the improvement of children’s working conditions | 233 | ||
| Initiatives for self-determined children’s work in the South | 236 | ||
| Initiatives for self-determined children’s work in Europe | 253 | ||
| Pitfalls of self-determined work by children | 261 | ||
| Notes | 267 | ||
| 11 | Thoughts on a subject-oriented theory of working children | 269 | ||
| Reconstruction of the concept of the ‘subject’ | 269 | ||
| Working children in the contradiction between subject and object | 274 | ||
| The implications of globalization | 277 | ||
| The requirements of a subject-oriented theory of the working child | 280 | ||
| Notes | 283 | ||
| Bibliography | 285 | ||
| Index | 312 |