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Acknowledgments
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economic forces in shaping the life course of children and young people, including their involvement in work. Finally, we indicate how the “British model” influenced the development of international standards during the twentieth century. The relationship between poverty and children’s labor-force involvement is complex. Some children work when it is not necessary for basic survival. Also, some children from very poor families work a lot, while children from other very poor families do not. Is child work more a cultural phenomenon than a matter of economic necessity? In chapter 4, “Child Work and Poverty—A Tangled Relationship,” we draw on the growing research literature on these issues to untangle the complex and varied connections between poverty and children’s work. We also examine interventions that address the relationship between children’s work, their schooling, and poverty. Although poverty may affect household work as well as paid and unpaid work in the labor market, this chapter focuses mainly on labor-market work. In chapter 5, “The Role of Work in Child Development,” we consider difficulties of defining and thinking about children’s development in practical ways that facilitate determining whether work supports or undermines it, and then turn to social science for ideas and tools that can be helpful. We review the implications of research on child work from psychology and anthropology/ sociology, and consider the negative impact of Euro-American ethnocentric constructions of work and universal policies based on them. Finally, we suggest how to regard work as a positive influence on children’s development while monitoring it to prevent abuse. Chapter 6, “Education, School, and Work,” addresses what is perhaps the most heated and widespread debate regarding child work; the relationships between children’s work and their education. Are work and education compatible ? While most societies agree that school should be the main and indispensable non-home activity of children, there is disagreement about whether that implies school-age children should not take on work outside school. In this chapter, we consider evidence for and against the idea that stopping children from working will improve their attendance and performance. This leads to the methodological question of whether failure of the school system encourages children to take on other kinds of work, or whether work outside school hinders school attendance and performance. We look at a study that resolved the question by following a panel of children over time, assessing the effects of different kinds of work on their subsequent lives. Finally, we consider ways of combining school work with other kinds of work, and of learning through productive work, such as through apprenticeship. In chapter 7, “Children Acting for Themselves,” we consider ways in which children can and do manage their lives and their affairs, including their productive work. Many young people—among them orphans, street children, and PREFACE xiii young migrant workers—live with little or no adult support and work to support themselves and sometimes others as well. In the first part of this chapter, we explore ways in which such children manage their lives and affairs, including productive work. The second part of the chapter explores another example of children’s agency in the emergence of organizations of working children. These organizations provide a further example of children acting, in partnership with adults, to control and improve their own lives. Finally we consider how children can exercise agency by participating in decision making. Assessing the harm and benefits of different forms and conditions of children’s work is a key to developing strategies and interventions that serve children’s best interests. In chapter 8, “Assessing Harm Against Benefits,” we start with the example of child domestic work to show the problems of dichotomizing work too crudely into “good” and “bad” categories. Situational factors such as conditions of work, the social context surrounding children, and alternatives realistically available are all relevant to the effects of work on the children, as are the perspectives of children themselves. We discuss the particular importance of the relations of work, both inside and outside the home. Since assessing the effects of work on children is rarely straightforward, we provide some practical suggestions for how to go about such an evaluation. We indicate the importance of taking seriously the perceptions and decisions of children, even when they enter harmful forms of work. Chapter 9, “The Politics of International Intervention” presents two cases, one in Bangladesh and the other in Pakistan, in which foreign interventions in children’s work in export...