Modernity, Mobility and the Reshaping of Childhood in the

Twenty-first Century: Educational Aspirations and Challenges

Professor Jo Boyden, Director, Young Lives

Distinguished Guest LectureCESS-UNICEF Division for Child Studies, Hyderabad

24 September 2014

• PART I: CHILDHOOD AND MODERNITY THE PROMISE THE POLICY APPROACHES

• PART II: YOUNG LIVES EVIDENCETRADITIONAL NORMS AROUND CHILDREN’S ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

EDUCATIONAL ASPIRATIONS

• PART III: THE EDUCATION-MIGRATION NEXUS

• REFLECTIONS

OUTLINE

CHILDHOOD AND MODERNITY

• The promise to children:

– UN Convention on the Rights of the Child puts the spotlight on children

– Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University:

“We view healthy child development as the foundation of economic prosperity, strong communities, and a just society, and our mission is to advance that vision by using science to enhance child well-being through innovations in policy and practice.”

• The promise of education:

– World Bank Group Education Strategy 2020:

“Simply put, investments in quality education lead to more rapid and sustainable economic growth and development. Educated individuals are more employable, able to earn higher wages, cope better with economic shocks, and raise healthier children.”

THE PROMISE OF MODERNITY

• School education is understood as a social good and a child right (UN CRC)

• Push for education through Education for All (Learning for All) and the Millennium Development Goals

• Systems expansion, especially at the primary level

• Creating demand through advocacy, compulsory schooling and incentives

INTERNATIONAL POLICY ON SCHOOL EDUCATION

POLICY ON INDEPENDENT CHILD MIGRATION

• School systems require sedentary populations

• At the same time, children are thought to depend wholly on adults. So it is believed that:

• For children to flourish, they need to be raised through continuous parental care

• Physical proximity with parents is vital for children’s well-being

• Children moving away from the family home without adult family members are in effect trafficked

• So independent child migration is viewed as a major risk for children

YOUNG LIVES EVIDENCE

YOUNG LIVES RESEARCH DESIGN• Interdisciplinary, mixed-methods, cohort study that is

researching the determinants and outcomes of childhood poverty – to influence policy

• Following 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh & Telangana), Peru, Vietnam, over 15 years

• Two age groups in each country:- 2,000 children born in 2000-

01- 1,000 children born in 1994-

95

• Pro-poor sample: 80 sites across the 4 countries selected to reflect country diversity, rural-urban, livelihoods, ethnic, religious differences; roughly equal numbers of boys and girls

• Data: children, selected siblings, caregivers (households), communities and schools (selected)

• Household poverty and frequent exposure to shocks of many kinds influences children’s roles, responsibilities and choices

• Households rely on children working in accordance with their gender, age, birth order and capacity

• Children express a strong sense of responsibility towards their families

• Children’s work is not just an economic asset but also a crucial context for learning important social values and life skills

• Children are not simply dependent on but interdependent with adults

TRADITIONAL NORMS ON CHILDREN’S ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Hard work is an indicator of a ‘good child’: facilitating the development of reasoning, empathy and responsibility

• Mashresha (aged 13, the third of 7 children). His mother said:

“His knowledge is improving.… He keeps the livestock, cares for his younger siblings, the crop…. He has realized the importance of keeping cattle, caring for

children…”Why does he think like that?“Because he knows that if he becomes careless, we become poor, then we may be forced to have

our children in labour. …Yes, he is getting mature and he knows how much we are suffering for them.”

ETHIOPIA

IN ETHIOPIA SCHOOL AND WORK ARE INTERCONNECTED

Most children combine school and work well into their teens – some work to pay school costs

Minaya (aged 13): Minaya’s parents are dead and she lives alone with her grandmother.

• She is keen to help her grandmother: “I am supporting my grandmother alone but my children might have a better life by having parents who can support each other.”

• She studies hard and sees this as part of her duty to her grandmother: “Since my grandmother is working hard to send me to school, I also have to work hard to get a better result”.

• She is doing well at school and has high hopes for the future: “...when I complete my education I will have a job to support myself and my grandmother and my life will be better [than my parents’ lives]”.

• If children do well at school, they can reciprocate later in life

NORMS AROUND CHILD RELOCATION

• Children provide for the labour needs and personal care of elderly relatives and others, who in turn give them guidance and training

• Moving between households can facilitate this mutuality between generations within extended families/across households:

• e.g. a teenage boy in Vietnam was sent to live with his uncle and work in his shop in return for support and disciplining to aid his schooling

• Gender differences in migration: e.g. India • Boys more than girls articulate a commitment to supporting

parents in old age: pressure to migrate for work & remit income

• Migration of girls at early marriage, when they begin to contribute to the household of their in-laws

YOUNG LIVES EVIDENCE ON EDUCTIONAL ASPIRATIONS

Primary school enrolment is now near universal across our sample in India, Peru and Vietnam. But the systems have many weaknesses:

• In Ethiopia, school quality is poor, many children start late and do not progress well

• In Peru, children with less educated mothers and/or who speak an indigenous language are more likely to attend primary schools with fewer services or poorer infrastructure, to repeat grades and to have poorer results in achievement tests by age 8

• In India, early school-leaving rates for children from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe groups are almost double the rate for Other Caste groups

• In Vietnam, Older Cohort children, poor children, rural children, ethnic minority children and those whose parents had little or no education are most likely to leave school early

BROAD EDUCATION TRENDS

In Peru:

• Rural life is strongly associated with suffering and hardship:“We’re not going to suffer like this in the mud… it’s better that I go

and study.” (Marta, rural Andahuaylas)

• Caregivers struggle to give their children the best chances in life:

Esmeralda’s mother said:

“I feel proud mami, I suffer… I brought my children into this world, I will ensure they study” (Her husband drinks and she works hard, selling cows to pay for her children’s education. Her two sons study in town, but money is short so Esmeralda attends the village school)

ASPIRATIONS FOR SOCIAL MOBILITY ARE ASSOCIATED WITH EDUCATION

More than half of parents of 8-year-olds in Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam wanted their child to complete university

In Peru:• Education is the way out of suffering:

– Nicolas’ mother explained: “I tell him to: ‘study son, it’s for you, what’s of the chacra (field) stays chacra, your studies, no one can take them away…’”

– Eva plans to use education to get away from the land: She is adamant that the skills she has acquired at work will not be useful in the future: “I am not going to be a peasant (campesina).” She hopes to go to Lima to study nursing.

• Education is essential to ‘becoming somebody’:– Becoming a professional; defending oneself

EDUCATIONAL ASPIRATIONS ARE EXTREMELY HIGH

THE EDUCATION-MIGRATION NEXUS

• Vietnam and Ethiopia actively discourage migration:

– Without permission to move from local authorities, migrants lose rights to services, school access etc.

– This leads to family separation as individual members go in search of work

• Vietnam:– Education system is relatively even in resources and

performance across the country – Educational aspirations met by extra tuition - supplements

schooling– Little incentive for children to relocate in search of better

schools

• Ethiopia:• Primary enrolment rising but limited numbers of secondary

schools in rural areas– Some children move in with relatives in town– Children with unschooled parents often make their own choices

to relocate for school, this changing inter-generational relations

MIGRATION INCENTIVES AND EDUCATION

Education policy in some countries actively encourages school movement

India:• Relocation and boarding in hostels is essential for

continued school access among tribal children

• Elite boarding schools a colonial heritage

• Gradual expansion of private education with growth of ‘low-fee’ private schools offering English language as medium of instruction, together with loss of confidence in the state system:

• Dual enrolment • Children shifting between schools, private and

government, some often• Some children shift school because of poor quality food,

ill-treatment• Will this process encourage child relocation?

MIGRATION INCENTIVES AND EDUCATION

E.g. in India changing gender norms in some contexts:

• Traditionally, girls from the Jathapa tribe in Patna didn’t go outside the home alone after puberty because of the reputational risks.

• Today many move access schools outside the village and live in hostels, providing them with new freedoms. Santhi (age 12) explained:

“[I]f one remains at home all the time it may not be possible to know anything about the outside world. So I want to go out … We will know about the views of different people …One ought to know about the world outside. So, I want to join a hostel and know much more … I feel I might be able to live.”

MIGRATION FOR EDUCATION IS RESHAPING CHILDHOOD

• In the Peruvian highlands, Atilio didn’t finished secondary school and has left for Lima with his girlfriend. His mother has not seen him for some time.

• She believes that her son’s chances in life are ruined and that he will end up back in the village working in the fields: “all his life he will suffer in the fields.”

• She feels he has broken an explicit agreement: “He said to me, ‘I’m not going to be like everyone else, I am going to study…perhaps to be an engineer.’ It seems I put him [into secondary school] just for the sake of it.”

MIGRATION CAN ALSO DESTROY EDUCATION HOPES

REFLECTIONS

• Children’s effective socialisation and development rely on them growing up as dependents in residentially-fixed households/ nuclear families

• Children and unschooled adults don’t value education or care about its effectiveness or relevance or the reputation and performance of individual schools

• Because education has intrinsic worth it should not be the subject of cost-benefit calculations

• Quality and relevance of school education can wait until enrolment and access are resolved

• School is a free good that replaces work in children’s lives

• Schooling is the prime vehicle for good jobs

THE MISCONCEPTIONS

• In many places children are interdependent with adults, their work valued for the economic contribution it makes and skills it imparts

• At the same time, adults and children are convinced of the value of education

• Children often combine school and work

• Relocation within the extended family and independent child migration, whether for school or work, are common in many parts of the world

• High educational aspirations together with disparities in school systems by location and social group is a significant new incentive for child relocation:

– And many children migrate for jobs so that they can cover school expenses

– But how can parents and children be expected to know which are the best school choices?

– Are the tremendous sacrifices worth it when good jobs are so scarce?

THE REALITY

• Parents and children have bought into the agenda of modernity even though the associated systems and structures are not well developed

• The international community has taken a strong stand against both child work and independent child migration and in favour of education

• But is this position realistic for children living in poverty, especially given the marketisation of education and rise in educational aspirations?

• The post-2015 debate has been focusing on inequalities, but school education exacerbates this problem – how does relocation and migration for schooling affect this trend?

• Children today are under inordinate pressure to excel at school and fulfil familial responsibilities; how does this affect their well-being and inter-generational relations?

MODERNITY AND CHILDHOOD

• Jo Boyden (2013) ‘“We’re not going to suffer like this in the mud”: Educational Aspirations, Social Mobility and Independent Child Migration among Populations Living in Poverty’, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 43.5: 580-600.

• Gina Crivello (2011) ‘“Becoming somebody”: Youth Transitions through Education and Migration in Peru’, Journal of Youth Studies, 14.4: 395-411.

• M. Dobson (2009) ‘Unpacking Children in Migration Research’, Children’s Geographies 7.3

• Karin Heissler and Catherine Porter (2013) ‘“Know Your Place”: Ethiopian Children’s Contributions to the Household Economy’, European Journal of Development Research.

• Zoe James and Martin Woodhead (2013) ‘Choosing and Changing Schools in India’s Private and Government Sectors’, Oxford Review of Education 40.1: 73-90.

• Virginia Morrow (2010) ‘Should the World really be Free of “Child Labour”? Some Reflections’, Childhood 17.4: 4.

• Kirrily Pells (2011) Poverty and Gender Inequalities: Evidence from Young Lives, Young Lives Policy Paper 3.

• G. Porter, K. Hampshire, A. Abane, A. Tanle, K. Esia-Donkoh, R. Obilie Amoako-Sakyi, S. Agblorti and S. Asiedu Owusu (2011) ‘Mobility, Education and Livelihood Trajectories for Young People in Rural Ghana: A Gender Perspective’, Children’s Geographies 9.3-4: 395–410.

• Uma Vennam (2012) ‘Protecting Diversity or Mainstreaming: Schooling Experiences of Tribal Children in Andhra Pradesh, India’, Paper given at the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth 4th International Conference on ‘Celebrating Childhood Diversity’, University of Sheffield, 9-11 July 2012.

REFERENCES