ISS-4311 Children, Youth and Development: Policy and Practice
Code
Weight of the course
Period
Course Leader
Lecturer
Teaching Methods
Modes of Assessment
Contact
ISS-4311
8 ECTS
TERM 3
Auma Okwany
Loes Keysers, Auma Okwany
Participatory Lecture, Workshop (Films), Study Visit
Assignment(s): 85%, Group Assignment: 15%
Marieke Klopper
Learning objectives
By the end of the course participants will have developed a firm grounding in policy and practice in
specific areas of current concern in the field of children, youth and social policy.
Course description
Growing awareness of the number of children and youth affected by poverty, insecurity, violence,
migration, risks and shocks as well as inadequate social service provisioning has led to increased
concern for the promotion of their rights and well-being as well as their capacity to play an active role
in their own development. This course provides both a broader perspective and a deeper analysis of
the importance of a generational perspective in social policy and practice. The course aims to engage
students in a critical overview of changing ideas and debates on selected policy/problem areas
affecting children and youth with specific focus on policy questions around: social protection, early
childhood development, education for active citizenship, understanding youth in development, as well
as sexuality and reproductive health for adolescents and youth.
Young people are among the most heavily governed in society yet generational relations have
received marginal attention in social policy. Governmentality is a key concept that will be used to
enable analysis that moves beyond the micro-context to the direct processes of the state and issues
of power, social control, and exclusion. Students will gain a critical awareness of the global and
comparative analysis of organizations and institutions, which aim to shape young people’s lives and
the changing character of their interventions. They will engage in theoretical, methodological, ethical
and substantive issue discussions on children and youth in social policy. This will strengthen their
capacity to place individual problems in their broader analytical and policy context and enhance their
ability to participate with confidence in policy debates in this area Emphasis is on children and young
people as agents and active participants as well as the implications of child/youth rights-based
approaches for policy and the work of state and non-state actors.
Indicative readings
Brown, B. B., Larson R.W. and T.S. Saraswathi (eds) (2005) The World’s Youth: Adolescence in Eight Regions of
the Globe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cole, J. and D.L. Durham (2008) Figuring the Future: Globalization and Temporalities of Children and Youth.
Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press.
Imoh, A. T. and R.K. Ameh (eds) (2012) Childhoods at the Intersection of the Local and Global, Basingstoke:
Palgrave MacMillan.
Montgomery, H.K. and M. Kellet (2009) Children and Young People’s Worlds: Developing Frameworks for
Integrated Practice. Bristol: Polity Press.
Oudenhoven, N. van, and R. Wazir (2006) Newly Emerging Needs of Children and Youth: An Exploration.
Antwerp: Garant.
Rebello Britto, R., P. Engle, and C Harkness (2013) Handbook of Early Childhood Development Research and its
Impact on Global Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thukral, E.G. (ed.) (2011) Every Right for Every Child: Governance and Accountability. New Delhi: Routledge.
World Bank (2006) World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next Generation. Washington, DC:
World Bank.