Abstract
The objective of this chapter is to show that the Capability Approach can serve as an appropriate conceptual framework and a normative tool to analyse children’s well-being and other relevant children’s issues. To meet this objective, the second section reviews the literature on children and the Capability Approach with a special focus on empirical analyses. The third section concentrates on the capability framework and on how “new” concepts need to be introduced within it to improve the analysis of children’s issues. The fourth section reinforces our observations by recalling some of our main initial empirical findings and the conclusions reiterate some of the core results.
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Notes
- 1.
Most of these are in the domain of education. For example, Sen (e.g., 1992, 1999a, 1999b) underlines the main role education plays in promoting capabilities. Nussbaum (1997, 2006) has developed this facet of capabilities more substantially. Other relevant researches are for example Brighouse (2000); Biggeri (2003); Mehrotra and Biggeri (2002); Saito (2003); Swift (2003); Unterhalter and Brighouse (2003); and more recently the edited volume by Walker and Unterhalter (2007).
- 2.
- 3.
Here “domain” and “dimension” are used interchangeably.
- 4.
Physical health was measured by four indicators: weight at birth; number of accidents; presence of limits to a normal physical activity; presence of asthma. Emotional well-being was measured through these indicators: disobedience at school, bullying or cruelty, hyperactivity, lying and being anxious.
- 5.
The author worked with official statistical data on 3,000 children aged 6–12 years from states in central India.
- 6.
Capacities were selected from the 10 central capabilities listed by Nussbaum (2000), for example, physical health; senses, imagination and thought; and leisure activities and playing time.
- 7.
The selected functionings were height and weight related to age, school enrolment and job status (whether the child works inside or outside his/her house or he/she does not work).
- 8.
External causes were identified as the economic situation of the family, parents’ literacy level, child’s gender, child’s family dimensions, caste and order of birth.
- 9.
Proxies were constructed to examine attitudes towards education, attendance of arts classes and other types of extracurricular class such as computing and languages. The variables used as indicators of the capability “leisure and play activities” included how often children play in a playground, various types of games and attendance of sports classes. Results were obtained by matching two data sets (using a propensity score method): a Bank of Italy survey on income and wealth for the year 2000, and ISTAT data on families, social subjects and childhood conditions for the year 1998.
- 10.
This work has focused on children aged 0–16 years.
- 11.
The first procedure has been applied systematically since 2004 by our research group based at Florence University and related to the thematic group on Children’s Capabilities of the HDCA while the second procedure has been tested since 2006. We applied this procedure in five studies: at the first Children’s World Congress on Child Labour (CWCCL) (Florence, Italy in May 2004) and at the second Children’s World Congress on Child Labour and Education (Delhi, India, September 2005) both organized by the Global March Against Child Labour (GMACL) and other grassroots associations (see Biggeri et al., 2006a; Biggeri, 2007), in a study among street children in Uganda (Kampala, March–April 2005, see also next chapter), in India (Delhi, May–September 2008) evaluating the impact of Project Why on disabled children and in Nepal to children and women victims of home violence at the Women Foundation (Kathmandu, September 2008).
- 12.
This sub-section is based partially on the second chapter of the book Children and the Capability Approach, edited by Biggeri et al. (2010) and is attributed to the three authors.
- 13.
- 14.
Viewing children as social actors is now quite consolidated in the literature and is based on the results of several studies redefining children from passive to active participants who play a dynamic role in their families’ lives, communities and societies (see, e.g. Feeny & Boyden, 2004). See also Baraldi (2008).
- 15.
In the case of children, this concept is quite close in practical terms to the concept of evolving capacities presented by Lansdown (2005, p. 3): “the concept of evolving capacities is central to the balance embodied in the convention between recognising children as active agents in their own lives, entitled to be listened to, respected and granted increasing autonomy in the exercise of rights, while also being entitled to protection in accordance with their relative immaturity and youth”.
- 16.
- 17.
A functioning is an achievement, whereas a capability is the ability to achieve. Functionings are, in a sense, related more directly to living conditions, because they are different aspects of one’s everyday life. Capabilities, in contrast, are notions of freedom in the positive sense: what real opportunities you have regarding the life you may lead (Sen, 1987, p. 36).
- 18.
Thinking in terms of team agency implies that the relationship babies create with adults, especially with their mothers, has a reciprocal feature and adults’ and children’s action have to be coordinated. Lengerstee (2007) argues that the mechanism through which adults operationalise children’s agency is the “emotional tuning” that discloses the quality of the emotions the adult thinks the child is feeling. In other words, the adult’s action projects towards the baby what the baby has already autonomously produced in a process of self-socialisation.
- 19.
All except one of the child delegates participating in the FGD were former child labourers who were benefiting from new opportunities as a result of education and vocational training provided by rehabilitation centres or by local civic organisations. Some of these children were still working to pay their education fees. Clearly, they did not need any introduction to the subject of child well-being, and it is important to note that all of them had taken part in meetings on matters related to the issues of the FGD (see Biggeri et al., 2006c).
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Acknowledgements
This chapter is strongly rooted in the studies conducted by the research group at the University of Florence since 2003 and its interaction with the members of the thematic group on Children’s Capabilities of the Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA) in particular Jeromé Ballet and Flavio Comim to whom we are very thankful. The Florence research group has seen several members Mario Biggeri, Renato Libanora, Nicolò Bellanca, Giovanni Canitano, Stefano Mariani, Vincenzo Mauro, Leonardo Menchini, Simone Bertoli, Rudolf Anich, Sara Bonfanti, Paolo Battistelli, Francesca Marchetta, Aesa Pighini, Enrico Testi and Stefan Zublasing and many other students who have participated in various sessions in Italy and abroad. We are extremely grateful to all of them. Our sincere thanks go to Sabina Alkire, Anou Bakhshi, Parul Bakhshi, Enrica Chiappero Martinetti, David A. Clark, Santosh Mehrotra, Mozaffar Qizilbash, Ingrid Robeyns, Jean-Francois Trani, Alex Frediani, Franco Volpi and Melanie Walker for their useful suggestions during these years. Finally, we wish to thank the University of Bielefeld and in particular Hans Uwe Otto, his research team and Sabine Andresen. The author retains the responsibility for the opinion expressed in the chapter.
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Biggeri, M., Ballet, J., Comim, F. (2011). The Capability Approach and Research on Children: Capability Approach and Children’s Issues. In: Andresen, S., Diehm, I., Sander, U., Ziegler, H. (eds) Children and the Good Life. Children¿s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9219-9_6
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