Ending Child Poverty: What is happening in the UK?

A report from the Center for Impact Research's U.S./UK Welfare Reform Working Group

A politics of recognition and respect: involving people with experience of poverty in decision making that affects their lives

People living in poverty and their organisations should be empowered by . . . encouraging and assisting [them] to organise . . . and . . . involving them fully in the setting of targets, and in the design, implementation, monitoring and assessment of national strategies and programmes for poverty eradication and community-based development . . . The full participation of people living in poverty is a fundamental and equally obligatory part of the process

Why citizenship? Where, when and how children?

This Article addresses the general question of "why citizenship?" through the lens of children’s citizenship. It unpacks the different elements of substantive citizenship and considers what they mean for children: membership and participation; rights; responsibilities; and equality of status, respect and recognition. It then discusses the lessons that may be learned from feminist critiques of mainstream constructions of citizenship, paying particular attention to the question of capacity for citizenship. It concludes by suggesting that much of the literature that is making the case for recognition of children as citizens is not so much arguing for the wholesale extension of adult rights and obligations of citizenship to children but recognition that children’s citizenship practices constitute them as de facto, even if not complete de jure, citizens. More broadly, the Article argues that this position points towards an understanding of citizenship which embraces but goes beyond that of a bundle of rights

Inclusive citizenship : realizing the potential

Citizenship has been described as a ‘momentum concept’ (Hoffman, 2004). One important development over the past decade has been the various ways in which scholars and activists have developed citizenship’s inclusionary potential. The first part of the article explores these developments in general terms with regard to the values underpinning inclusive citizenship; the implications of the notion of cultural citizenship; and the theorization of differentiated forms of citizenship, which nevertheless appeal to universalist principles. These principles provide the basis for the citizenship claims of people living in poverty, a group largely ignored in citizenship studies. Other lacunae have been disability and, until recently, childhood. The second part of the article discusses how citizenship studies has reworked the concept in a more inclusionary direction through the development of a multi-tiered analysis, which pays attention to the spaces and places in which lived citizenship is practised. It focuses in particular on the intimate and domestic sphere, with particular reference to debates around care and citizenship, and on the interconnections between the intimate/domestic and the global, using ‘global care chains’ and ecological citizenship as examples

From object to subject : including marginalised citizens in policy-making

The article begins with an account of the values that might underpin an inclusive model of citizenship. It then discusses such a model in terms of participation in policy-making. It does so with particular reference to two groups who are the named objects of policy-making but who are marginalised in the policy-making process: people living in poverty and children. These examples are also used to draw out some general lessons and themes. The article concludes by linking the discussion to the idea of social justice understood as embodying relations of recognition as well as distribution

Reducing the risks to health: the role of social protection: report of the Social Protection Task Group for the Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England post 2010.

We demonstrate that the introduction of social protection systems as well as their generosity and coverage have significant impacts on health. Who receives the benefits within the household affects the health outcomes for the family. The eligibility for and administration of benefits matters. We examine the growth of means testing in the UK and its recent modifications. We find serious difficulties facing those with long term medical conditions who are on the margins of the labour force. Collaboration between the health and social protection systems is poor. We give particular attention to gender and health and the implications this has for the social protection system. We also consider the fate of groups like asylum seekers who are excluded from its normal working.

A Politics of Recognition and Respect: Involving People with Experience of Poverty in Decision making that Affects their Lives

This article was published in the journal, Social Policy and Society [© Cambridge University Press] and is available at: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=SPS.People living in poverty and their organisations should be empowered by . . . encouraging and assisting [them] to organise . . . and . . . involving them fully in the setting of targets, and in the design, implementation, monitoring and assessment of national strategies and programmes for poverty eradication and community-based development . . . The full participation of people living in poverty is a fundamental and equally obligatory part of the process