Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Critical Social Policy
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Lister, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Children (but not women) first: New Labour, child welfare and gender

Ruth Lister

Loughborough University, M.R.Lister{at}lboro.ac.uk

The paper’s starting point is an analysis of New Labour’s agenda for children in an emergent ‘social investment state’. It provides an overview of policies for children, which simultaneously invest in children and regulate them and their parents/mothers. Although children have moved to the heart of social policy, there is some disquiet about the way they are being positioned in this brave new world of social investment. This disquiet focuses in particular on: the construction of children as ‘becomings’ rather than ‘beings’; the paid-work-focused and future-oriented model of citizenship; the relative neglect of groups of children who are not seen to represent such a good investment; and the eclipse of parents’, and in particular, mothers’ welfare. The final section sketches out how the social investment approach might be modified in the interests of children’s well-being and flourishing and with reference to principles of (gendered) social justice.

Key Words: human rights • mothers • social investment • social justice • well-being

Critical Social Policy, Vol. 26, No. 2, 315-335 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0261018306062588
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Br J Soc WorkHome page
S. Parr
Family Intervention Projects: A Site of Social Work Practice
Br. J. Soc. Work, October 1, 2009; 39(7): 1256 - 1273.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 SOC POLHome page
R. Lister
A Nordic Nirvana? Gender, Citizenship, and Social Justice in the Nordic Welfare States
Soc. Pol., June 1, 2009; 16(2): 242 - 278.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Administration & SocietyHome page
P. Frericks, R. Maier, and W. de Graaf
Toward a Neoliberal Europe?: Pension Reforms and Transformed Citizenship
Administration Society, April 1, 2009; 41(2): 135 - 157.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 SOC POLHome page
V. Elizabeth and W. Larner
Racializing the "Social Development" State: Investing in Children in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Soc. Pol., March 1, 2009; 16(1): 132 - 158.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Critical Social PolicyHome page
K. Broadhurst, C. Mason, and C. Grover
Sure Start and the `re-authorization' of Section 47 child protection practices
Critical Social Policy, November 1, 2007; 27(4): 443 - 461.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Critical Social PolicyHome page
B. Featherstone
Why gender matters in child welfare and protection
Critical Social Policy, May 1, 2006; 26(2): 294 - 314.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Critical Social PolicyHome page
J. Hearn and K. Pringle
Men, masculinities and children: some European perspectives
Critical Social Policy, May 1, 2006; 26(2): 365 - 389.
[Abstract] [PDF]