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This thesis explores issues of social injustice impacting on a sample group of young people living in a Scottish community and critically examines their experiences on the periphery of the labour market. Existing research evidence has highlighted myriad issues impacting on young people as they struggle to make the transition to adulthood. Young people in the UK have been particularly impacted by the economic turbulence of recent years with stagnating wages, higher rates of unemployment compared to older age groups, an increase in precarious employment and a gradual erosion of welfare entitlement. Allied to this, unemployed youth continue to be disparaged in popular discourse, labelled amongst other things as feckless and idle. As a consequence, there is evidence that young people on the margins of society are disengaging from formal politics, feeling alienated from an arena that they also see as disconnected from their everyday lives. This thesis uses the framework of social justice as conceived by Nancy Fraser to critically analyse perceived injustices affecting the lives of young people. These issues manifest across all three spheres of injustice as identified by Fraser; the economic, the cultural and the political spheres of social life - what she calls the domains of redistribution, recognition and representation, respectively. The findings of my research study confirms that Fraser's framework not only allows us to bring together the multiple injustices impacting on these young people's lives, but helps to reveal the ways in which they overlap and interpenetrate, reinforcing marginalisation. Fraser's framework is also utilised as a lens through which to analyse and understand the context within which practitioners working with the young people are operating. As many writers in the area of youth work argue, it is an ethical requirement that the practice supports young people towards addressing any injustices impacting on their lives. This study finds that the ability of practitioners to respond to the issues of injustice in the lives of the young people is compromised by a performative landscape centred on meeting pre-ordained targets and outcomes.

The right to participate and express a view is an intrinsic right afforded to all human beings, regardless of age (Lundy, 2007). Explicitly, Articles 12, 13, 14 and 15 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) grant participatory rights to children and young people in decision-making. One of the forms of participation academics and practitioners have studied over the past decades, the engagement of children and young people in participatory processes, is moving away from the understanding of children as passive recipients of research to active participants. However, literature has paid scant attention to research led directly by children and young people (Thomas, 2015). Child-led research is understood, as starting definition from literature, as an approach in which children and young people are involved in all stages - from planning, fieldwork and analysis to dissemination. The aim of this research is to critically explore how the process and outcomes of children and young people's participation in their own child-led research contributes, positively or negatively, to decision-making processes in the context of international development programmes. The research questions are: Question 1: What are children and young people's motivations for, expectations of and experiences with engaging in their own child-led research as a way to influence decision-making? Question 2: What are the processes of child-led research that positively or negatively influence decision-making? Question 3: In what ways does child-led research influence decision-making? (And why and how do they do so?) This research project used a case study approach to examine two cases where children and young people claimed they conducted child-led research. The first, Bekaa and Irbid, investigated the research conducted by a group of children and young people on issues relevant to their situations as refugees in the host countries of Lebanon and Jordan. The second, Dhaka, reviewed child-led research focused on the lack of birth certificates issued for Bangladeshi children and the possible effects of not having this legal registration. A group of children and young people who are members of a Children's Parliament in Dhaka led this project. The research participants for this project are defined as (1) the children and young people, aged 12 to 18 (when I interviewed them), who are associated with World Vision programmes and engaged in the child-led research projects within their constituencies in the Irbid and Bekaa and Dhaka case studies and (2) the adult professionals who acted as facilitators of child-led research projects and those who worked in the design of these projects or dissemination of their findings. These participants were those who were best suited to provide the information needed as they were fully involved in the child-led research projects and had in-depth knowledge to contribute answers to the research questions. This project adopted several methods for data collection, including focus groups, semi-structured interviews, observations and documentary review. The study followed ethical research guidelines to ensure the safety, rights, dignity and well-being of both the children and young people and adult participants (Morrow, 2009). The research took into account the special considerations required to gain informed consent, ensure confidentiality and anonymity, acknowledge the cultures of the research sites, and refrain from presenting information that may potentially harm participants (Marshall and Rossman, 2006). The findings of the study show that the child-led research approach is considered an adequate participatory approach that creates spaces for children and young people to engage in their own research and influence change based on their findings. Thus, this approach enabled participants to gather together and pursue collectively a research project in which they were able to explore issues about their lives using research methodologies that were appropriate to their experiences, abilities and expertise. This conversion, however, highlights a variety of tensions around the understanding and legitimacy of child-led research. Findings from this study supports the view that child-led research generates empirically grounded knowledge, which produced through data collection and personal experiences of the young researches and its analysis as a whole. Findings also reveal that the young researchers' motivations and expectations were to make an impact on their own lives, as well as the lives of their peers and change a situation that they perceived as unfair. Findings show that the adult facilitators played an important role in facilitating the young researchers but not managing them. However, this study evidenced some tensions between participation and protection rights. The study found manifestations of power amongst the children and young people during the child-led research projects, which were based on age, gender, religion, language and ethnicity. This confirms children and young people can replicate power relations within their participatory projects, which are deeply embedded in their traditions and cultures. Findings show that child-led research has different levels of impact; on decision-making and in the individual lives of the young researchers. This is connected to the contexts where children and young people conducted their research, which was conducive in one case study and more challenging in the other case. Overall, the findings of this study contribute to the body of literature that challenges the dominant conceptualisation that children and young people are unable to conduct their own research. Instead, the findings of this research project contribute to the study of children and young people's participation by providing different perspectives on the debate around the children and young people's abilities and motivations to engage in their own child-led research projects. The findings contribute to knowledge about the nature of child-led research as an approach that supports children and young people in their struggle to participate in society. These findings contribute to the substantial gap of understanding about what is knowledge and expertise by exploring the ways in which children and young people conduct their own research and create knowledge with the aim of making a change in society. Specifically, the findings provide empirical evidence of the impact that their work has had on policy and practice and their personal lives.

Inter-agency working has been promoted as a way forward to improve public services, including children's services. However, the terminology is problematic because it often overlaps with other terminologies, such as partnership or collaboration. As a consequence, when describing working arrangements between people and organisations, a 'terminological quagmire' results (Leathard, 1994, p5), with 'definitional chaos' (Ling, 2000, p83). This definitional chaos is replicated in the on-going challenges found by research, on inter-agency working. While much literature has focussed on these challenges and solutions, little attention has been given to the processes that make up inter-agency working. My research explored inter-agency working processes at the frontline of children's services in Scotland. It examined formal mechanisms of working together, such as meetings and referral forms, which organised professionals' work and their relationships with one another. I used institutional ethnography to investigate inter-agency working processes. The research was conducted in one local authority in Scotland over a period of eight months and within the framework of Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), which is the country's national policy approach for children. One component of GIRFEC is the Named Person. It is a provision that would provide every child in Scotland a professional (for most children the professional is going to be their health visitor or head teacher) to help safeguard their wellbeing by means of offering advice, support and referral to other services. This service will make teachers at promoted posts responsible for coordinating support for their pupils and will change mechanisms of inter-agency working. The tenets of institutional ethnography allowed me to observe and trace the ways in which professionals worked together. The research found that when professionals worked together, they shared information and that sharing of information was complicated by the burgeoning use of technology. The working processes involved revealed the power relations between people and between people and organisations: specifically, between teachers and the Children and Families team members of the council, as the latter was responsible for maintaining the formal inter-agency working mechanisms of GIRFEC. The thesis highlights that inter-agency meetings, as formalised ways of working together, can boost professionals' confidence as they wrestle with uncertainty about their actions as professionals and how best to address children and young people's needs. This thesis also shows how policy changes changed the ways in which professionals work together. The Named Person provision of GIRFEC has ignited public debates in Scotland. This thesis is contributing to the debates by providing evidence on how this new role has changed the relationships between the teachers and other professionals. This is pertinent as the Scottish Government is currently redesigning the Named Person policy.

Title 1) A grounded theory exploration of social workers’ permanency planning for looked after children in Scotland 2) Experience of childhood maltreatment and reflective function of parents: A systematic review of observational research findings Aims 1) Permanency planning refers to meeting the needs of a ‘looked after’ child by legally securing a permanent family. Delays in securing permanency are associated with adverse outcomes for children. Social workers are integral to this process and yet there is a paucity of research considering how workers make sense of this professional role. The current study aimed to develop an explanatory theory of social workers’ sense making in planning for permanency to identify issues and facilitate a discussion around the experiences and needs of this group. 2) The paper considers childhood experiences of maltreatment in relation to adult reflective function in parenting, a variable implicated in infant attachment security. A systematic review aimed to explore the current research literature examining the association between the experience of maltreatment in childhood and later reflective function in parenting. Methods 1) A qualitative grounded theory methodology (GTM) was used to analyse interviews with eight social workers who had a current permanency role (six female). 2) Following the development of a grounded theory via integration of the data with the theory of mentalization, a relevant systematic review was conducted. The current research literature was explored in relation to adults’ experiences of maltreatment in childhood and reflective function in parenting. 2 Results 1) Although participants described delays in relation to systemic pressures, as analysis of interviews unfolded theoretical sampling explored their experiences of losing and maintaining ‘focus’ on the child in permanency planning. The findings generated a theory positing that workers seek to keep a child’s ‘mentalized’ experience at the fore (to hold his ‘mind in mind’) and plan responsively to make permanency recommendations while negotiating the challenges of person-centred working within a multi-agency system. Workers were found to describe holding ‘mentalized’ interpretations of a child’s past, current, and future experiences during the processes integral to planning for permanency (assessment, early decisions, information gathering, interpretation, integration, and interaction with the wider system). Holding the child’s mind in mind also contributed to the ‘strength of evidence’ for permanency planning, and was, at the same time, vulnerable to the destabilizing effects of the emotional demands and system stressors perceived within the permanency role. Permanency planning and integration of evidence to make recommendations for permanency was responsive to the complexities of interpersonal working, hypothetical futures for the child, and to the potential impact of planning actions for future decision makers. 2) A systematic search of the literature identified seven datasets (of which nine papers) presenting analyses relating to measurement of childhood maltreatment and parents’ reflective function. Conclusions 1) The study theorised a psychological process related to holding ‘focus’ on the child in permanency and concluded with recommendations for permanency practice based on this preliminary model. These included prioritising a culture of professional empathy, training in and availability of protected reflective clinical supervision, post-adoption support for birth parents, and training in working with complex interpersonal behaviour to better facilitate effective permanency planning and improve outcomes for looked after children. 2) Although the identified studies indicated a lack of significant association between the factors, critical evaluation of conceptual, methodological and population issues indicated that the small number of reviewed studies were limited in their capacity to address the review question. After further data reduction according to study quality and separation of analyses according to conceptualisation of mentalization there remained two datasets reporting on CM and adult RF, and three reporting analyses of CM and parenting RF. Conceptual differences regarding mentalization and RF are considered in relation to emerging areas of research in this field.

Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognised children’s human right to participate in decisions that affect them. Yet, twenty-five years after ratification, children’s participation remains frequently problematic in practice. This thesis examines the practice of NGOs that have been implementing children’s participation at the community level for more than ten years in two specific settings: Tamil Nadu (in south India) and Scotland (UK). The thesis is an explorative study; it examines the findings through two case studies (one in each country). Each case study involved observations/informal discussions and semi-structured interviews with children and staff members from the NGOs. Relevant documents were obtained and scrutinised. The analysis of the empirical data uses three concepts: competencies, child-adult relationships and influence to illuminate and analyse the implementation of children’s participation within the two case studies. Firstly, the empirical analysis highlights that children within children’s participation projects acquired knowledge and skills and then applied them in particular situations within the participation projects (personal and social competencies). Nevertheless, the two case studies showed that adults’ crucial role in legitimising children’s competencies can either facilitate or block children’s participation. Secondly, the child-staff/adults’ relationships were not enough to be considered as the hierarchy within the organisation’s social order was needed to be analysed to have ‘successful’ participation projects. Thirdly, Lundy (2007) provides a model for how adults can be more accountable to children and enhance children’s influence over decision-making in their communities, but some missing elements can undermine the extent to which children’s views are appropriately acted upon. Based on a modification of Lundy’s model, this thesis proposes a tripartite collaborative and intergenerational framework involving the relationships between children and adults in power facilitated by staff members. The thesis contributes to debates about children’s participation by arguing that implementing children’s participation requires a relational and contextual focus on collaboration and intergenerational dialogue. The thesis makes recommendations for practitioners and decision-makers on how to deploy Lundy’s modified perspective to implement children’s constructive participation at the local level.

Early years provision, which combines childcare and preschool education, has been considered vital for child development by theorists and practitioners. Within early years provision pedagogy is assumed to be both an enabling and constraining factor which can shape a particular experience of childhood and, possibly, prepare children for a particular adulthood. This thesis explores pedagogical processes and practices vis-à-vis children’s experiences in three different pedagogical contexts: a corporation nursery, a private nursery and an ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) Anganwadi centre in Chennai in Tamil Nadu (India). It explores the findings of a one year ethnographic study that involved observation/informal conversation with children and semi-structured interviews with teachers, care worker(s) and parents. The ethnographic study used methodological approaches from childhood research, adopted ethical positions from childhood studies and valued children as competent individuals that should be treated with respect throughout the research processes. The analysis of the empirical data uses the intersections of three concepts in the works of Foucault (subject), Butler (identity), Bourdieu (cultural capital) to illuminate and analyse the pedagogical processes and practices. The thesis characterises the different pedagogical contexts encountered in the study as: ‘activity centred’, ‘task centred’, and ‘care centred’. It explains that this context emerged in an on-going active process of negotiation, deliberation, reflection through ‘subjection’ and ‘resistance’. It demonstrates that children construct their embodied self-identity through everyday pedagogical/curriculum performativity and the teacher-children identities work within as well as outside pedagogical contexts. The empirical analysis identifies shame and distinction as key factors for pedagogical/curriculum performativity and argues that the embodied identities of children are fluid and contextual and that they are formed through the interaction of learning materials, academic ability/mastery, and bodily differences in the pedagogical contexts. It is argued that children employ cultural capital when (re)establishing home-nursery connections in different pedagogical contexts and that parents similarly use their cultural capital with a sense of ‘practical logic’ for decision making on matters related to early years provision, e.g. when recognising the transformative potential of children. The thesis findings suggest that there is an element of fluidity in pedagogical contexts and that the local cultural practices of teachers/care worker are reflectively integrated with minority world ideas when normative pedagogies are constructed. The thesis contributes to the development of childhood theory, by demonstrating that childhood is a complex phenomenon. At the policy level, the thesis makes recommendations for practitioners and administrators on how they can value local cultural knowledge, acknowledge reflexive practices of teachers/care workers, and equity issues in early years provision.

This research explores home supervision requirements (HSRs) in Scotland; as well as the views about, and experiences of those who are affected the most by this type of compulsory intervention – young people, their parents and social workers. Home supervision requirements are a type of legal supervision order at home which is unique to the Scottish system of child legislation. Despite being the most common type of disposal used by the Children’s Hearing little is known about how HSRs work in practice. There is some evidence that young people who are subject to a HSR are likely to leave school with fewer qualifications than their peers – including young people who were ‘looked after’ away from home. Concerns with this gap in our understandings, combined with concerns for the poorer educational outcomes of young people who are subject to a HSR, has lead the Scottish Government, in collaboration with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), to set up and fund this case studentship. The research was conducted in a relatively large urban local authority in Scotland and used a multi-method approach in order to find out more about the nature, scope and outcomes of HSRs; as well as young people’s, their parents’ and social workers’ views about, and experiences of HSRs. I have conducted secondary analysis of data obtained from the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA). SCRA provided aggregated data on all 98 young people who were subject to a HSR in Thistle city for 12 months or more at 31st of December 2008. This information provided a ‘profile’ of young people subject to a HSR as well as a charter of their involvement with the Hearing System. This highlights the similarities between young people who are subject to a HSR and those who are subject to other types of supervision requirements (SRs) in Scotland. I also carried out documentary analysis of young people’s social work case files. Social work case files contain a number of different documents which provide qualitative information in narrative form about young people and their families, as well as a history of contact with social services. What gets recorded, how and to what effect is the result of the same system that they describe and influence. Case files are therefore of interest not because of what they record but how they construct subjects and facilitate the management of individuals and populations – in this case young people and their parents. Finally, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 young people, nine parents, one carer and 10 social workers. All of the young people interviewed had been known to social services for a considerable length of time, with some having been on and off different types of supervision requirements for five years or more. The interviews revealed a great deal of ambivalence towards HSRs from all stakeholders, and a lack of clarity about the nature and scope of the intervention. Drawing on post-theories critique on the rationalist, reductionist assumptions of modern discourses that dominate social policy and practice this study concludes that rather than asking whether HSRs are successful or not, we should first consider what HSRs are for. I propose that HSR is a disciplinary technique which aims to facilitate the management of individuals and populations. Social control should not however be understood as exclusive of disciplinary powers but as an inevitable and irreducible characteristic of all social relations. It is important therefore to explore how practice exercises control; how this is contested, resisted and transformed; and to what effect.