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This paper draws on data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of childhood poverty, to explore how international development research might be strengthened by including qualitative longitudinal research (QLR). We review three problems in development studies: (a) the relatively low status of qualitative research within the hierarchy of development knowledge, (b) the predominance of cross-sectional research, and, (c) marginality of research with children and young people. We offer examples from Young Lives research on early marriage in Ethiopia, household poverty dynamics in India and Ethiopia, and aspirations and migration in Peru, to highlight the potential of QLR to address these drawbacks. We suggest that QLR illuminates the dynamic complexities of the processes and practices of everyday life, how they are experienced by children and young people, the responses they make, and the shifting trajectories of their lives.

The past few decades have witnessed international pressure to get more children in the world educated, for longer. The view that school education is core to definitions of good childhoods and successful youth transitions is increasingly widespread, globally and locally. However, structural inequalities persist and migration for education has become an important individual, family and community response to overcome these gaps. This article explores the relationship between migration and educational aspirations among a group of young people participating in "Young Lives," an international study of child poverty, in Peru. It draws on survey and qualitative data collected on a cohort of children being tracked by the study over a 15-year period, from the time they were 8 years old (2002) into early adulthood (2017). Young people and their parents connect migration with the process of "becoming somebody in life" and with their high educational aspirations. This is linked to intergenerational dependencies and the roles that children play in mitigating family poverty. Their aspirations are generated against a country backdrop of economic and social inequalities, a recent history of political violence and resulting mass displacement, and established and diverse patterns of internal and international migration. (Contains 4 notes.)

The authors review the contribution of qualitative methods to exploring concepts and experiences of wellbeing among children and adults living in developing countries. They provide examples illustrating the potential of these methods for gaining a holistic and contextual understanding of people's perceptions and experiences. Some of these come from Young Lives, an innovative long-term international research project investigating the changing nature of child poverty in India, Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam (http://www.younglives.org.uk), and others from the Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC research group (WeD), an international, inter-disciplinary project exploring the social and cultural construction of wellbeing in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Thailand (http://www.welldev.org.uk). The authors show how qualitative methods can be used both alongside and as part of the development of sensitive and relevant quantitative measures, and provide some practical and methodological recommendations. They propose that qualitative approaches are essential in understanding people's experiences of wellbeing, both now and in the future. However, the authors caution that while these offer many benefits, for example, a less structured and hierarchical engagement between researcher and participant; they require time, energy, and sensitivity. Qualitative methods also work best when used by trained and experienced researchers working in the local language/s in a community where some rapport has already been established. Finally, the paper recommends combining data from qualitative and quantitative approaches (e.g. psychological measures or household surveys) to enhance its explanatory power.

"Wellbeing" is a key concept in the study of children's lives over time, given its potential to link the objective, subjective, and inter-subjective dimensions of their experiences in ways that are holistic, contextualized and longitudinal. For this reason wellbeing is one of the core concepts used by Young Lives, a 15-year project (2000-2015) that follows the lives of 12,000 children growing up in the context of poverty in Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and Andhra Pradesh (India) (see http://www.younglives.org.uk). This paper examines a selection of methods being used by Young Lives to capture aspects of child wellbeing in the context of a range of children's life experiences related to poverty, specific risks and protective processes. It draws on a review of the literature on child-focused methods and on recent experiences piloting three core qualitative methods in the four study countries. The paper reports the development of a methodology that is child-centred, but also acknowledges that every child is embedded within a network of social and economic relationships.

Byline: Laura Camfield (1), Gina Crivello (1) Author Affiliation: (1) Young Lives, Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB, UK Article History: Registration Date: 13/08/2008 Online Date: 12/09/2008

This article asks why some children growing up in poverty seem to fare well, despite the odds being stacked against them early in life. The data come from Young Lives, a 15-year mixed methods study of childhood poverty tracing the trajectories of a cohort of boys and girls (n = 4,000) born in 1994 in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. We use survey data to identify children in the poorest households who, by age 22, were faring well. The article addresses three main questions: (a) What are the key determining moments in children's lives? (b) What makes a difference for children during these turning points? And (c) what made a difference in the lives of those children who have fared well despite facing adversity? The findings demonstrate the crucial role of children's social relationships and support networks, migration, institutional barriers, the importance of hope and 'second chances'. However, a longitudinal approach illuminates the ongoing nature of human vulnerability and the fragility of young people's life trajectories in contexts of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data from Peru, this article explores how poverty mediates diverse risks in rural children's lives. It offers four main arguments. First, risk is not simply a feature of 'extraordinary' childhoods, but integral to everyday, 'ordinary' lives. Second, children's responses to adversity are crucially shaped by sociomoral considerations. Third, children participate actively in household risk mitigation, their engagement structured by individual (biographical) and collective factors. Fourth, changing circumstances present new opportunities and challenges for children living with adversity. Current approaches focusing on so-called 'objective' risks neglect children's own priorities and subjective experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to address a number of conceptual and methodological challenges facing the study of young refugees. Much of the research on refugees has, until recently, been focused on adults, and to a lesser degree, on young children. Those studies that do include children are largely carried out in the domain of psychology and psychiatry and tend to pathologize and individualize. This article is based on observations derived from a six-year, multi-disciplinary anthropologjcal and participatory research programme that examined the impact of forced migration on young people in the Middle East and North Africa: Palestinian refugee youth in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, Sahrawi youth in Algeria, and Afghan youth in Iran. It argues that despite the challenges, an anthropological and participatory approach contributes to a greater, more holistic understanding of refugee youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]