Reflections on Jonathan Boston's Paper

In this article, Nesta Devine responds to Jonathan Boston's article "Child Poverty in New Zealand: Why It Matters and How It Can Be Reduced" ("Educational Philosophy and Theory," v46 n9 p995-999, 2014). Devine wishes to consider Boston's position from two angles: one is to rehearse the point that these statistics are an inevitable result of the programme of economic rationalism that has been enjoyed or endured since 1984, in its various forms, the two most significant of which are public choice theory (Devine, 2004) and human capital theory (Stuart, 2011), both of which, Devine argues, have a significant (and to an extent contradictory) part to play in the production and conceptualisation of child poverty. The second angle is a discussion as to why the focus should be on child poverty, in the face of the poverty and distress experienced by the families and whanau of which the children are part.