We are glad to share the Tedx conference given by our partner, Sridhar Venkatapuram, on justice and the capability of health.

CfP: Workshop on Political Philosophy and Child Poverty

University of Salzburg, August 24, 2016

Pre-conference Workshop “Child Poverty in Times of Crisis”

The aim of this workshop is to explore child poverty from a political philosophical perspective. Despite an increase of the political philosophical literature on poverty, especially poverty in the global South, the particular form of child poverty has not gained much attention. Topics include child poverty as a problem of social and global justice, parental rights and duties under the circumstances of poverty, the rights of children living in poverty or responsibilities of different agents of justice towards children in poverty.

Invited speakers for the workshop:

Colin Macleod (Victoria) & Serena Olsaretti (ICREA-Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

There is no registration fee for the workshop but if you want to stay for the main conference on August 25 & 26, 2016, you need to register for it!

Please send your proposal (500 words) to gunter.graf@sbg.ac.at until January 31, 2016. Every speaker will have 25 minutes for presentation followed by 20 minutes for discussion.

This workshop is organized by the Salzburg research group on “Social Justice and Child Poverty”, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P26480.

More information here: www.uni-salzburg.at/zea/childpoverty

About the Conference “Child Poverty in Times of Crisis”

Keynote Speakers: Mario Biggeri (Florence) & Lucinda Platt (LSE)

The aim of this conference is threefold: (1) to discuss how different crises (like the recent economic downturn, political instability, natural disasters or (civil) war) affect child poverty; (2) to reveal the consequences such crises have on children living in poverty and their families as well as to show how they respond; and, finally, (3) to provide suggestions for international, national and local policy designs for the reaction to such crises. We are interested in bringing together empirical and theoretical papers and in discussing the normative and ethical issues attached to child poverty and related policy making.

The conference fee is 150 Euros (75 Euros for students) and covers the conference folder, coffee breaks, two lunches, the reception on Thursday evening, the conference dinner on Friday and a guided city tour.

Organised by the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research (University of Salzburg) and the Austrian chapter of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP).

Conference homepage: www.uni-salzburg.at/childpoverty2016

Child Health and Justice

Child Health and Justice

Research Workshop, October 15 & 16, 2015

Funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P26480

www.uni-salzburg.at/zea/childpoverty

 In cooperation with the JuriLog Group of the

Institute for Philosophy of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)

Project KONTUZ!-2 (MINECO FFI2014-53926-R)

Thursday, October 15, 2015
9.30 – 10.00	Txetxu Ausín and Gottfried Schweiger: Introduction & Welcome
10.00 – 11.15	Rosario Carmona: The right of the child to enjoy the highest standard attainable of health in situations of poverty  or economic crisis: Analysis under the Convention on the Rights of the Child
11.15 – 11.30	Coffee break
11.30 – 12.45	Sridhar Venkatapuram: Health Equity among Children, and the Case of Vaccinations
12.45 – 13.00	Coffee break
13.00 – 14.15	Bill Gardner: Children´s Differential Susceptibility to Treatments: Implications for Justice
14.15 – 15.30	Lunch
15.30 – 16.45	Rosana Triviño: Girls sexuality, reprodcutive health, and rights
16.45 – 17.00	Coffee Break
17.00 – 18.15	Carlos Pitillas: Psychological Effects of Extreme Poverty in Immigrant Children in the Settlement “El Gallinero” (Madrid)
20.00	Dinner
Friday, October 16, 2015
09.30 – 10.45	Sepideh Yousefzadeh: Child Growth Monitoring: What lies Beneath the Weights and Height?
10.45 – 11.00	Coffee Break
11.00 – 12.15	Gunter Graf and Mar Cabezas: Children´s Bodily Integrity, Poverty and Obesity
12.15 – 12.30	Coffee break
12.30 – 13.30	Round table: Networking on research and policy making on childhood and poverty: Gabriel González-Bueno (Unicef), Txetxu Ausin (ASAP) and Gottfried Schweiger (ZEA)
13.30	Closure- Lunch

Extended Deadline Call for Papers

Child Health and Justice

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Dilemata. Journal of Applied ethics

 

Guest editors: Mar Cabezas & Gottfried Schweiger (University of Salzburg)

 

Justice for children and during childhood and the particular political, social and moral status of children has long been a neglected issue in ethics, social and political philosophy. The application of general, adult-oriented theories of justice to children can be regarded as particularly problematic. Philosophers have only recently begun to explore what it means to consider children as equals, what goods are especially valuable to them, and what are the obligations of justice different agents have towards children.

 

This special issue aims especially to combine different disciplinary perspectives and to explore how they can contribute to a better understanding of the normative foundations that are needed to improve –both, physical and mental- health during childhood in general and especially for disadvantaged children.

 

Interdisciplinary research and contributions from other disciplines (e.g. public health, economics, psychology, sociology, law, or education studies) are welcome as long as they also have a clear connection to the normative questions at hand.

 

The goal of this Special Issue is to bring together papers to discuss the following areas of concern:

-The intersection of health and poverty during childhood and its effects on the future life course. It is well-studied that health is to a large part socially determined and that the socio-economic position influences heavily the health status of both children and adults. Childhood poverty translates into health problems during childhood as well as in later life. This poses a wide range of ethical and justice-related problems that are still underexplored. For example the conviction that health is to large part a life-style choice is highly problematic for children and also for adults given the knowledge about the pathways from childhood to adult health. Theories that want to clarify what we owe each other as a matter of justice have to consider this knowledge more carefully.

 

-Conceptualizations of health of children, especially also the interrelation of such concepts as mental health and (subjective) well-being. There is still no consensus how health should be defined and what concepts of it are better fit to guide policy and action. It has also been seldom questioned if health can or should be differently defined for adults and children. Furthermore most defini6tions of health focus still on physical health while mental and emotional health is still widely undervalued. Childhood is a critical phase both for physical and mental health and the development for such crucial features as self-confidence and self-trust.

 

-The distribution and application of responsibilities to ensure health during childhood. If health is not an innate feature of children but to a large extent shaped by the environment, the social position and the actions of other persons and institutions, than this implies that different agents can and should be distinguished that share a certain amount of responsibility in respect to children’s health. In most discourses two agents are highlighted, namely the parents and the state and its health care institutions. But besides them other important agents are involved, for example the food industry or pharmaceutical companies.

 

-The access to health as a matter of children’s rights. Children’s rights and also the right of health have been widely discussed, in particular in the context of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. How can such a right be justified and is there a relation between children’s rights and justice for children in that respect? Does the framework of (universal) children’s rights offer a fit framework to guide health policies aimed at children? Also, the relationship between children’s rights to health and parental rights has to be discussed.

 

Submission and Schedule

* If you are interested in submitting a paper, please, send us first an abstract with your proposal. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words. The deadline for submitting your abstract is 20^th September 2015.

* Once your abstract is selected, you could prepare your manuscript according to the following guidelines:

-Accepted languages: English and Spanish.

-Article length: 6000-7000 words.

-Text format: singled-space; 12 point font; underlining should be avoided (italic is preferred, with the exception of URL addresses); pictures, figures and tables should be inserted within the text rather than at the end of the document.

-All manuscripts must be submitted in electronic format by e-mail. They are to be prepared for anonymous review and sent as e-mail attachments (.doc, .docx, or .rtf files) to Mar Cabezas (maria.cabezas@sbg.ac.at).

-The deadline for submissions is January 25^th 2016 and the Special Issue will be published in May 2016.

-Heading: Title of article, name of author, work center, university of origin, etc. Postal address and email address. Abstract of the article, with a maximum of 150 words in Spanish and English (for papers written in Spanish). Keywords of the contents of the article in Spanish and English (for papers written in Spanish).

-Bibliography: at the end of the work in alphabetical order. Only include publications that have been used and are cited specifically in the text. Based on the ISO 690:1987, take the following form: surname of author, author's name (both in lowercase letters), year of publication in parentheses, colon, book title in lowercase italics, place of publishing and editorial.

-References: The text of the article references to other works will be made indicating the author's surname and year of publication (an, if it is the case, the exact page where the quote is a paraphrase), separated by a comma, in parentheses (Gewirth, 2003, 20). If a reference contains a number of authors, cited one after the other separated by a semicolon. If you include several works by the same author published in the same year, distinguish them with letters (Gewirth, 2003a, 2003b).

The quotations should be in inverted commas, noting in parentheses below —no-footer— the author's surname, year of publication and page (Toulmin, 1999, 545-546). If the appointment is longer than five lines will be presented in the form of bleeding.

-Footnotes: The text notes and calls are numbered in succession and are situated below.

-Tables and graphs should be accompanied by its corresponding title and legend and numbered sequentially. The graphics may be submitted computer generated. Photographs may be in electronic form.

 

DILEMATA is a peer-reviewed quarterly e-journal centered on what is known today as 'practical ethics', 'ethics in action', or 'philosophy and public affairs' by the Institute of Philosophy at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

More information about Dilemata can be found here: http://www.dilemata.net/revista/index.php/dilemata/about

Abstracts Child Health and Justice

Rosario Carmona: The right of the child to enjoy the highest standard attainable of health in situations of poverty  or economic crisis: Analysis under the Convention on the Rights of the Child

The binding legal nature of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, its almost universal ratification and the general acceptance of its guiding principles explain and justify the importance of this treaty on all actions concerning the child.

In this case, our work will focus on a specific issue addressed by the Convention - the children's health - and the impact on it of some factors like poverty, the global economic situation or others financial structural determinants.

We will outline some general concepts to determine the extent of such rights; we will emphasize the importance of approaching children's health from the perspective of children's rights; and will specify the scope of the obligations of States to enforce that right.
So, we will find a close link between the concept of health established by the WHO (“state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”) and the right of children to enjoy the "highest attainable standard of health" (Article 24 of the Convention); the indivisibility and interdependence of children´s rights may us explain the indispensability of the right to health for the enjoyment of all other rights enshrined in the Convention; and the obligation of  States parties to the Convention to enforce this right allow us to interpret its commitment to "undertake ... measures to the maximum extent of available resources" (Article 4).
The doctrine of the Committee on the Rights of the Child - control mechanism and legitimate interpretation of the Convention - will be critical to the analysis of these issues, especially its General Comments and Concluding Observations on the reports of States Parties to the Convention, primarily in the years since the start of the global economic crisis.

Sridhar Venkatapuram: Health equity among children, and the case of vaccinations

There is a recognizable effort toward making an argument for the right of every infant/child for health and wellbeing. This language of rights, however, has been downplayed over the last decade in global health, and in child health programmes. This, I would argue, is largely due to the larges funders of global health being dismissive of the language and concepts of rights, and human rights more broadly.  Instead, like in public health generally, global health funders are largely maximizers; they seek to maximize the outcomes such as health outcomes given certain amount of resources such as time, personnel, and finances.

For maximizers working to improve child health, there is thought to be a clear trade-off between maximizing versus recognizing equal rights, or prioritizing those that are worst off. In this paper, I will aim to work through why a maximizing approach to child health, or not being concerned about equity at all, is unjust. And, I will try to work through different argumentative strategies for ensuring that there is priority given to the worst off, or perhaps, universal access. The case of vaccinations, particularly in India, will be used as the case study. It is a situation where the growing middle classes and the elite are vaccinating their children, while there is not a strong public commitment to ensure access to the worst off, or a demand for vaccinations from the poorest parts of society.  The paper aims to show why equity or priority of the worst off, has to be a central part of justice for children.

 Bill Gardner: Children’s Differential Susceptibility to Treatments: Implications for Justice

The child developmentalist Jay Belsky and his colleagues have argued for the “differential susceptibility hypothesis” (DSH). The DSH generalizes from many studies of how children with different genotypes develop differently in response to environmental stresses or psychosocial interventions. The DSH says that there is genetic variation in children’s resilience. That is, genetic factors predispose some children to be highly responsive to interventions and other children to be less responsive.

Belsky argues that if the DSH is confirmed, it supports (what I call) the Differential Susceptibility Policy (DSP). The DSP says that to implement a psychosocial (or, by extension, medical) treatment for which the DSH is true, we should first genotype children. We should then preferentially target interventions to the children who have genes predisposing them to be most sensitive to the interventions. By allocating treatments to the children who are most responsive to treatment, the DSP achieves the most efficient use of scarce treatment resources, and is therefore welfare maximizing.

Let’s stipulate that the DSH is true in the sense that genes predispose some children to have reduced -- but not zero -- responsiveness to treatment interventions. I argue that the truth of the DSH does not require us to follow the DSP. I raise three concerns about the DSP.

First, genetic screening for resilience may itself have adverse effects. It’s possible that children who are less responsive to interventions are nevertheless sensitive to social expectations about their responsiveness to treatment. Perhaps being labeled as genetically unresponsive to treatment would make the treatment even less effective. Because of this and other unanticipated adverse consequences, we cannot know whether the DSP works from the DSH alone: we must test the DSP directly.

Second, the evidence supporting the DSH is not sufficient to show that the DSP is welfare maximizing. Whether the DSP is welfare maximizing depends on how genetic variation conditions the distributions of the lifetime welfare outcomes of an intervention. These lifetime outcomes are usually hard to measure. For example, the benefits of high quality preschool have only become apparent by following participants over decades. The lifetime welfare outcomes of preventing a highly adverse developmental trajectory -- e.g., a conduct disordered child who becomes a career criminal -- might be very large. They might be so high that it would be efficient to expend substantial resources to achieve them, including investing resources in children who are significantly less responsive to interventions than their peers. When the shape of the lifetime welfare outcome distributions is unknown – the standard case -- the efficiency of the DSP will be unknown. This weakens the DSP case for denying a genetically disadvantaged child access to an intervention.

Third, the DSP may lead to unjust treatment of less responsive children. The DSP appeals to norms of efficiency and welfare maximization. However, an exclusive focus on efficiency and welfare maximization is inconsistent with other principles embraced by liberal democracies. The norm of fair equality of opportunity means that we should help children achieve developmental trajectories that give children the capabilities to be self-sufficient adults. Achieving these developmental outcomes may require that society spend more to help the less responsive children achieve sufficient capabilities, rather than concentrating resources on the most responsive children. I conclude by considering how child policy makers might seek to balance concerns of efficiency stressed by the DSP with concerns about fairness and democratic equality.  

In summary, I argue that the truth of the DSH is not sufficient to show that the DSP would actually maximize welfare (concerns 1 and 2). Even if those concerns can be met, the norms of efficiency and welfare maximization need to be balanced with the egalitarian commitments of liberal polities (concern 3).

  

Carlos Pitillas: Psychological effects of extreme poverty in immigrant children in the settlement “El Gallinero” (Madrid)

Among realities being faced by immigrant youngsters, extreme poverty is probably the one that most strongly impacts upon their wellbeing and mental health. With the present study, we aim to understand psychological effects of such poverty among children and adolescents who live in “El Gallinero”, a shack settlement located outside the city of Madrid. These youngsters, who belong to Romanian families of gipsy ethnicity, represent a case of poverty within big First World cities.

To our knowledge, this is the first study where children from the aforementioned context directly inform about their experience. Participants’ representations of themselves, their way of life, their future aspirations, their perception of opportunities, etc, were gathered in discussion groups and interviews. Additionally, using a symbolic play assessment procedure, indicators of a posttraumatic process were explored.

The core results of our study suggest that: 1. These youngsters are capable of constructing a complex view of themselves and their life conditions. 2. They aspire to forms of living that coincide with a Western, normalized, lifestyle. 3. There exists an intergenerational tension, regarding such aspirations. 4. A significant number of young children seem to suffer from a posttraumatic process.

These results will be described in detail, and discussed in light of the public policies that have been displayed with respect to this settlement. They will also be discussed within a wider framework of recommendations for intervention.

Sepideh Yousefzadeh: Child Growth Monitoring: What lies Beneath the Weights and Height? 

Growth charts for measuring and monitoring children’s healthy growth were introduced during the 60s, when the total number of hungry people was extremely high[1]. Ever since, growth charts have been an important tool to measure and monitor children’s growth globally. Between 1970 and 2000, in the developing world, the proportion of children affected by malnutrition decreased by 20%[2]. Nevertheless, in the 90s, still 50% of all deaths among children were attributed to malnutrition[3]. Therefore, some scholars initiated two interrelated discourses about the global approach in addressing child growth and malnutrition[4]. Some focused on inequalities and the fact that in examining child malnutrition the focus cannot merely be on a country’s average achievements in reducing malnutrition. As such, disaggregated data needs to be analyzed in order to design local policies to reach to children with higher risk of growth faltering. In the meantime, some other scholars discussed the root causes of growth faltering. They argued that causes of growth faltering often cut across different dimensions of children’s being, whereby, nutritional input is only one of those causes. Therefore a holistic approach to take into account different dimensions and causes of growth faltering is required in order to suggest other inputs – next to nutritional inputs- and address children’s growth more effectively.

Given the above mentioned background, the importance of designing approaches that cut across different dimensions of child growth (i.e. multidimensional), address the root causes of growth faltering that are multi-sectoral, and at the same time focus on inequalities has been acknowledged for more than two decades. Nevertheless, today, despite the increasing trend in the field of ‘multidimensional measurement’ in various studies concerning children (poverty, deprivation and wellbeing), child growth has received the least attention.

This paper aims to propose a framework for multidimensional child growth. It combines Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model to human development with Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach in order to propose the framework. The Capability Approach is applied in order to: a) reflect on the importance of contexts that shape and contribute to children’s growth, b) define growth as a multidimensional concept, and c) reflect on the agency and freedom of choice in achieving optimum growth. Therefore the Capability Approach provides insights into different capabilities that are required in order for children to have a healthy growth.   

The bioecological model on the other hand provide more nuances of different levels factors that affect children’s growth (household and society).

The paper uses DHS India to apply and implement the proposed multidimensional-multilevel tool. By doing so, various variables are introduced and analyzed as entitlements, conversion factors, and capability sets. Eventually, children’s functioning as ‘healthy growth’ is assessed not only by assessing their weight and height, but also by analyzing sets of capabilities that are required for their healthy growth.

---

[1] FAO 2002

[2] Wagstaff, Watanabe 1999

[3] O’Neil, Fitzgerald, et al. 2012

[4] Pinstrup-Adersen 1993; Wagstaff, Watanabe 1999; Larrea, Freire 2002; de Poel, Hosseinpoor et al. 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call for Papers Dilemata

Child Health and Justice

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Dilemata. Journal of Applied ethics

Guest editors: Mar Cabezas & Gottfried Schweiger (University of Salzburg)

Justice for children and during childhood and the particular political, social and moral status of children has long been a neglected issue in ethics, social and political philosophy. The application of general, adult-oriented theories of justice to children can be regarded as particularly problematic. Philosophers have only recently begun to explore what it means to consider children as equals, what goods are especially valuable to them, and what are the obligations of justice different agents have towards children.

This special issue aims especially to combine different disciplinary perspectives and to explore how they can contribute to a better understanding of the normative foundations that are needed to improve –both, physical and mental- health during childhood in general and especially for disadvantaged children.

Interdisciplinary research and contributions from other disciplines (e.g. public health, economics, psychology, sociology, law, or education studies) are welcome as long as they also have a clear connection to the normative questions at hand.

The goal of this Special Issue is to bring together papers to discuss the following areas of concern:

-The intersection of health and poverty during childhood and its effects on the future life course. It is well-studied that health is to a large part socially determined and that the socio-economic position influences heavily the health status of both children and adults. Childhood poverty translates into health problems during childhood as well as in later life. This poses a wide range of ethical and justice-related problems that are still underexplored. For example the conviction that health is to large part a life-style choice is highly problematic for children and also for adults given the knowledge about the pathways from childhood to adult health. Theories that want to clarify what we owe each other as a matter of justice have to consider this knowledge more carefully.

-Conceptualizations of health of children, especially also the interrelation of such concepts as mental health and (subjective) well-being. There is still no consensus how health should be defined and what concepts of it are better fit to guide policy and action. It has also been seldom questioned if health can or should be differently defined for adults and children. Furthermore most defini6tions of health focus still on physical health while mental and emotional health is still widely undervalued. Childhood is a critical phase both for physical and mental health and the development for such crucial features as self-confidence and self-trust.

-The distribution and application of responsibilities to ensure health during childhood. If health is not an innate feature of children but to a large extent shaped by the environment, the social position and the actions of other persons and institutions, than this implies that different agents can and should be distinguished that share a certain amount of responsibility in respect to children’s health. In most discourses two agents are highlighted, namely the parents and the state and its health care institutions. But besides them other important agents are involved, for example the food industry or pharmaceutical companies.

-The access to health as a matter of children’s rights. Children’s rights and also the right of health have been widely discussed, in particular in the context of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. How can such a right be justified and is there a relation between children’s rights and justice for children in that respect? Does the framework of (universal) children’s rights offer a fit framework to guide health policies aimed at children? Also, the relationship between children’s rights to health and parental rights has to be discussed.

Submission and Schedule

* If you are interested in submitting a paper, please, send us first an abstract with your proposal. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words. The deadline for submitting your abstract is 30^th August 2015.

* Once your abstract is selected, you could prepare your manuscript according to the following guidelines:

-Accepted languages: English and Spanish.

-Article length: 6000-7000 words.

-Text format: singled-space; 12 point font; underlining should be avoided (italic is preferred, with the exception of URL addresses); pictures, figures and tables should be inserted within the text rather than at the end of the document.

-All manuscripts must be submitted in electronic format by e-mail. They are to be prepared for anonymous review and sent as e-mail attachments (.doc, .docx, or .rtf files) to Mar Cabezas (maria.cabezas@sbg.ac.at).

-The deadline for submissions is January 25^th 2016 and the Special Issue will be published in May 2016.

-Heading: Title of article, name of author, work center, university of origin, etc. Postal address and email address. Abstract of the article, with a maximum of 150 words in Spanish and English (for papers written in Spanish). Keywords of the contents of the article in Spanish and English (for papers written in Spanish).

-Bibliography: at the end of the work in alphabetical order. Only include publications that have been used and are cited specifically in the text. Based on the ISO 690:1987, take the following form: surname of author, author's name (both in lowercase letters), year of publication in parentheses, colon, book title in lowercase italics, place of publishing and editorial.

-References: The text of the article references to other works will be made indicating the author's surname and year of publication (an, if it is the case, the exact page where the quote is a paraphrase), separated by a comma, in parentheses (Gewirth, 2003, 20). If a reference contains a number of authors, cited one after the other separated by a semicolon. If you include several works by the same author published in the same year, distinguish them with letters (Gewirth, 2003a, 2003b).

The quotations should be in inverted commas, noting in parentheses below —no-footer— the author's surname, year of publication and page (Toulmin, 1999, 545-546). If the appointment is longer than five lines will be presented in the form of bleeding.

-Footnotes: The text notes and calls are numbered in succession and are situated below.

-Tables and graphs should be accompanied by its corresponding title and legend and numbered sequentially. The graphics may be submitted computer generated. Photographs may be in electronic form.

DILEMATA is a peer-reviewed quarterly e-journal centered on what is known today as 'practical ethics', 'ethics in action', or 'philosophy and public affairs' by the Institute of Philosophy at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

More information about Dilemata can be found here: http://www.dilemata.net/revista/index.php/dilemata/about