Whose needs? Respect for diversity in a changing world

Needs, young children and diversity

The concept of ‘needs’ was traced back to Kellmer-Pringle’s seminal work in the 1970s, which identified universal psychosocial needs and established this discourse as a means to describe childhood in research and practice.

In recent years more critical commentary has challenged the basis and the validity of the concept of children’s needs (which are always defined by adults), asking whether each of the needs commonly ascribed to children is really intrinsic (such as basic levels of physical care and nurture) or is largely socially or culturally constructed (such as stimulation, education and emotional warmth).

In addition, there are questions to be posed about where the power to identify needs is situated. The English curriculum documents which prescribe ‘meeting the needs’ of diverse communities are therefore grounded in assumptions which are now contested.

Rethinking young children and diversity

In a world where childhoods are globalised, the concept of ‘needs’ has become universal. Although 87% of the world’s children now enrol in school – if only briefly – the structural inequalities between and within countries continue to regulate most children’s life-chances. In this situation, ‘diversity’ may mean adversity: discrimination, such as that against Roma children in Europe, is persistent, and the poorest children in most societies have the least access to pre-school education.

At the same time, the identities of many individuals are multiple and changing, as children’s heritages become more complex and the changes they experience become more frequent. It is thus timely to rethink constructions of the child, and to attempt the problematic task of replacing the concept of need with the concept of rights.

Although the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been criticised for presenting a Westernised and individualised view of childhood, it has had significant impact globally. The more recent (2005) General Comment 7 from the Committee on the Rights of the Child reinforces the message of the convention by emphasising that children are rights-holders from birth, and expanding on the ways that these rights should be safeguarded. As a result it prompts a rethinking of the ways that children are thought about in society. But a rights-based approach to thinking about children can be complacent or radical.

Rethinking a ‘child-centred’ society in the context of diversity requires us to take children seriously, and to view them as active and responsible contributors to society. In other words it makes the child a subject, thus placing the child as a person in their own right rather than as a dependent and recipient of provision whose value lies in their future contribution to society.

The challenge now is to provide a focus in professional training and continuing professional development which allows professionals to challenge traditional assumptions, and to develop and articulate their ideas around these issues.

Research questions

1. Are there aspects of the UK system which are particularly unsympathetic to a rights-based approach, such as a tendency to emphasise control and discipline?
2. To what extent does the current marketisation of early childhood provision (see Seminar 1: Helen Penn), through its emphasis on economics, future value and on basic welfare, subvert the possibility of a more rights-based approach?
3. Does the marketisation of the research endeavour itself divert attention from a focus on topics of this kind towards more society-level, outcomes-based projects?

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