The Fourth International CHILDLIFE Conference

Title of keynote

"Children’s needs as a contested phenomenon: on the need for research on and development of reflexive inclusion"

Abstract

Children’s needs have long been a phenomenon contested. Such controversies arise from political ideologies and utopian visions, as well as from divergent systemic approaches to understanding and responding to children’s needs, whether in relation to social support, education, or treatment.

Shifting understandings of the inclusion and exclusion of children in vulnerable positions—and explanations offered for social problems —constitute a key example of this. Professionals such as social workers, pedagogues, teachers, and psychologists have historically contributed to critical knowledge adding nuance and complexity to our understanding of children’s needs. Their work has challenged simplified and categorical interpretations of social problems and processes of inclusion and exclusion. 

However, in recent years there are indications that the social and systemic ‘patience’ for this to unfold is diminished. In some cases, a simplified, harsh, and sanctioning approach to children and families in disadvantaged positions emerge — this justified in the name of the child’s best interests. Against this backdrop, it becomes crucial to understand what is contested in interpretations of children’s needs and why. Such an awareness is essential if researchers and professionals are to promote good childhoods without reinforcing inequality and disadvantage. 

Therefore, this keynote theorises and empirically illustrates children’s needs as a contested phenomenon, how this shapes our perceptions of social problems and inequality, and why there is a particular contemporary need for research on and the development of reflexive inclusion in the interpretation and articulation of children’s needs.

About Maria Appel Nissen

Maria Appel Nilsen is a Professor of Social Work at Aalborg University (vbn.aau.dk).

The aim of her research is to contribute to foundational knowledge about and development of social work theory, practices and possibilities for social change, grounded in theoretical and empirical studies of social work with children and families in vulnerable positions.

Key research informing this keynote stem from explorations of Views on human being in social work – Welfare Policies, Technologies and Knowledge about Human Beings (2014-2019), Does Social Work Care? Exploring Relational, Emotional and Embodied practices in social services for vulnerable children and families (2018-2023), Contact: Sustainable development in vulnerable children’s everyday life (2023-2027) and recently Creating a new language for advancing capacity to act on children’s well-being (2025/2026-2027).

The concept Reflexive Inclusion, a guiding concept behind her research, was already developed in her PhD thesis 2005 and theorised in New horizons in social work. A reflection theory (Nissen, 2010; published in Danish).

Title of keynote

"Changing the room? Making space for epistemic justice in policy-near research with children, young people and families"

Abstract

Across diverse global contexts, the legal and cultural legitimation of particular kinds of family informs policy and provision of services and welfare entitlement. This tendency can be understood as a form of elite capture, as ‘public goods and resources such as knowledge, attention, and values are unfairly distributed, just as much as material wealth and political power are’ (Táíwò 2022: 23).

Empirical research and evaluation studies play a critical role in this process, providing the epistemic resources to justify policy judgements about who is amenable to, deserving or worthy of help. Categories of research interest also reflect current socio-political priorities, such that some families’ characteristics or experiences might be subject to concern or investigation, but others are not.

Thus, the people most affected by the structures of injustice can end up being left outside: families who are socio-politically defined as vulnerable, risky or at risk are most often included in (rarely archived) risk- or problem-focused studies or evaluation of interventions and are otherwise marginalised or simply missing in mainstream studies and datasets on childhood and family lives.

The consequence is that we fail ‘to fix the social structure itself—the rooms we interact in, and the house they make up’ (Táíwò 2022: 74). So what can we do? Reflecting on my experience of research with people who are navigating everyday lives in varied contexts of systemic precarity, I examine the ethical and methodological implications of these theoretical questions for the practice of policy-near research with children, young people and families. 

About Janet Boddy

Janet Boddy is a Professor at University of Sussex (profiles.sussex.ac.uk), Head of School of Education and Social Work, and an Adjunct professor at NOVA, OsloMet.

Her research is concerned with family lives and services for children and families. She has an interest in methodology, particularly qualitative longitudinal and narrative approaches, cross-national research and research ethics and governance. She will talk about how researchers can pay attention to marginalized knowledges and work with own relative privileges. 

Title of keynote

"Normal is not neutral: Ableism, developmentalism and disabled childhoods"

Abstract

Ideas of normal development are deeply embedded in policies, professional practices, and everyday understandings of childhood. Similarly, disability is most often framed as individual deficits in relation to normal bodies and abilities. While often presented as neutral or benevolent, these ideas carry powerful social, moral, and political assumptions about how disabled children should grow, who they should become, and what constitutes a “good” adult life.

In this talk, I examine how ableism and developmentalism operate together to govern disabled childhoods and shape the everyday lives of disabled young people. Drawing on my research, I explore how taken-for-granted social values and beliefs, particularly those surrounding independence, productivity, and self reliance, function as key markers of “successful” development toward adulthood that have significant consequences for disabled young people across the life course.

I highlight the often hidden social and emotional effects of development driven interventions, including stigma, anxiety, exclusion and constrained life possibilities. When young people cannot or do not wish to approximate social and developmental norms and expectations, they are positioned as perpetual “adults in the making” that are excluded from full participation and citizenship.

I conclude by proposing that professionals hold ethical responsibilities to contest normative frameworks of disability and development. I argue for shifting from deficit-focused approaches toward more affirmative understandings of disability and development that support lives shaped by disabled young people’s own desires, identities, and circumstances and embrace diverse ways of being, becoming, and doing childhood.

About Yani Hamdani

Yani Hamdani is PhD, OT Reg. (Ont.) Associate Professor at the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto (oy.utoronto.ca), and Scientist at the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada. 

Dr. Hamdani is an interdisciplinary researcher with combined training in rehabilitation, public health, critical social sciences, disability studies and qualitative methodologies. Her research program examines the health, wellness and social inclusion of people labeled with neurodevelopmental disorders. Shifts in how disability is understood and addressed in health and social care policies and practices are central in her research. 

Title of keynote

"Quo Vadis Paedagogia? – Directions in Contested Times "

Abstract

Over the past two decades, three distinct tendencies have shaped the scientific discourse on early childhood pedagogy: the development of practice oriented theories focused on the “how”, the rise of critical positions addressing the instrumentalisation of childhood, and an increasing fragmentation of the research landscape. In this keynote I argue for a renewed commitment to pedagogical foundation thinking—one that emphasises purpose, responsibility, direction, and a certain moral courage to insist upon these. 

For more than three decades, from 1989 to 2022, globalization fostered a belief that societies—and education—were engaged in a competition over qualifications. Today, that assumption appears naïve. The world, and our position within it, has become uncertain in fundamentally different ways. This rupture also challenges pedagogy. 

Rousseau pointed to this already: upbringing must prepare the child to cope no matter what. How might this offer us a renewed sensibility for the aims and course of education? 
Historically, we have moved from a condition in which the individual was a tutelary background figure in a predetermined world, to a condition shaped by the illusion that the world—all of it—is at our disposal. Both positions lead to totalitarian disasters. A third position suggests that we can actively inhabit the world. Pedagogy, then, is no longer primarily about adaptation but about worldrelations: making oneself at home in the world, cultivating responsiveness, and discovering one’s voice. 

This third position is aligned with a phenomenology of practice in research and a practiceepistemological approach to education. 

About Jan Jaap Rothuizen

Jan Jaap Rothuizen is Ph.D., Docent (Professor of Professional Practice) at VIA University College, Denmark (ucviden.dk).

His academic background is in the field of general or philosophical pedagogy. His work focuses on understanding the practices of upbringing and education as inherently human and cultural phenomena, always intertwined with questions of value. Educational research inevitably engages both with empirical realities and with normative considerations of purpose. In times of social and political contestation, the question of what constitutes good education becomes especially pertinent.