IE 2B4 Children and Family in National and International Context

2009-2010

03/12/09 1Clotilde Giner

Two-week examination of the relationships between globalisation and childhood:

1st week: Confronting ideals of global childhood with reality

2nd week: Considering the effects of globalisation on children’s lives nationally and internationally

Objective: Gain an awareness of how childhoods are changing from a global perspective

03/12/09 2

A few definitions of globalisation The different forms of globalisation and

some of their impacts on children’s lives Two main questions considered during the

lecture:- Is globalisation (and its consequences) bringing

children’s experiences and cultures closer to each other?

- Does it lead to the homogenisation of children’s lives?

03/12/09 3

Globalisation: some definitions•‘the removal of barriers to free trade and the closer integration of national economies’ (Stiglitz 2003: ix)•‘reductions in barriers to transworld contacts. People become more able – physically, legally, culturally, and psychologically – to engage with each other in ‘one world’. (Scholte 2002: 14)•“a process that opens nation states to many influences that originate beyond their borders. These changes are likely to decrease the primacy of national economic, political, and social institutions, thereby affecting the everyday context in which children grow up and interact with the rest of society. (Kaufman and Rizzini 2002: 4)

03/12/09 4

On-going debate on its historical origins Existence of economic, political and cultural

exchanges between national countries for centuries

However, intensification of these processes due to new technologies, including ICTs

Countries have become more intertwined post WWII

03/12/09 5

• Political globalisation= Increasing number of organisations

which influence the world as a whole, e.g. the United Nations; The World Bank, etc

• Economic globalisation=  increasing occurrence, speed and

intensity of production, trading and financial exchange

- Key role of trans-national corporations• Cultural globalisation = growth in the exchange of cultural

practices between nations and peoples

03/12/09 6

Increase in scale of international trade and investment from 1980s

Growth in intensity in 1990s: - Removal of barriers to international trade- Opening up of economies to foreign investment- Liberalisation of financial flows

= Adoption of neo-liberal policies worlwide Key role of international governmental

organisations and NGOs Generated unprecedented levels of wealth

03/12/09 7

Uneven manifestation of globalisation and its impact on children’s lives

Improvement in child well-being in countries with:

- Robust human and physical infrastructure- Adequate social policies- Prudent macroeconomic policies- Free access to foreign markets

03/12/09 8

Shift to a market economy leading to: Increase in wage-based employment Increased workload for women Children and young people having additional

burden of responsibilities Key role of the income-earning woman in

improving children’s health: allocating resources towards food

03/12/09 9

Integration in the world economy from the late 1970s through deregulation and external liberalisation

Decrease in child poverty rates in the 1990s and overall improvement of child well-being

But important regional disparities in child well-being

Comparative decline of government spending for social purposes from mid-1980s to late 1990s

03/12/09 10

Unequal distribution of the gains in child well-being, mainly affecting:- Children in large parts of the Global South- Children in remote areas and in urban poor

families in relatively successful countries- Orphans/other children in AIDS-affected

economies- Refugee children and children affected by war

Widening gaps in child well-being between the advantaged and the disadvantaged

03/12/09 11

Amartya Sen, Foreword, Make Trade Fair, Oxfam 2002,

“Global interaction, rather than insulated isolation, has been the basis of economic progress in the world. Trade, along with migration, communication, and dissemination of scientific and technical knowledge, has helped to break the dominance of rampant poverty and the pervasiveness of ‘nasty, brutish and short’ lives that characterized the world. And yet, despite all the progress, life is still severely nasty, brutish and short for a large part of the world population. The great rewards of globalized trade have come to some, but not to others.”

03/12/09 12

High number of governmental and non-governmental organisations involved with children,

e.g. UNICEF, Save the Children, Committee on the Rights of the Child

UNCRC = expression of the political globalisation

Millenium Development Goals: new objectives to harness globalisation

03/12/09 13

Millenium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations to ensure that "globalization becomes a positive force“ (UNESCO 2006)Global partnership for development in developing countries aiming to alleviate the adverse impact of globalisation

03/12/09 14

Major accomplishments made in education Enrolment in primary education increased

from 83% in 2000 to 88% in 2007 Most of the progress in regions lagging the

furthest behind:- Increase by 15% in sub-Saharan Africa- Increase by 11% in Southern Asia

Still important inequalities in education based on gender, ethnicity and geographical location

03/12/09 15

Steady decline of deaths of children under five worldwide — from 12.6 in 1990 to around 9 million in 2007, despite population growth.

Recent improvements in Sub-Saharan countries: -Distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets

to fight against malaria-Second chance’ immunizations to fight

against measles.

03/12/09 16

Growth of cross-cultural contacts and exchanges of practices between nations

Facilitated by political and economic globalisation

Key role of new technologies, e.g. Television, mass telecommunications, the internet

Travel, immigration and cultural diversity as both resulting from and enhancing cultural globalisation

03/12/09 17

New socio-technical systems of communication Information, values and images that most

children routinely engage with, esp. through television

Childhood culture is becoming more homogenised as the same products, for example toys, games and clothes, become available everywhere

However, many children in the world still do not have television in their homes, and books are rarities.

03/12/09 18

Children and global commercial culture

• Children as participants in a commercial market, involved in a culture of consumption (Lindstrom)

• An average child in the United States, Australia and the UK sees between 20-40,000 commercials a year

• Strong personal power and influence over parental purchasing choices

Global ‘Brands’ (a few examples)

Accessories, Toys and media content

Food and drinks Celebrities

LEGO / Barbie Coca-Cola / Pepsi Britney Spears

Disney Starbucks Hannah Montana

Wii/Game Boy/Playstation McDonalds Rihanna

03/12/09 19

Great levels of inequality and uneven distribution of globalisation

Creation of global children’s desires But no standardised access to global

consumer culture: Children’s global consumer culture still only a

‘project’: not available to all children, esp. in large parts of the Global South (Langer 2003)

But increasing penetration – see Mcintyre (Langer 2003)

03/12/09 20

The proliferation and globalisation of media are among the key factors that have shaped and defined the current generation of young people. (Unicef survey 2004)

Presenting opportunities and risks according to Unicef survey 2004:

Opportunities: broadens children's outlooks and provide more equal access to information

Risks: cultural identification and values.

03/12/09 21

Debates on the impact of media globalisation (Buckingham 2007)

1. Global media as agents of cultural homogenisation? (Morley and Robins 1995)

2. A process of accelerated exclusion and marginalisation of large parts of the South? (Nyamnjoh 2002)

3. A new form of ‘hybridity’ based on the merging of global media forms with local traditions and idioms – greater diversity? (de Block and Buckingham 2007)

03/12/09 22

A synchronisation of tastes and habits Globalisation of children’s programme

production and animation (Westcott 2002)= Three American TV companies producing half

of the world’s children’s programmes In Britain, Ofcom called in 2007 for a national

debate on the future of children’s TV in Britain Global domination of American culture at the

expense of traditional diversity? Views on Disney (Buckingham 2001)

03/12/09 23

Media as a great luxury for most children in Africa

No access to media content for most children in rural areas or poor urban families

In the case of elite African children: consumption of media targeted at children in affluent countries – second hand consumption

03/12/09 24

Global and local components: “glocalisation” While the objects of children’s desires are

global, they are consumed locally (Langer 2003)Pokémon (Tobin 2002): Dominating children’s

consumption worldwide from 1996 to 2000 Success based on adaptation to local

traditions and idioms = localising process But differences in access to (localised)

PokémonTeletubbies (Buckingham 2007)

03/12/09 25

Children’s media reception taking place in a particular context

Endowing contents with local meanings Children able to use and interpret media

content selectively (Buckingham 2007) Possible for children to assume multiple

identifications that draw from different cultural repertoires, depending on the context

03/12/09 26

Global engagement does not mean homogenisation

Mitigated by local contexts and children’s agency, i.e. the extent to which children can participate in determining the frameworks within which they live

Child as a competent social being who has the capacity to think critically about advertisement and media contents

03/12/09 27

A child-friendly economic policy A new pattern of globalization that is socially just

and fair Permanent observatory monitoring the impact of

mainstream economic policies on child rights Regulation of privatised utilities (water,

sanitation, electricity, telecommunications) to ensure universal access to these goods

03/12/09 28

Child advocacy: Need for more effective use of the vast positive potential of mass media and new technologies to advocate for, and enrich the lives of, children and young people worldwide.

03/12/09 29

Impact of globalisation on your life as a child (as compared to your parents’ life as children), your children’s life/any child you know or have met (as compared to your life as children) !

Think in terms of:- Means of communication (incl. with family and friends

abroad)- Life patterns (migration, studies abroad, travel..)- Work /Economic situation- Consumption patterns (food/drinks, accessories, toys,

clothes, TV content)

03/12/09 30

Has globalisation led to the standardisation of children's lives across the world?

Different steps: Approach of the question (definition of the words, etc) Development of an argumentation informed by

readings, lecture notes, discussion and your own opinion!

Provision of examples to support your arguments Writing of a structured assignment, with introduction

and conclusion

03/12/09 31