Child well-being and social justice: findings from a multinational qualitative study

This chapter starts from the premise that children's position in intergenerational orders places them in a structurally unequal position in that their social positioning means that the operation of social institutions limits their opportunities to engage in social practices that have implications for their well-being. This structural inequality is ameliorated or exacerbated through systems of necessary and socially created dependency (e.g. via the family and education), which create vast inequalities between groups of children both within and across nations. Starting from this premise, we draw upon our research taken as part of the Children's Understandings of Wellbeing: Global and Local Contexts (CUWB) study, which seeks to understand the relationship between social, political, economic, and cultural contexts, and children's experiences and perspectives of well-being. Using Fraser's theory of justice, which accounts for justice claims along dimensions of recognition and redistribution, we reconstruct, from children's perspectives, certain justice claims that could contribute to a broader normative framework addressing intergenerational inequalities and which has relevance for children from diverse contexts.