Pedagogiek - Volume 37, Issue 2, 2017

On puberty, adolescence and infantilisation

In this paper adolescence is seen as a cultural historical phenomenon and not as a biological unavoidable developmental stage. It is demonstrated that in earlier centuries there was no such thing as adolescence; that since the 18^th century adolescence as a developmental stage became longer and longer; and that adolescence does not exist within pre-industrial countries. It is claimed that the classical adolescence, as described by Stanley Hall is in our time disappearing. This is a slower process in the USA than in Western Europe, because of the commercial importance of adolescence in the USA. It is concluded that adolescence researchers should start from the conviction that adolescents are full-fledged interlocutors, who should carry societal responsibility.

Childrearing: a private and public issue

In the run-up to the transformation of youth and family care, the ‘educative civil society’ (ECS) – the joint efforts of citizens in the upbringing of children and adolescents – has increasingly received attention. Many municipalities have embraced the ECS and translated into policy plans and practice initiatives. At the same time, there is criticisms: is it feasible to expect that all parents are willing to form childrearing networks? This article reports on a focus group study on parents’ willingness to involve others in the upbringing of their children. The results suggest that sharing childrearing responsibilities is a delicate issue that comes with conditions. At the same time, the results give rise to a nuancing of the antithesis ‘private worry vs. public issue’: parents believe that they do not have, nor insist on having, the monopoly on childrearing and emphasize the additional and compensatory value of secondary caregivers, both for their children and for themselves as primary caregivers. These nuances give nourishment to the debate on the feasibility and future development of the ECS.

English title: Support networks of immigrant parents: A blueprint for the educative community in the 21st century?

How can educative communities -initiatives of citizens to organize collective support for child raising- be optimized given the changing social fabric of the 21st century? Using the idea of networked individualism as a prototype of how support is organized in our current era, the question is raised how collective arrangements for child raising can be conceived when autonomy and individualism in parenting still gain importance. An empirical study of support networks of immigrant parents is used to point to the variety of ways in which individual parents seek to build new networks post-migration. Turning their back to old collectivities, these parents build individual networks of peers and professionals to gain new and specialized expertise according to their specific needs. It is argued that their network strategies can be a source of inspiration for how to conceive of educative communities in the 21st century given their ability to seek out new connections and expertise, their awareness of the importance of peer learning, and ability to connect the sometimes contradictory knowledge in order to make it work for their parenting.

Looking for connection in society; Lessons from eight years of research on The Peaceable Neighbourhood.

Research among the Dutch population indicates an undesirable trend of increasing segregation. Scientific literature shows that a solution lies in the strengthening of relationships between (groups) of citizens. Therefore, in this essay, we explore how The Peaceable Neighbourhood contributed to strengthening relationships between children, parents, other residents and professionals. We describe cases and practical experience based on research on the Peaceable Neighbourhood program. Findings show that the Children’s Council can act as a bridge between children and other groups of residents in their neighbourhood. There are also indications that relations among professionals working with children were mutually reinforced. However, strengthening relationships between parents and professionals (linking social capital) and between groups of parents (bridging social capital) seems less successful. Parents were often unable to take initiatives or deal with the, in their eyes, more powerful and competent professionals. Professionals had difficulties in giving up responsibility. As a result of the Peaceable Neighbourhood activities, networks of parents with the same migrant background became stronger (bonding social capital), but the strengthening of relationships with members of other populations remained behind. Practical experiences teaches us that with adequate and personal commitment of professionals, trust can be gained from (groups of) parents, who can, subsequently, connect with other (groups of) parents with more confidence.

Citizenship Education and National Identity

On February 7, 2107, the Dutch minister and the state secretary of education sent a letter to the parliament about their proposed measures to improve citizenship education in primary and secondary schools. A new element in their plans was the concern for ‘national identity’. The main question this article raises is ‘Is it possible to promote national identity without promoting chauvinism? To answer the question the author first goes back to the three essays he wrote in the nineties when he noticed a new rise of nationalism in Europe. The central question of those essays was if people can do without a nation, in the words of Jean Améry: ‘How much “Heimat” does a human being need?’ Secondly the author summarizes a recent analysis of nationalism and xenophobia the 2017 parliamentary election campaign of six political parties to illustrate that the call for an emphasis on ‘national identity’ is quite common nowadays. His conclusion is however that ‘national identity’ should not be considered as a basic element of citizenship education. (Dutch) national identity does not exist, as de Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regerngsbeleid (Scientific Council for Governmental Policy) concluded in a report in 2007, and all available elaborations of the concept exclude groups of people on beforehand.

The Evidence ‘Beast’ and the Normativity of Child-Rearing

In 2008 Micha de Winter warned people to watch out for, what he coined, ‘the Evidence Beast’, referring to a too narrow focus within the Dutch youth care system on evidence and effectivity. This concern was also the main instigator for my PhD research conducted under his (and Prof. Koops’) supervision. In this article I address some of the ‘beasts’ of a strict evidence-based focus within the professional field of youth care. Some of these problems are related to the ways in which EBP is used in the Dutch youth care system (a strict focus on effectivity, a lack of professional reflection and a lack of professionals’ discretionary power). The most important and most Dewinterian issue however is the implicit normativity in child rearing in contrast to the rather technical, and presumed neutral, child rearing approach in youth care interventions. I conclude the article with several suggestions for the future, in order to give more room to important value-laden elements in the support that is offered to parents through youth care interventions.

Different extreme ideals, the same radical quest?

Several scholars have researched push- and pull factors that may lead to radicalization. However, most of these studies focused on radicalization towards a single extreme ideology; it has hardly been investigated if radicalization factors toward different ideologies are comparable. This article focuses on the question whether push- and pull factors are similar for radicalization toward different extreme ideologies. This was done by means of 87 interviews with young people who have extreme leftwing, extreme rightwing and extreme Islamic ideals and their family members. The research shows that there are push- and pull factors that are specific for certain ideologies, but that parallels between radicalization processes exist as well.

The paper discusses the evaluation of two community-based intervention projects that were evaluated using a methodology that appears to differ strongly from traditional quasi-experimental designs. The main reason for this deviation is that traditional designs do not match the way community projects develop over time. Moreover, these designs do not provide enough information to improve these intervention projects in the future. It is argued that traditional designs can be partially tailored, but not sufficiently to address these needs. The evaluation methods that were actually used, also have drawbacks. It is argued that both the traditional and the here described evaluation methods do not provide enough information about what communities offer to children. Moreover, they do not account sufficiently for the democratic dynamics of community-based projects. A different direction is proposed, suggesting that not projects and interventions should be evaluated, but the children’s experience of (change of the) quality of the entire network of people and organizations in their community.