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Court Cases on Poor Children’s Access to Normalcy

Author

Listed:
  • Elisabet Näsman

    (Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, Sweden)

  • Stina Fernqvist

    (Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, Sweden)

Abstract

Poverty in childhood is associated with an increased risk of being marginalised and socially excluded, which is also the case in the Swedish welfare state. Poor parents often strive for their children to fit in among same‐aged children, which is difficult for the poorest to accomplish. As the last resort for the poor, the welfare state offers the opportunity to apply for financial aid, but applications may be rejected. Parents can then appeal the rejections to an administrative court. In these decisions, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child could be applied or referred to. The convention has been incorporated into Swedish law since 2020. This article is grounded in childhood sociology and aims to show how poor children, their needs, and rights are processed in the legal system, which sets the framework for the children’s access to material conditions needed for inclusion in a welfare state such as Sweden. The presentation is based on a qualitative content analysis of administrative court records concerning financial aid appeals. The results show that the appeal process confirms the adult orientation of financial aid and that a child rights perspective is, with few exceptions, missing in these records. When children are mentioned, a care perspective dominates and their right to participation is neglected.

Suggested Citation

  • Elisabet Näsman & Stina Fernqvist, 2022. "Court Cases on Poor Children’s Access to Normalcy," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(4), pages 53-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:10:y:2022:i:4:p:53-62
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    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/5325
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Carina Mood & Jan O. Jonsson, 2016. "Trends in Child Poverty in Sweden: Parental and Child Reports," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 9(3), pages 825-854, September.
    2. Roger A. Hart, 1992. "Children's Participation: From tokenism to citizenship," Papers inness92/6, Innocenti Essay.
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    Cited by:

    1. Anita Borch & Kirsi Laitala, 2022. "New Approaches to the Study of Social Inclusion of Poor Children and Youth," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(4), pages 1-3.

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