Search Results

This chapter takes a qualitative approach to a Sure Start Children's Centre as a space framed by a particular set of policy imperatives. It is argued that the targets of policy are not simply translated into the space and that interactions between staff and users are somewhat ‘uneasy’ and ambivalent because of this. It is also argued that friendships between groups of parents play an important role in mediating access to the centre as part of wider ‘caringscapes’ of parenting.

The chapter investigates how the supra-national discourse on investive family policy which emerged since the late 1990s, translates into family policy. The UK and Germany have both expanded early childhood education and care in recent years by referring to economic reasoning. But this convergence in policy output does not correspond with a convergence of policy contents and policy goals. While the British expansion of ECEC was legitimized in the context of activating labour market policy as well as poverty prevention policy, the German discussion focused on securing economic growth through higher employment rates of mothers, higher fertility rates, and the creation of new jobs in childcare. This path-dependent translation of the supra-national economic discourse reflects national welfare traditions and can be observed similarly with regard to the introduction of children’s centres in England and ‘Familienzentren’ in North Rhine-Westphalia: The investment in family services differs with regard to contents and goals.

This chapter and the next consider the development of children’s services policy since 2010, including key changes introduced by the Conservative Secretary of State Michael Gove. From the outset it was clear that schools reform would be the overriding priority for the renamed ‘Department for Education’. Moreover, under Gove’s Academies and Free Schools programme the broad emphasis on child well-being and the integration of children’s services, under Labour’s ECM framework, was largely abandoned as schools were afforded greater autonomy from local authority children’s services. Furthermore, the prioritisation of schools’ reform meant that services such as children’s centres and youth services bore the brunt of spending cuts, notwithstanding the Prime Minister David Cameron’s proclaimed commitment to the refocusing of early intervention services. In this context, the DfE distanced itself from the restructuring and hollowing-out of early intervention services at the local level, and NGOs campaigning in this area were largely ignored.

The concept of social exclusion has been central to New Labour's social policy since its election in 1997. The Sure Start programme, announced in 1998 and expanded by 2004 to include 400,000 children under four and their families, has been a central element in the government's long-term strategy to prevent social exclusion by breaking the cycle that plays a significant part in its (re)production. This chapter looks at how the problem of the intergenerational reproduction of social exclusion has been conceptualised by the New Labour governments and how this is reflected in policy. It examines the evolving policy interventions since 1997 with parents of preschool children designed to ‘break the cycle’, and what this conceptualisation of social exclusion and the policies associated with it leave out. The initial announcement in 1998 was for a programme of 250 Sure Start Local Programmes in areas of high deprivation. Sure Start has been transformed from an early intervention policy to the provision of universal preschool services that integrate health, education, advice and support in Sure Start children's centres across the United Kingdom.

This chapter explores how music is playing an integral role in HIV/AIDS interventions and an agent of social change in Nairobi, Kenya. It begins with a review of the history and status of HIV/AIDS in Kenya before turning to a discussion of HIV/AIDS music performances in Nairobi. In particular, it considers the challenges facing musicians who wish to respond to HIV/AIDS, and how they can produce music the populace will want to hear, while at the same time living in a society that regulates messages about HIV/AIDS. It also looks at how music is used in numerous schools, children’s centers, and youth programs, with particular emphasis on the Kenya Music Festival, to speak about AIDS and other concerns within their communities. Finally, it offers some suggestions on the possibilities and problems of using music for HIV/AIDS programs.