We interviewed 50 children between the ages of 11 and 17 years who told us why they stole, what they stole, and how they learned how to burgle.
Children living in low-income neighborhoods with ‘hands-off’ norms about safety showed higher levels of reactivity in a region of the brain associated with emotion processing and threat detection.
DenisTangneyJr/E+ via Getty Images
The latest findings add to the understanding of how social disadvantage such as poverty and low-quality, unsafe housing can affect early child development.
Extracurricular activities help children from low-income suburbs close the gap between them and their better-off peers. But subsidies for these activities are patchy and often limited to sport.
Centrelink queues shocked Australians but long before COVID-19 Western Sydney had job-poor neighbourhoods with very high unemployment rates.
Loren Elliott/AAP
Western Sydney’s growth-driven boom had ended before COVID-19 hit. Some neighbourhood unemployment rates were 2-3 times the metropolitan average, with female workforce participation as low as 43%.
Children in suburbs with low levels of education and employment and high rates of poverty and crime are also missing out on the experiences that help make upwards social mobility possible.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
Children growing up in the most disadvantaged suburbs also lack the social opportunities to develop skills and aspirations that would improve their prospects in life.
Childhood adversity doesn’t just affect our choices – according to new research, it also weakens the body’s fundamental ability to stay healthy in old age.
Indigenous children in Australia continue to slip below national minimum standards for literacy.
Neda Vanovac/AAP
Under new legislation, children from low-income families will receive just 12 hours of early learning support a week, adding to the risk of these children falling behind their peers at school.
Scotland is threatening a positive-discrimination policy for making access to universities more equal. While its central argument is right, there’s more to this than meets the eye.
Lone parents should not be pariahs.
Mother and son via Kalcutta/www.shutterstock.com
The upcoming first ever Global Forum on Youth Policies has put the spotlight on the position of young people who, the United Nations says, are our “greatest resource”. Australia is among a minority of…
Kids drop out before finishing school for many reasons. Flexible learning caters to these.
Flickr/Gus Estrella
Despite encouragement from federal, state and territory governments to complete school – and a legal obligation to “learn or earn” – one in five young Australians still leaves school before the end of…