This article explores the evolving role of fathers in early childhood development through a child rights lens. Anchored in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)—particularly Articles 5, 18, and 27, which stress the best interests of the child—it challenges the enduring stereotype of fathers as solely financial providers. Employing a normative-analytical approach, the paper critically reviews international legal frameworks and scholarly literature to identify socio-cultural and institutional barriers to paternal involvement, especially within the Global South. Focusing on Indonesia—due to its recent legal reforms and entrenched gender norms—the study proposes a reconceptualisation of fatherhood across four key dimensions: emotional presence, hands-on caregiving, respectful dialogue, and cooperative co-parenting. It presents a set of evidence-informed policy and practice recommendations that position fathers as active, equal partners in nurturing and protecting young children. By offering a rights-based normative framework, this study contributes to global discourse on gender-transformative parenting and affirms every child’s right to balanced, nurturing care from both parents. This conceptual contribution connects legal, cultural, and policy domains, advancing a vision of fatherhood grounded in justice, equity, and the principles of the CRC.
Abstract To reach global immunization goals, national programs need to balance routine immunization at health facilities with vaccination campaigns and other outreach activities (e.g. vaccination weeks), which boost coverage at particular times and help reduce geographic inequalities. However, where routine immunization is weak, an overreliance on vaccination campaigns may lead to heterogeneous coverage. Here, we assessed the impact of a health system strengthening (HSS) intervention on the relative contribution of routine immunization and outreach activities to reach immunization goals in rural Madagascar.We obtained data from health centers in Ifanadiana district on the monthly number of recommended vaccines (BCG, measles, DTP and Polio) delivered to children, during 2014-2018. We also analyzed data from a district-representative cohort carried out every two years in over 1500 households in 2014-2018. We compared changes inside and outside the HSS catchment in the delivery of recommended vaccines, population-level vaccination coverage, geographic and economic inequalities in coverage, and timeliness of vaccination. The impact of HSS was quantified via mixed-effects logistic regressions. The HSS intervention was associated with a significant increase in immunization rates (Odds Ratio between 1.22 for measles and 1.49 for DTP), which diminished over time. Outreach activities were associated with a doubling in immunization rates, but their effect was smaller in the HSS catchment. Analysis of cohort data revealed that HSS was associated with higher vaccination coverage (Odds Ratio between 1.18 per year of HSS for measles and 1.43 for BCG), a reduction in economic inequality, and a higher proportion of timely vaccinations. Yet, the lower contribution of outreach activities in the HSS catchment was associated with persistent inequalities in geographic coverage, which prevented achieving international coverage targets. Investment in stronger primary care systems can improve vaccination coverage, reduce inequalities and improve the timeliness of vaccination via increases in routine immunizations. Key questions What is already known? - Reaching the minimum recommended vaccination coverage of 90% for childhood illnesses remains a substantial challenge for low and middle income countries (LMICs). - Understanding how vaccine delivery strategies can be improved to achieve coverage targets in rural areas of LMICs is essential due to the fragility of health systems and associated health budgets. - While evidence exists on the impact of outreach activities and other targeted interventions aimed at improving immunization coverage, it is unclear how strengthening local health systems can help improve key indicators of vaccination coverage, via its different impacts on routine and outreach immunizations. What are the new findings? - A health systems strengthening (HSS) intervention in a rural district of Madagascar improved overall vaccination coverage, reduced economic inequalities in vaccination coverage, and increased the proportion of timely vaccinations via an increase in routine immunizations. - The contribution of outreach activities was lower in the HSS catchment area than in the rest of the district, which was associated with a persistence of geographic inequalities in vaccination coverage. What do the new findings imply? - Strengthening local health systems can help improve key indicators of vaccination coverage in rural, low resource settings, even when those interventions do not target specifically vaccine improvements themselves. - Explicit efforts are still necessary in areas undergoing HSS to vaccinate children in remote areas so that immunization goals can be reached.
Elinambinina Rajaonarifara, Matthew H. Bonds, Ann C Miller et al.
Examining the role of the law in early childhood development is not new; several legal scholars have engaged in such an inquiry, including scholars at this symposium. But this engagement has not led to a sustained debate about how the legal system can foster early childhood development, nor has it yet led to the integration of legal scholars into the interdisciplinary research on, and policy debates about, early childhood. I have argued that the creation of a new subdiscipline in family law — early childhood development and the law — would achieve these goals, sparking debate within law, bringing a legal perspective to interdisciplinary research, and involving legal scholars in policy debates about supporting early childhood development. As I elaborate below, this symposium and the preceding national summit are promising steps in the creation of this new subdiscipline, highlighting the theoretical and practical benefits of this focused inquiry and generating a research agenda. Drawing on this momentum, this essay also identifies the next steps for building the subdiscipline, with the ultimate goal of reorienting the legal system to nurture early childhood development.
Abstract This paper aims to analyze the effect of inequality of opportunity on early childhood development in Togo. To achieve this objective, we use a logit model to obtain the conditional probabilities of the study circumstances. Based on these probabilities, we construct dissimilarity indices with the parametric approach and then apply Shapley decomposition using data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) conducted in Togo in 2017. The results obtained show that inequalities in opportunities slow early childhood development. The Shapley decomposition reveals that region of residence, ownership of agricultural land and mother's education contribute most to inequalities in early childhood development dimensions at 57.58%, 25.50% and 28.77%, respectively. Additionally, the return to an equal situation between children characterized by good health, better nutrition and good social and emotional cognitive development and those in poor condition is conditioned by the reallocation of 12.4% of the inequalities of the first group of children to the second group. Strengthening the coordination of agricultural activities and the provision of safe water to rural households is essential to improve the level of the early childhood development indicator. JEL Classification: D30, D63, I14, I15
A community dialogue intervention with an appreciative inquiry approach was undertaken to improve institutional delivery and child immunisation coverage in a hard-to-reach province, namely, Kandahar, in Afghanistan. This study aimed to evaluate the intervention's effectiveness in promoting institutional delivery and child immunisation. A pre-post intervention evaluation study. An intervention and a non-intervention district were selected in Kandahar. Children aged under 5 years participated in surveys at baseline (October 2018) and follow-up (Post-intervention: November 2019). We analysed age, sex, place of birth, and confirmed immunisation coverage data concerning 1046 and 927 children pre- and post-interventions, respectively. Changes in institutional delivery and confirmed immunisation status were evaluated using net intervention effect and difference-in-difference (DID) analysis. Institutional delivery rates increased from 66.3 % to 83.6 % (p = 0.016) in the intervention district and decreased from 71.3 % to 46.7 % (p < 0.001) in the non-intervention district, with a net intervention effect of 41.9 %. Full immunisation coverage among children aged 12–23 months and 24–35 months significantly increased from 26.4 % to 76.9 % (p < 0.001) and from 40.0 % to 78.6 % (p < 0.001), respectively, in the intervention district, whereas coverage significantly decreased in the non-intervention district. The net intervention effects were 59.1 % and 44.8 % for children aged 12–23 months and 24–35 months, respectively. The DID analysis also revealed significant differences in outcomes after intervention at follow-up. The results concerning antigen-specific immunisation coverage indicated a significant increase in immunisation coverage in the intervention district. The appreciative inquiry-based community dialogue intervention considerably increased institutional delivery and child immunisation coverage, even in a hard-to-reach province in Afghanistan.
Shafiqullah Hemat, Sharifullah Alemi, Sadia Ahmady et al.
Abstract Scaffolding interactions are typically portrayed optimistically within 4E frameworks of cognition. In this paper, we argue that this “dogma of harmony” has also influenced research on scaffolding interactions during development. Specifically, we show how some scaffolding interactions aimed at supporting task execution and skill acquisition in early childhood can inadvertently lead to detrimental effects on learners’ wellbeing, understood in terms of what individuals are capable of achieving rather than through the resources they possess. To characterise these effects, we propose a model that highlights the manifold ways in which individual differences interact with scaffolds’ features during developmental processes. Using this model, we discuss two types of maladaptive scenarios: those where the scaffolds are efficient to various degrees depending on inter-individual differences, and those where scaffolds’ efficiency is tied to particular timeframes depending on intra-individual differences. The upshot of this discussion is that, to challenge the harmony dogma, more inclusive education policies should not only consider scaffolds’ efficiency but also determine whether individuals can adequately transform their use into valuable opportunities for their learning across contexts and timescales.
Background: The various maternal and childhood well-being programs have been designed to address childhood malnutrition in India. The levels and the inequality in child nutrition are higher among economically poor and socially backward communities within the state. Objective: To estimate and compare the inequality in child nutrition status across socio-demographic characteristics in the Uttar Pradesh state of India. Methods: Data from the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS-4 & NFHS-3) was used for Uttar Pradesh – the most populous state of India. The nutrition status was assessed in terms of undernutrition (weight-forage), stunted (height-for-age), wasted (weight-for-height) and anaemia level. Health inequalities indices, the absolute difference, Ratio, Population Attributed Risk, and Population Associated Fraction were calculated using WHO HEAT 2.0 software. Results: The nutrition and anaemia levels vary according to background characteristics; however, the levels of undernutrition and anaemia among children were high in all groups. The wasting and anaemia levels were higher among younger children, whereas the proportion of underweight and stunted was higher in older children. The inequality indices showed a substantially higher burden of undernutrition among socially backward scheduled castes and tribes, and those residing in rural areas. Conclusion: The study illustrated that despite the declining trend of childhood malnutrition in Uttar Pradesh, the socially backwards have a disproportionately higher burden of malnutrition. There is a need to reassess the ongoing nutritional programs concerning pervasive social inequality in child nutrition and anaemia level.
In many Western nations (an area of the world identified by Connell as the Global North), the early childhood sector has positioned itself within the education discourse. This positioning brings along with it the neo-liberal agenda in relation to education – i.e. that education’s key aim is the preparation of employable future employees (children as human capital). Along with this is the increasing imposition of employer-identified skills and knowledges on the curriculum in order to shape children, through education, into the ‘right’ attitudes, dispositions and knowledges. Thus, early childhood education has become increasingly subject to external accreditation, whereby services are evaluated based on their adherence to predetermined standards. Early childhood educators’ work has increasingly required the operation of a panoptic view of children, whose every behaviour is observed, recorded and judged. The authors argue that such standards, in some contexts, act as barriers to effective service delivery and present examples of work from the Global South, demonstrating how an early childhood development focus facilitates a holistic approach to early childhood service delivery. The authors demonstrate how that development focus can be operationalised in the Global North and suggest that, as the sector proceeds towards professionalisation, it needs to consider its direction.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between livestock ownership and dietary diversity, animal-source food consumption, height-for-age z-score, and stunting among children living in wildlife "buffer zones" of Zambia's Luangwa Valley using a novel livestock typology approach. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 838 children aged 6-36 months. Households were categorized into typologies based on the types and numbers of animals owned, ranging from no livestock to large numbers of mixed livestock. We used multilevel mixed-effects linear and logistic regression to examine the association between livestock typologies and four nutrition-related outcomes of interest. Results were compared with analyses using more common binary and count measures of livestock ownership. RESULTS: No measure of livestock ownership was significantly associated with children's odds of animal-source food consumption, child height-for-age z-score, or stunting odds. Livestock ownership Type 2 (having a small number of poultry) was surprisingly associated with decreased child dietary diversity (β = -0.477; p<0.01) relative to owning no livestock. Similarly, in comparison models, chicken ownership was negatively associated with dietary diversity (β = -0.320; p<0.01), but increasing numbers of chickens were positively associated with dietary diversity (β = 0.022; p<0.01). Notably, neither child dietary diversity nor animal-source food consumption was significantly associated with height, perhaps due to unusually high prevalences of morbidities. CONCLUSIONS: Our novel typologies methodology allowed for an efficient and a more in-depth examination of the differential impact of livestock ownership patterns compared to typical binary or count measures of livestock ownership. We found that these patterns were not positively associated with child nutrition outcomes in this context. Development and conservation programs focusing on livestock must carefully consider the complex, context-specific relationship between livestock ownership and nutrition outcomes-including how livestock are utilized by the target population-when attempting to use livestock as a means of improving child nutrition.
Sarah E. Dumas, Lea Kassa, Sera Lewise Young et al.
Purpose Infancy and early childhood are critical stages for the development of both cognitive and socioemotional skills, which are predictive of subsequent academic success, labor market outcomes, and socioeconomic achievement. Empirical research both in China and in other countries has revealed that nurturing quality is increasingly divergent among social classes, leading to intergenerational accumulation of advantage/disadvantage, declining social mobility, and exacerbating class inequality. The article aims to systematically examine existing theoretical and empirical research on early childhood development and social mobility and provide a holistic comparative and analytical framework for future research in the context of China. Design/Approach/Methods This article systematically reviews relevant theories and empirical research in the field and provides preliminary findings of early childhood education investment in China, using the data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Specifically, the article focuses on the differences in early childhood education investment and child development among families of different socioeconomic statuses and discusses the potential impact of these differences on children's future development. Findings The findings of this study reveal distinct patterns in early childhood education investment and child development across diverse socioeconomic strata in China. China's initiatives to enhance children's education and human capital have robust theoretical foundations and timely policy implications. However, despite the ongoing efforts, early childhood parenting and education programs lack systematic research, emphasizing the urgent need for intervention programs and comprehensive databases to inform evidence-based policymaking. Originality/Value The article concludes with a comprehensive analytical framework for the study of early childhood development and social mobility in China, which has implications for promoting human capital investment and facilitating social mobility.
