ABSTRACT This study explores how 2SLGBTQ+ youth in Alberta, Canada—the country's most Conservative province—mobilize queer joy as a form of resistance amid rising anti‐queer and anti‐trans policies under a settler colonial, cisheteropatriarchal regime. Drawing from youth‐produced collages, we demonstrate that this visual arts‐based participatory method revealed the complex temporalities, spatialities, and affective textures of queer life. Our findings articulate three interrelated strategies: (1) navigating pervasive shame and identity management within an “apocalyptic” political climate while fostering hope beyond oppressive governance; (2) grounding queer and trans identities in permanence through connections to land, queer ancestry, and Indigenous cultural frameworks, challenging dominant narratives that position queerness as new or unnatural; and (3) cultivating affirming community spaces—both literal and metaphorical—where queer joy becomes a generative practice of self‐actualization and political resistance. Drawing on critical queer theory and Indigenous scholarship, we contend that queer joy functions as a deliberate and powerful form of resistance—a refusal to accept linear narratives of progress or erasure. This work highlights the vital need for institutional support for 2SLGBTQ+ youth while emphasizing that resistance entails not only survival but also the sustained presence of joy as enduring defiance.
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) face significant challenges shaped by forced migration, trauma, legal uncertainty, and systemic barriers in host countries. While education is widely recognised as important for integration, less is known about how educational experiences contribute to UASC wellbeing, safety, belonging, and future opportunities. Drawing on Kohli (2011), the Social Identity Approach to Health (Haslam, Jetten, Postmes, and Haslam 2009; Kёllezi, and Reicher 2012; Herman 1992) trauma recovery theory and human rights framework (UNCRC 1989), this multi-perspective qualitative study explores the role of education in supporting the wellbeing, integration, and success of UASC. The study analysed qualitative interviews with 13 UASC care leavers, 10 foster carers, and 16 education professionals. The analysis identifies four key themes: safety and trust, social connections and belonging, success and resilience and equitable access. The findings highlight that educational establishments can help young people reconstruct ordinary life, and develop psychological stability, social connection, and future opportunities. Simultaneously, exclusionary practices, legal ambiguity, and structural barriers can undermine these processes. The study advances understanding of education as social and institutional contributor to wellbeing, and argues for trauma-informed right-based and inclusive educational practices that support UASC wellbeing and long-term social inclusion.
BACKGROUND: The gut microbiota is increasingly recognized as a modulator of metabolic health in children, influencing nutrient absorption, immune tone, epithelial barrier function, and energy homeostasis. This review summarizes current evidence on microbial signatures and mechanistic pathways associated with pediatric obesity and evaluates microbiota-targeted strategies for prevention and intervention. DATA SOURCES: Relevant studies published between January 2000 and February 2026 were identified through searches of PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science using keywords related to pediatric obesity, gut microbiota, microbial metabolites, and microbiota-based interventions. Human studies and mechanistic animal models examining host-microbe metabolic interactions were included. RESULTS: Pediatric obesity is associated with shifts in gut microbial composition, although taxonomic findings are heterogeneous across studies and should not be interpreted as universal biomarkers. Relatively consistent patterns include reduced Bifidobacterium and Akkermansia muciniphila, whereas associations involving Faecalibacterium, Blautia, and lactobacilli are context-, species-, and strain-dependent. Functional alterations include changes in short-chain fatty acid production, bile acid signaling, microbial branched-chain and aromatic amino acid metabolism, and endotoxin-related inflammatory pathways. The enrichment of Gram-negative taxa such as Enterobacteriaceae may contribute to impaired epithelial barrier integrity, lipopolysaccharide translocation, toll-like receptor 4 signaling, chronic low-grade inflammation, and insulin resistance. Early-life exposures, including cesarean delivery, formula feeding, and antibiotic use, are repeatedly associated with altered microbial succession and later obesity risk, although causality remains incompletely defined. Interventional studies indicate that dietary fiber enrichment and selected probiotic strains can improve microbial and metabolic outcomes in some settings, but efficacy remains strain-specific and clinically heterogeneous. CONCLUSIONS: Microbial and metabolic signatures are associated with pediatric obesity, converging on pathways of energy harvest, epithelial barrier dysfunction, inflammation, and disrupted host-microbe signaling. Integrative multi-omic and longitudinal studies are required to establish causality and guide the development of personalized, microbiota-based interventions for obesity prevention and treatment in children.
Abstract With the increased accessibility and use of digital media in the 21st century, screen exposure has become a common part of family life for young children, like shared book reading. As two important activities in children’s daily lives, screen exposure and shared book reading may both play important roles in early childhood, yet their longitudinal relationship remains unclear. This study included data from the Kids in Taiwan: National Longitudinal Study of Child Development and Care (KIT) on 2,164 children. Caregivers reported children’s daily screen exposure and weekly shared book reading at 36, 48, and 60 months. A Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model (RI-CLPM) was used to examine the bidirectional longitudinal associations between screen exposure and shared book reading. Results showed that both screen exposure and shared book reading were stable across waves. Higher-than-usual shared reading predicted lower subsequent screen exposure, whereas higher-than-usual screen exposure predicted lower subsequent shared reading. These findings indicate that screen exposure and shared book reading are reciprocally related over time among Chinese children and suggest that family-based interventions may benefit from addressing both behaviors together.
Highly problematic post-divorce parental conflict represents a growing clinical challenge, with significant consequences for the child’s wellbeing. Conventional approaches, which includes individual child therapy, single-parent interventions, and legal proceedings, have shown limited efficacy, in part because they fail to address the systemic and neurobiological dimensions of the most problematic of conflicts. This paper presents the No Kids in the Middle (NKM) protocol - a structured, group-based interdisciplinary intervention developed in the Netherlands for families embedded in high-conflict post-divorce situations, from the complementary perspectives of a family lawyer and a child psychiatrist. The NKM protocol engages groups of six couples in parallel with a children's group, led by pairs of co-therapists, across a structured sequence of eight sessions. Key features include the simultaneous engagement of parents and children, dedicated sessions with each parent's wider social network, an explicitly experiential therapeutic approach, and a systemic reframing of parental conflict behaviour as a neurobiological response to chronic stress rather than a volitional character deficit. The NKM approach offers a coherent and clinically promising response to a population subgroup that consistently overwhelms conventional professional frameworks. Its interdisciplinary applicability spans psychiatry, social work, law, and education, and makes it particularly suited to the systemic nature of the problem it addresses.
BACKGROUND: Child neglect is a prevalent but complex and multifaceted form of maltreatment, with definitions that vary across legal and cultural contexts. Despite its well-documented harm, it remains underexamined in judicial decision-making. OBJECTIVE: This study examines how child neglect is conceptualized and adjudicated in Israeli courts, focusing on how cases are structured and how neglect is interpreted in judicial judgments. METHODS: A systematic analysis was conducted of all available Israeli court judgments involving child neglect. Cases were identified based on jurisdictional relevance and substantive discussion of neglect between 1975 and 2024 (N = 62). A structured coding scheme was applied to capture general case characteristics, types of neglect, child consequences, and features of the legal proceeding. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and distribution of the cases, as well as inferential tests. RESULTS: Judicial neglect cases were relatively rare and clustered around two main profiles: co-occurring abuse and high-conflict family disputes. Emotional and physical neglect were most prevalent, with physical neglect significantly associated with abuse, and emotional neglect more closely linked to family conflict dynamics. Most cases involved multiple risk factors, while economic hardship was less emphasized than expected. Common child outcomes included developmental delay and emotional distress. Judicial outcomes were primarily protective, with limited child participation. CONCLUSIONS: The main findings underscore the context-dependent and multifaceted nature of neglect in legal practice, where it rarely appears as a standalone category. Emotional neglect emerges as a particularly central dimension, while the overall pattern highlights persistent conceptual ambiguity and an unclear threshold for judicial intervention.
PURPOSE: Childhood hearing loss (CHL) in need of assisting listening devices require a constant surveillance for hearing loss (HL) progression and adjustment of interventions. Despite advances in aetiological investigations, there are still important gaps in understanding causal determinants and progression patterns of CHL. The aim of this study was to analyze the prevalence and yield of aetiological investigations, and to identify causes associated with HL progression in older children. METHODS: This descriptive retrospective study included data from 194 children with moderate-profound senorineural HL born between January 1st 2010 and December 31st 2015, retrieved from the regional registry at the tertiary referral audiological centre in Stockholm County. Medical information and pure tone averages were gathered through the regional public health record system. RESULTS: 146 children (75%) underwent causal investigation, with a positive finding in 75 (51,4%) of them. The discovered aetiologies were genetic in 52 (69%) such as GJB2, congenital cytomegalovirus infection (cCMV) in 10 (13%) and inner ear malformations in 33 (33%). HL progression was observed in 16% of the children and the most common identified cause was enlarged vestibular aqueduct syndrome (EVA), followed by cCMV. CONCLUSION: The highest diagnostic yield was observed when genetic testing was performed, either as a first-line investigation or following imaging. Few children reported a progression of HL in this study group in which EVA and cCMV were the most prevalent causes. Comprehensive or targeted genetics remains as an effective diagnostic method, in isolation when clinically strengthened or in combination with imaging and infectious investigations.
Abstract Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) has gained increasing relevance as an approach for promoting youth agency and addressing social inequalities in educational contexts. However, when implemented with migrant and racialized youth in border regions, participatory research faces specific ethical, political, and methodological challenges that may limit its transformative potential. This article offers a situated reflection on the possibilities and constraints of educational participatory action research developed with migrant and racialized young people in the Canary Islands, one of the main border territories of southern Europe. Drawing on 15 years of experience in participatory research, education, and community action, as well as practice-based insights from Emancipatory Communicative Action Laboratories involving migrant and racialized youth, the paper reflects on recurring tensions that arise in these processes. Five recurring challenges are discussed: functional interculturalism, academic extractivism, performative decoloniality, ethnocentric and adult-centred practices, and the effects of structural violence associated with border regimes. In response, the article proposes a critical anti-racist and dialogical framework grounded in reflexivity, recognition, shared knowledge production, and the creation of safe participatory spaces. Particular attention is given to methodological strategies that strengthen young people’s capacity to define their own experiences, analyse structural inequalities, and participate meaningfully in social transformation processes. The article contributes to ongoing debates on participatory methodologies by highlighting the need to rethink research practices from the perspectives of migration, racialization and border dynamics.
BACKGROUND: Many jurisdictions internationally continue to permit parents to use physical force against children under defences variously termed 'reasonable force', 'lawful correction', or 'domestic discipline'. In Queensland, Australia, this is codified under section 280 of the Criminal Code Act 1899 (Qld). The appropriateness of such defences is increasingly contested, with child and youth advocates arguing that they effectively decriminalise child abuse, yet little is known about whether community attitudes align with their continued availability. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to understand how situational factors and community member characteristics shape attitudes towards the legal defence of domestic discipline and what community members believe constitutes a fair outcome, when a parent is charged with assaulting a child. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: A quota-sampled survey of 1662 adults and qualitative focus groups with 58 community members, all residing in Queensland, Australia. METHODS: Participants were presented with a vignette describing a parent's use of physical force against an 11-year-old child, with the severity of force, use of an implement, and the child's diagnosis with ADHD experimentally varied. Survey data were analysed using binary logistic regression; focus group data were analysed thematically. RESULTS: After controlling for participant sociodemographics (e.g., age and gender), the predicted probability of a guilty finding rose sharply with the severity of force used, increasing from 7.2% (grabbed hand tightly) to 36.9% (slapped thigh with wooden spoon), and 56.9% (slapped face). Many participants, including several who supported a guilty finding, did not endorse criminal justice intervention, instead favouring parenting support and education. Qualitative findings revealed widespread uncertainty about the threshold between discipline and abuse. CONCLUSIONS: Findings reveal a gap between current legal tests and community reasoning, and support reform towards non-punitive, education-focused responses to low-level parental discipline, with implications for jurisdictions internationally that retain similar defences.
Hayley Boxall, Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Clementine Froomes-Houseman et al.
Child advocacy is a relatively new and underexplored phenomenon in Sweden. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with twelve employees of Swedish children’s rights organisations, this study explores the emergence of child advocacy as a professional domain within the institutional field of child welfare in Sweden. Child advocacy is conceptualised as an idea translated into the Swedish context. The analysis draws on institutional theory and theories of professional projects, with particular attention to professionals as agents of institutional change.The study suggests that child rights advocates is emerging as a professional domain in Sweden. Viewed as a professional project, child advocacy involves boundary work through which expertise is constructed and professional boundaries are negotiated in relation to child welfare authorities. Swedish child rights advocates can be understood as part of both internal and external processes within the field of social work, through which they construct expertise around children’s rights as a cultural-cognitive and normative framework. As such, child rights advocates assume a position from which to influence understandings of ‘good’ social work practice and authority within the field. Child advocacy is further discussed in relation to developments in social work as a professional field shaped by boundary work and broader societal transformations.
