Children’s Valued Capabilities

Abstract

This chapter considers the perceptions that children themselves hold 1 regarding the relevance of education for their own well-being. The human development of children can be regarded as “an expansion of capabilities” or of “positive freedoms.” Capabilities, choices, and conditions during childhood and adolescence crucially affect children’s position and capabilities as adults. Deficiencies in important capabilities during childhood not only reduce the well-being of those suffering from the deficiencies, but may also have larger societal implications. Results from field studies carried out in Italy, India, and Uganda, which located children at the center of a bottom-up strategy for understanding the relevant dimensions of children’s well-being, are reported. In relation to democratic dialogue about selecting capabilities, it is argued that children are capable of understanding and contributing thoughtful opinions. The overall concern is to demonstrate what children think they should be able to do and be, that is, their valued capabilities. It considers that an operationalization of the capability approach has to deal with the issue of defining a list of relevant capabilities, although this need not have a universal character.

This chapter summarizes the results of two research projects. The first is “Children Establishing Their Priorities: Developing Bottom Up Strategies for Understanding Children’s Well Being and Childhood, and their Impact on Research on Child Labour,” a collaboration between the organizers of the First and Second Children’s World Congress on Child Labour (held in Italy, 2004, and India, 2005), especially the Global March against Child Labour (GMACL), and the NGO Mani Tese and the PhD Course in Politics and Economics of Developing Countries at the University of Florence, Italy. The second is a study on the “Capability Deprivation of Street Children in Kampala (Uganda)” in March–April 2005 by the thematic group on “Children’s Capabilities” of the Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA). Both the studies were carried out by a research group of the University of Florence composed of economists, development economists, statisticians, demographers, anthropologists, and psychologists. I acknowledge the support of the University of Florence and of the Fondazione Culturale Responsabilità Etica (the funds, which enabled us to cover some expenses, were donated by the family of Pia Paradossi, who was a much-loved member of Mani Tese Firenze).