PROGRAMA INFANCIA

< index

III Latin American and Caribbean Network Conference
Childwatch International
"Childhood and Youth: Dislocations and Changes"
Abstracts

A Basic Income Guarantee Policy as an Alternative Way of Eliminating Child Labor: Theoretical Reflextions adn the Presentation of a Micro Simulation Quantitative Exercise
Eduardo Calderón Cuevas, Autonomous University of Barcelona

This paper's objective is to stimulate a debate on the effects of a Basic Income Guarantee policy on the well-being of children and on child labor. Therefore, it tries to answer the following questions: ¿What are some of the advantages and limitations of the of a Basic Income Guarantee policy compared to existing minimum wage programs such as the one promoted by the program Oportunidades in Mexico who's objective is to guarantee schooling and to work against child labor? ¿Is a Basic Income Guarantee policy a more an equitable way of guaranteeing the well-being and development of children?

ALL IN ONE: Children's participation in communities of indigenous tradition
Yolanda Corona Caraveo, Research Program on Infancy and Childhood, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico

This text proposes a reflection about the components of children participation in an indigenous community derived from the analysis of ten years of research in an indigenous town nearby Mexico City. A description is offered of some typical features of the collective spaces offered to children and young people, that may help us have a critical perspective about the sense of belonging supported by the participation projects developed since the Convention of the Children rights. We also raise a discussion on what seems a contradiction of an intended liberal discourse to protect the individual's human rights, which seems to have a destructive role on communal identity.

The Impact of Migration on Personal Identity: a Case Sutdy of Indigenous Children in Public Elementary Schools in Mexico City
Nathalie Coutu, Research Program on Infancy and Childhood, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico

The article discusses the impact that migration has on the personal identity of indigenous children who are raised in Mexico City. It reveals some of the strategies that the children use to adapt to an environment that is hostile to minority groups and how this influences on their view of their cultural heritage. The article is based on a research project that aimed at detecting the effects of an Intercultural Education Program implemented to favor cultural understanding and to adapt the school system to the needs of Mexico's indigenous population.

A Competent Network for Diverse Social Communication as a Strategy for Societies to Benefit from Public Policy
Luz Chapela, México

We tend to think about communication as a vertical emission/reception process. We need to reconstruct the concept in order to think about it (by using an including, intercultural and democratic complex thought) as a web system through which messages travel in many different directions and originate in many different broadcasting points that aim to reach many different interlocutors (not receptors). The Internet, along with other technological means, allows for the construction of this social web system. Nowadays, almost any community in any part of the world, can erect itself as an editorial group that, from their own website, present to many around he world, for instance, their own thought, history, projects, wishes, arguments, difficulties, needs and resources they can share. They can also become reflexive and analytic interlocutors that, standing in their own websites, can respond to the ideas, needs and wishes of many others who, they themselves, form part of this multidimensional and horizontal social web system. As far as possibilities go, modern democracy depends, at a great rate, on the presence of a diverse and plural society that communicates. But, alas, our societies, speaking in general, lack craftsmanship in editorial matters, they do not yet have the competences required to perform critical analysis, to construct solid arguments or to face conflict through dialog, for instance; they don't yet have the competences required to generate, for instance, publishable original contents, to give these contents a graphic design, or to use machines, software products or mechanisms. Public policies need societies in communicative movement. In turn, societies need open communication in order to make their own significations, to recreate their knowledge, to openly express what is theirs, to establish bounds that increase their potentialities and to build up alliances that permit them to use efficiently and efficaciously the potential benefits of public policies. Education can be part of a needed solution to this current situation.

The Effects of Labor Deregulation on Child Labor Legislation in Mexico
Mercedes Gema López Limón, Social Science Research Institute, Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexico
Federico García Estrada, Labor Lawyer

Financial capital is currently going through a severe crisis due to the competitiveness of world markets. To confront this trend, deregulation is being promoted in all spheres. When it comes to the labor sphere, the fundamental strategy of international financial organizations working with transnational companies has been to reduce its costs. This has resulted in an aggressive attack on labor and social rights. The International Labor Organization (ILO), who through its conventions and recommendations has been a symbol of the worldwide labor movement, is the international judicial benchmark on which national labor laws and codes are based. Nevertheless, it is also being pressured to favor flexibility and to lower its standards, which have been labeled expensive and rigid by capitalists. In reference to child labor legislation, the ILO convention 182 (1999) on The Worst Forms of Child Labor is definitively a step backwards on the Minimum Age Convention (convention 138) established by the same organization in 1973. The latter works toward the abolition of child labor by adjusting the minimum age to the age at which compulsory schooling is completed, and by promoting workplace monitoring. Mexico signed convention 182 even though it undermines article 123 of the Federal Labor Law that pertains to minors. Keeping this in mind, if the proposed reforms to the Federal Labor Law are approved, instead of favoring the abolition of child labor, they will promote them.

Motivating Children to Claim their Right to Participate
Sepúlveda, López and Guaimaro
Metropolitan University, Center for Childhood and Family Research, Caracas, Venezuela

The document presents the Center for Childhood and Family Research's (CENDIF) experience with intervention models directed at marginalized children. These are based on an investigation-action-participation methodology developed by the CENDIF which is part of the Metropolitan University (Caracas-Venezuela).
There are very few possibilities for children to express there perceptions of security, social integration, community identity, causes of alienation, and fears. This is why it is necessary to generate a knowledge base about what marginalized children think about life en general, school, training, the future, family. Furthermore, it is important to use this knowledge to create forms of participative care that will stimulate their intelligence, learning skills and emotional stability. It is indispensable to design, implement and evaluate programs based on a participative approach that will allow children to become aware of their rights and obligations as citizens, and to express themselves freely.

Key words: rights, participation, community identity, social integration, security.ç

Creating Areas For Child Participation in Six Municipalities of Tlaxcala
Martha Zanabria Salcedo, Faculty of Education and Communication, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico
Xochimilco Campus
Blanca Isela Fragoso Astorga, General Office for Child Protection, National System for Integral Family Development (SNDIF), Mexico

Our purpose is to present the results obtained from the process of constructing areas of child participation in the following six communities of the State of Tlaxcala: Tlaxco, Tequexquitla, Chiautempan, Tepetitla, Tzompantepec and Tecopilco.
Our document reveals the results of the preliminary application of the "Manual for Child Participation Geared Towards the Understanding of Children's Rights" that was undertaken by the Municipal Systems area of the National System for Integral Family Develop. This took place during the months of October and December of 2005.
We elaborate on the three steps of our work: First, we present the design of the manual which was the fundamental tool of our project. Second, we talk about the evaluation of the complexity of the language used. And finally, we discuss the experiences of six groups of various municipalities of the state of Tlaxcala who worked on transforming the relationship between adults and children as suggested in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
We are aware that their is a need to open up areas for genuine child participation and to leave behind practices that do not support the democratic socialization of children.

< index

	A Basic Income Guarantee Policy as an Alternative Way of Eliminating Child Labor: Theoretical Reflextions adn the Presentation of a Micro Simulation Quantitative Exercise Eduardo Calderón Cuevas, Autonomous University of Barcelona This paper's objective is to stimulate a debate on the effects of a Basic Income Guarantee policy on the well-being of children and on child labor. Therefore, it tries to answer the following questions: ¿What are some of the advantages and limitations of the of a Basic Income Guarantee policy compared to existing minimum wage programs such as the one promoted by the program Oportunidades in Mexico who's objective is to guarantee schooling and to work against child labor? ¿Is a Basic Income Guarantee policy a more an equitable way of guaranteeing the well-being and development of children?
	*ALL IN ONE: Children's participation in communities of indigenous tradition* Yolanda Corona Caraveo, Research Program on Infancy and Childhood, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico This text proposes a reflection about the components of children participation in an indigenous community derived from the analysis of ten years of research in an indigenous town nearby Mexico City. A description is offered of some typical features of the collective spaces offered to children and young people, that may help us have a critical perspective about the sense of belonging supported by the participation projects developed since the Convention of the Children rights. We also raise a discussion on what seems a contradiction of an intended liberal discourse to protect the individual's human rights, which seems to have a destructive role on communal identity.
	The Impact of Migration on Personal Identity: a Case Sutdy of Indigenous Children in Public Elementary Schools in Mexico City Nathalie Coutu, Research Program on Infancy and Childhood, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico The article discusses the impact that migration has on the personal identity of indigenous children who are raised in Mexico City. It reveals some of the strategies that the children use to adapt to an environment that is hostile to minority groups and how this influences on their view of their cultural heritage. The article is based on a research project that aimed at detecting the effects of an Intercultural Education Program implemented to favor cultural understanding and to adapt the school system to the needs of Mexico's indigenous population.
	A Competent Network for Diverse Social Communication as a Strategy for Societies to Benefit from Public Policy Luz Chapela, México We tend to think about communication as a vertical emission/reception process. We need to reconstruct the concept in order to think about it (by using an including, intercultural and democratic complex thought) as a web system through which messages travel in many different directions and originate in many different broadcasting points that aim to reach many different interlocutors (not receptors). The Internet, along with other technological means, allows for the construction of this social web system. Nowadays, almost any community in any part of the world, can erect itself as an editorial group that, from their own website, present to many around he world, for instance, their own thought, history, projects, wishes, arguments, difficulties, needs and resources they can share. They can also become reflexive and analytic interlocutors that, standing in their own websites, can respond to the ideas, needs and wishes of many others who, they themselves, form part of this multidimensional and horizontal social web system. As far as possibilities go, modern democracy depends, at a great rate, on the presence of a diverse and plural society that communicates. But, alas, our societies, speaking in general, lack craftsmanship in editorial matters, they do not yet have the competences required to perform critical analysis, to construct solid arguments or to face conflict through dialog, for instance; they don't yet have the competences required to generate, for instance, publishable original contents, to give these contents a graphic design, or to use machines, software products or mechanisms. Public policies need societies in communicative movement. In turn, societies need open communication in order to make their own significations, to recreate their knowledge, to openly express what is theirs, to establish bounds that increase their potentialities and to build up alliances that permit them to use efficiently and efficaciously the potential benefits of public policies. Education can be part of a needed solution to this current situation.
	The Effects of Labor Deregulation on Child Labor Legislation in Mexico Mercedes Gema López Limón, Social Science Research Institute, Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexico Federico García Estrada, Labor Lawyer Financial capital is currently going through a severe crisis due to the competitiveness of world markets. To confront this trend, deregulation is being promoted in all spheres. When it comes to the labor sphere, the fundamental strategy of international financial organizations working with transnational companies has been to reduce its costs. This has resulted in an aggressive attack on labor and social rights. The International Labor Organization (ILO), who through its conventions and recommendations has been a symbol of the worldwide labor movement, is the international judicial benchmark on which national labor laws and codes are based. Nevertheless, it is also being pressured to favor flexibility and to lower its standards, which have been labeled expensive and rigid by capitalists. In reference to child labor legislation, the ILO convention 182 (1999) on The Worst Forms of Child Labor is definitively a step backwards on the Minimum Age Convention (convention 138) established by the same organization in 1973. The latter works toward the abolition of child labor by adjusting the minimum age to the age at which compulsory schooling is completed, and by promoting workplace monitoring. Mexico signed convention 182 even though it undermines article 123 of the Federal Labor Law that pertains to minors. Keeping this in mind, if the proposed reforms to the Federal Labor Law are approved, instead of favoring the abolition of child labor, they will promote them.
	*Motivating Children to Claim their Right to Participate* Sepúlveda, López and Guaimaro Metropolitan University, Center for Childhood and Family Research, Caracas, Venezuela The document presents the Center for Childhood and Family Research's (CENDIF) experience with intervention models directed at marginalized children. These are based on an investigation-action-participation methodology developed by the CENDIF which is part of the Metropolitan University (Caracas-Venezuela). There are very few possibilities for children to express there perceptions of security, social integration, community identity, causes of alienation, and fears. This is why it is necessary to generate a knowledge base about what marginalized children think about life en general, school, training, the future, family. Furthermore, it is important to use this knowledge to create forms of participative care that will stimulate their intelligence, learning skills and emotional stability. It is indispensable to design, implement and evaluate programs based on a participative approach that will allow children to become aware of their rights and obligations as citizens, and to express themselves freely. Key words: rights, participation, community identity, social integration, security.ç
	Creating Areas For Child Participation in Six Municipalities of Tlaxcala Martha Zanabria Salcedo, Faculty of Education and Communication, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico Xochimilco Campus Blanca Isela Fragoso Astorga, General Office for Child Protection, National System for Integral Family Development (SNDIF), Mexico Our purpose is to present the results obtained from the process of constructing areas of child participation in the following six communities of the State of Tlaxcala: Tlaxco, Tequexquitla, Chiautempan, Tepetitla, Tzompantepec and Tecopilco. Our document reveals the results of the preliminary application of the "Manual for Child Participation Geared Towards the Understanding of Children's Rights" that was undertaken by the Municipal Systems area of the National System for Integral Family Develop. This took place during the months of October and December of 2005. We elaborate on the three steps of our work: First, we present the design of the manual which was the fundamental tool of our project. Second, we talk about the evaluation of the complexity of the language used. And finally, we discuss the experiences of six groups of various municipalities of the state of Tlaxcala who worked on transforming the relationship between adults and children as suggested in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are aware that their is a need to open up areas for genuine child participation and to leave behind practices that do not support the democratic socialization of children.