This study examines the development of the concept of material deprivation (MD) in the academic literature and the phenomenon of child material deprivation as a distinct sub-field, using bibliometric methods. The dataset, covering approximately the last 30 years, includes 805 academic studies from the Web of Science and Scopus databases, showing that academic production has increased since 2010, with the child specific sub-corpus growing at 6.82
Unlike most variable-oriented studies, this cross-sectional study used for the first time a person-oriented approach to examine how family and friend support relate to life satisfaction in adopted and non-adopted adolescents. Three hundred fifty-eight internationally adopted adolescents living in Italy, France, and Spain, matched one-to-one on age, gender, and country of residence with 358 non-adopted peers from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC), filled in a self-report questionnaire. Three latent profiles emerged from a cross-country Latent Profile Analysis: fully integrated (77.2
Providing space for children’s voices to be heard, listening to their ideas and giving due weight to their propositions, on all matters that affect them, describes the concept of participation rights according to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. Promoting children’s participation as a right from an early age is essential for building democratic values and citizenship, a core principle for EU members and one of the quality criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Institutions. Within the framework of children’s participation rights, conditions that may foster or hinder teachers’ efforts to create a participatory atmosphere need to be investigated. This study focused on ECEC teachers and coordinators’ subjective experience, as key players in promoting high-quality educational experiences and as gatekeepers for establishing a rights-based participation culture in ECEC, to unveil conditions for children’s participation. Focus groups were conducted in four European countries – Belgium, Greece, Poland, and Portugal – involving 50 participants. A reflexive latent content analysis was followed, using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory alongside the structural, process, and orientational quality dimensions of ECEC, to organize and interpret conditions described by participants. The horizontal level of analysis revealed quality parameters across countries organized in four themes: Organizational Culture, teachers’ Professional Profiles, Organization of ECEC Environment, and Collaboration among Professionals. Vertical analysis highlighted country-specific conditions referring to Administrative issues, Children characteristics, Teacher characteristics, Pedagogical work, and Family-school relationship. A synthesis of these two levels of analysis resulted in a framework of ecological and quality parameters, as drivers or barriers of participatory strategies influencing implementation of participatory pedagogies in diverse layers of the system with implications regarding pedagogical practice, professional development, research, and policymaking.
Child maltreatment is a severe public health issue with profound implications for individuals' well-being. Parenting programs have emerged as effective strategies for preventing child maltreatment, but the mixed results and methodological and conceptual challenges found in previous research obstruct a comprehensive understanding of their effects. This systematic review aims to examine (1) the characteristics of secondary prevention programs targeting at-risk parents and children with pre-existing risk factors for child maltreatment, (2) the methodological characteristics of the studies that have evaluated the impact of those programs, and (3) the main findings regarding the impact of those prevention programs. The review encompasses studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals between January 2010 and December 2025, in both English and Portuguese. A systematic search was conducted across multiple databases, including B-On: Online Knowledge Library–Search, Google Scholar, Ovid, ProQuest, PsycINFO and Web of Knowledge, following the PRISMA guidelines. Sixty-four studies met the inclusion criteria and provided valuable insights into the methodological characteristics of the reviewed empirical studies, the features of the maltreatment prevention programs, and their main outcomes. Overall, the findings provide evidence to support the positive impact of secondary prevention programs on child and youth outcomes, parenting outcomes, parent-child relationships, and family outcomes. However, the limitations identified in the studies included in this review emphasize the need for future research to include longer follow-up periods, enabling a comprehensive assessment of changes and variations in intervention outcomes and effectiveness over time. This study underlines the importance of prioritizing social policies and advancing research efforts to prevent child maltreatment.
In Iran, as in many other countries, the absence of comprehensive surveillance systems and reliable direct data complicates the accurate estimation of child labor prevalence. To bridge this evidence gap, the present study employed the Active Population Ratio (APR) as a proxy indicator to estimate the prevalence and provincial distribution of child labor. This descriptive-analytical study drew on data from Iran’s National Population and Housing Censuses (2006, 2011, and 2016). The APR for children aged 10–17 was first calculated and disaggregated by sex, age group, and urban/rural residence at the provincial level using Microsoft Excel. Provincial Human Development Index (HDI) scores were obtained from published estimates. Finally, The Concentration Index (CI) was computed using Stata to quantify inequality in the distribution of APR across provinces by HDI level. The national APR fell from 9.6
