Positioning Children in Developmental Analyses of Cultural Conflicts Commentary on the Special Issue of Human Development 'Collective Strategies for Human Development in War and Its Long Shadow'

摘要

In this commentary on intervention studies in times and situations of war, violence and cultural conflict, I focus on the need to appropriately position children in specific situations. This involves acknowledging their presence and their rights, recognizing their participation, and incorporating their activities with the sociocultural and ecological environments. To theoretically position children in cultural conflict, I draw on Gottlieb's [1991] concept of "coaction" to analyze relations between agentic children and culture in a system of coactions. I propose the coacting system as an appropriate unit of analysis for understanding children's development and as a basis for intervention and policy following violence and cultural conflict. The papers in this special issue demand that developmental science attend to children's presence, participation, and activities as the basis for intervention and research. (C) 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel