Thursday 21 January 2010, 17.30-19.00. S0.21, Social Studies

Professor Michael Bourdillon (Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe)will lead this seminar which considers the potentially positive aspects of children’s work. Children’s work can be harmful in a number of ways, exposing them to hazards and hindering their development, particularly by interfering with school. This negative side of work is well known and widely written about.

A growing body of literature, however, questions some of the assumptions about the harmful nature of children’s work and draws attention to benefits it may bestow. Because these arguments and the research behind them are less well known, we give them space here. We affirm that many children still need urgent protection from harmful work: our argument is that effective protection requires a nuanced understanding of the place of work in children’s lives.

(from A Place for Work in Children’s Lives, M. Bourdillon et al. nd, Plan Canada, http://plancanada.ca/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=2013)