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FRIPRO-Fri prosjektstøtte

Child Protection Systems Across the World

Alternative title: Globale barnevernssystemer

Awarded: NOK 12.5 mill.

Societies are at an intersection when it comes to how children are treated. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of 1989 is today universally ratified, and has led to increased attention around children's rights and welfare across the globe. Further, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development puts the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized people – including children – at the top of the political agenda. The emerging focus on children’s rights, and the growing role of the state as the protector of these rights, underlines the importance of empirical knowledge and theoretical insights about child protection systems. We know that governments’ interpretation of children's rights, and how they choose or are able to respect and protect these rights, varies a great deal across the world. However, the existing typologies of child protection have limitations, and we lack empirical data that allows for global comparisons. This project breaks new ground in that it analyses and compares the public’s and the judiciary´s views on children in vulnerable situations. CPS-WORLD will offer theory development in child protection, a field with a nascent research base, that will serve as a tool for both describing and explaining cross-country differences.

Societies are at an intersection when it comes to how children are treated. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of 1989 is today universally ratified, and has led to increased attention around children's rights and welfare across the globe. Further, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development puts the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized people – including children – at the top of the political agenda. The emerging focus on children’s rights, and the growing role of the state as the protector of these rights, underlines the importance of empirical knowledge and theoretical insights about child protection systems. We know that governments’ interpretation of children's rights, and how they choose or are able to respect and protect these rights, varies a great deal across the world. However, the existing typologies of child protection have limitations, and we lack empirical data that allows for global comparisons. CPS-WORLD aims for transdisciplinary research, and will combine innovative methodological approaches and cross-country examinations, applying several data sources and combining survey, vignettes, experiments and text analysis. The project is the most comprehensive cross-country study ever undertaken in this field. It is pioneering in its empirical and critical ambition to explain the decisive factors and mechanisms in child protection systems. We will conduct randomized survey experiments to generate unique data identifying possible causal mechanisms to explain differences in the normative foundation of child protection systems. This project breaks new ground in that it analyses and compares the public’s and the judiciary´s views on children in vulnerable situations. CPS-WORLD will offer theory development in child protection, a field with a nascent research base, that will serve as a tool for both describing and explaining cross-country differences.

Funding scheme:

FRIPRO-Fri prosjektstøtte

Funding Sources