Representations of childhood and child poverty in rural communicaties in northern Ghana

Ideas which adults hold about children and child poverty are important contributors to the well-being or ill-being of children, and knowledge about the social constructions of childhood and child poverty are important for addressing overall poverty in developing countries. However, child poverty studies premised on the representations of children and child poverty are very limited. Hence, this research explored representations of children/childhood and child poverty in rural communities in Northern Ghana. The research adopted a qualitative approach, using the agency/structure debate as a theoretical framework for interview analysis. The study was carried out in 4 rural communities in northern Ghana with 2 in the Lawra district of the Upper West and 2 in the West Mamprusi district of the Northern. Both primary and secondary materials were collected. The former were generated from purposively selected household members (both adults and children) and institutional level representatives, and the later gathered from selected institutions. An interview guide and a focus group guide were constructed and used as the main instruments for data collection. The study involved 123 participants from the community level including 55 children, 48 adults and 20 older persons and 18 participants from the institutional level. We explored the normative representations of children (what children should be and behave) and children “in practice” (what they actually are and do in the narratives of the research participants), and we classified them according to different analytical dimensions identified in the research. We also pointed out and analysed the differences in representations of children according to child’s gender and among the different generations of adults. Findings from the research confirm that children’s representations have relevant impact on their poverty status. The implication is that, to address children poverty, policy actions need to give attention to social representations of children and to the specificity of child poverty in the local context.