Sociological Perspective on Child Poverty: A Critical Literature Review

Abstract

The objective of this article is to comprehend how and from which perspective sociology focuses on child poverty and to explore the way it poses the problem. In this context, the article reveals the main contents and general character of sociological perspectives on child poverty and discusses the deficiencies, limitations, and prejudices of the literature through an investigation into which approaches are adopted and which themes are focused on. A critical literature review method was used in the article. Two approaches emerged: the structural and phenomenological approaches. Based on these approaches, some results were obtained.These were that, within the structural approach, a child-oriented research approach is lacking since the focus is on such factors as family structure, race/ethnicity, space/neighbourhood, gender, social expenditures/support applications. The gender dimension particularly needs to be considered as a prominent theme in childcare. The quality of the relationship with the social policy field is significant for the literature in terms of both social policy as an integral dimension of child poverty as well as methodological limitation and constraint- lack of childspecific statistical data production. Finally, our research concluded that the number of macro-oriented studies that have adopted a structural approach was not high because of the limitation and constraint of statistical data production in the literature in Turkey.

Keywords

• Sociology
• child poverty
• literature
• structural approach
• phenomenological approach

Çocuk Yoksulluğuna Sosyolojik Bakış: Eleştirel Bir Literatür Değerlendirmesi

Abstract

Bu makalenin sorunsalı sosyolojinin çocuk yoksulluğuna nasıl ve nereden baktığını, diğer bir ifadeyle sorunu ortaya koyuş tarzını anlamaktır. Bunun için alanda hangi yaklaşımların benimsendiği ve hangi temalara yoğunlaşıldığı incelenerek çocuk yoksulluğuna sosyolojik bakışın temel unsurları ve genel karakteri ortaya çıkarılmakta ve literatürdeki eksiklikler, sınırlılıklar, önyargılar tartışılmaktır. Makalede eleştirel literatür taraması yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Yapısal yaklaşım ve fenomenolojik yaklaşım olmak üzere iki yaklaşım ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu yaklaşımlardan hareketle bazı sonuçlara ulaşılmıştır: Aile yapısı, ırk/etnisite, mekan/muhit, toplumsal cinsiyet, sosyal harcama/destek uygulamaları gibi etmenlere odaklanan yapısal yaklaşımda çocuk-odaklı araştırma yaklaşımı eksiktir. Ön plana çıkan bir tema olan çocuk bakımında toplumsal cinsiyet boyutunun özellikle dikkate alınması gerekmektedir. Gerek metodolojik sınırlılık ve kısıt – çocuklara-özgü istatiksel veri üretiminin yetersiz olması – gerek sosyal politikanın çocuk yoksulluğunun ayrılmaz bir boyutu olması bakımından sosyal politika alanı ile kurulan ilişkinin niteliği literatür için önem taşımaktadır. Son olarak, Türkiye’deki literatürde istatiksel veri üretimindeki kısıt ve sınırlılıktan dolayı yapısal yaklaşımı benimseyen makro-yönelimli çalışmaların neredeyse yok denecek kadar az olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır.

Keywords

• Sosyoloji
• çocuk yoksulluğu
• literatür
• yapısal yaklaşım
• fenomenolojik yaklaşım

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