'Good for children'? Local understandings versus ...

Chapter 13 ‘Good for children’? Local understandings versus universal prescriptions: Evidence from three Ethiopian communities by Laura Camfield, Yisak Tafere Young Lives, Oxford University

13.1. BACKGROUND Worldwide there have been many studies about understandings of well-being (reviewed in Alkire 2002; Camfield 2006), i.e. what constitutes and contributes to a life that people have reason to value in particular contexts 1. This chapter reports differences between Ethiopian children and their caregivers in expressed understandings of a good life and what is needed to achieve this, and explores whether the capability approach can be used to bridge the gap between shared local understandings of a good life and the universal prescriptions of global bodies such as UNICEF on what is ‘good for children’. It uses quantitative and qualitative data from Young Lives comprising group interviews and activities with a sub-sample of children (aged 11 to 13), caregivers, and community informants from three urban and rural communities (Addis Ababa, a remote site in Tigray, and a less remote one in Oromia) that explore what constitutes well-being or a good life for children in their community 2. The qualitative data is supplemented by analyses of responses from children and their caregivers to questions on their values, aspirations, and experiences of subjective well-being in the second round of Young Lives survey 3. The chapter begins by briefly reviewing literature on understandings of well-being among adults and children in Ethiopia and describing the methodology and measures used to generate the data reported in the Results section. It then contrasts the diverse understandings of children and adults and explores the extent to which they can be usefully understood within Nussbaum’s meta-framework of central human capabilities. The capability approach pioneered by Sen and Nussbaum has influenced conceptualisations of wellbeing, although Sen refuses to ground and potentially limit the approach with a definitive list of basic capabilities and thresholds for their achievement in the manner of theories of human needs 1

This is the definition of well-being used throughout the paper, which maps more closely to the holistic understandings of respondents’ than interpretations that limit it to welfare, wealth or standard of living. Please note that it is closer to Sen’s definition of agency (standard of living, ‘sympathies’, and ‘commitments’) than well-being (Sen 1987). 2 The qualitative research took place in 2007 and 2008 in five Ethiopian sites to capture ethnically-based regional difference. In each site individual interviews and group activities, including the well-being exercise analysed in this paper, were carried out with a representative sample of children, caregivers, and key local figures such as teachers (n=~50 per site). 3 The household, child, and community questionnaires were administered in 2002 and 2006 to 1,000 children who were born in 1994 across 20 sentinel sites in the five largest regions of Ethiopia (Amhara, SNNP, Tigray, Addis Ababa, and Oromia). 1

(see also chapters one and three of this volume). He argues persuasively that “pure theory cannot ‘freeze’ a list of capabilities for all societies for all time to come, irrespective of what the citizens come to understand and value” because “first, we use capabilities for different purposes, […] second, social conditions and the priorities that they suggest may vary [… and] third, public discussion and reasoning can lead to a better understanding of the role, reach and the significance of particular capabilities” (Sen, 2005:158-160). As an extension of this approach, Nussbaum proposes a list of ten ‘Central Human Capabilities’ such as affiliation and play that “supply a moral and humanly rich set of goals for development, in place of ‘‘the wealth and poverty of the economists,’’ as Marx so nicely put it” (Nussbaum 2003:36). However, not only the achievability of Nussbaum’s list, but also its cross-cultural validity and applicability to different groups (e.g. elderly people, children) has been questioned and requires further exploration with different groups in diverse settings 4 (Clark 2002; Menon 2002; Gough 2004; Robeyns 2005:198-9). For example, Biggeri et al. (2006) have asked children to develop a corresponding list (see chapters three and five of this volume), which comprises education, love and care, life and physical health, and leisure. Biggeri’s approach illustrates the potential of participatory methods in mediating between the ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ approaches to capabilities of Sen and Nussbaum, which Lavers describes as “combining the merits of a wide range of human capabilities and a broad vision of human flourishing, evident in Nussbaum’s work, and the greater potential for underpinning international and inter-cultural consensus of Sen’s” (2008:132). The wide range of ‘goods’ considered necessary for wellbeing in Ethiopia, according to data collected by WeD 5, confirms Lavers’ premise that while “daily food is not the sole priority of the community members […]. As such it is hard to justify any claims that asking people in Ethiopia what goals they have reason to value does not relate to the local reality as their sole focus is on day-to-day survival” (ibid:135). The group-based work with children and adults in Ethiopia reported in this chapter also challenges orthodox understandings of wellbeing, and one of the purposes of the chapter is to explore the extent to which a capability approach to well-being increases the power of existing methodologies. Clearly understanding the ‘capability space’ in different societies is important for understanding what people are then able to achieve, particularly in resource-constrained environments such as Ethiopia. While participatory research has made a major contribution in this regard (White and Petitt 2007), its findings are rarely iterated with theories about the good life and there can be methodological concerns when group data is not contextualised or triangulated with 4

In her defence, Nussbaum (2003) argues that the list is open-ended, intentionally abstract, primarily heuristic (“we need to have an account, for political purposes of what the central human capabilities are, even if we know that this account will always be contested and remade”, p56), and does not license state intervention or suggest that people have to function in particularly ways, merely that they should be able to do so if they wish to (p42-3). 5 The Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC Research Group, see www.welldev.org.uk. 2

other data. Without explicitly saying so, participatory research is usually done only with adults, and often with particular types of adult – local officials, community leaders, NGO staff, etc. Both the methodology, and the implied link to development practice causes it to focus on what people have or are able to do, rather than exploring how they think, feel, locate themselves, and relate to others. Although not the focus of this paper, there is a need to go beyond the acontextual lists generated by participatory research to embed notions of well-being in the lives of individuals and communities and look at processes by which well-being can be attained or maintained, inhibited or undermined, across the long as well as the short-term (Camfield et al. 2009). Numerous empirical studies have applied the capability approach to select indicators to measure poverty and well-being (e.g. Chiappero-Martinetti 1996, 2000; Anand et al. 2005), some in relation to children (Di Tommaso 2006), and further work has been done on operationalisation by Alkire (2007a,b) and Robeyns (2003). For example, Alkire highlights the value of ‘ongoing deliberative participatory processes’ similar to those described in the methodology section in selecting dimensions for measurement, setting weights and thresholds and aggregating of data. The importance of this is highlighted by qualitative research with older children in Ethiopia, which demonstrates considerable diversity in understandings of well-being (Tekola 2008, Camfield and Tafere 2009). These differences are likely to be more pronounced between adults and children as children’s interests and priorities may differ and even at times conflict with those of adults (Qvortrup 1994; Prout and James 1997; Woodhead and Faulkner 2008). In Ethiopia adult understandings have typically been collected through Participatory Poverty Assessments (Rahmato and Kidano, 1999; Ellis and Woldehanna, 2005), open-ended qualitative research (Camfield, 2006), and more recently using subjective measures such as the Global Person Generated Index (Ruta et al. 2004; Bevan et al. 2003) and the WeDQoL (Woodcock 2007). Although the findings of the studies show common elements – health, economic independence, behaving well, having religious faith, and relationships in the family and community – they also demonstrate considerable diversity by location, gender, religion, socio-economic status, and life stage. Far less work has been done with children in Ethiopia on their understandings of well-being, although two recent studies by Tekola (2008) and Tafere (2007, unpublished) produced interesting insights. For example, Tafere’s comparative analysis of two urban communities from Young Lives demonstrated the perceived importance of social relationships, personal characteristics, engagement with environment, and spirituality, while Tekola’s use of community maps with children in Addis Ababa generated interesting information about well-being and ill-being in relation to education. For example, many children liked the school flag, which they described as a symbol of belonging, and the trees and flowers in the school compound. A nation-wide UNICEF study in 2005 on Ethiopian children’s 3

understandings of well-being combined written and pictorial responses to four questions addressing “dreams in life for yourself, your community, and your country” with task-based focus groups on the same theme led by youth facilitators (Continici et al. 2005). Education was the main ‘dream’ as it was seen as “key to having a better life, getting out of poverty, ‘becoming someone’, and being able to help other vulnerable children” (ibid:11), although respect, representation, and rights were also important.

13.2. METHODOLOGY This section describes the two main data collection methods for the data analysed in this paper, the quantitative child and household questionnaires and the qualitative group activities and interviews. 13.2.1. Quantitative data Young Lives administered questionnaires to children and their caregivers in 2002 and 2006. The chapter uses data from 2006 survey (n=979 6) as this addresses aspirations and expectations directly and was collected one year before the qualitative research. The caregivers’ questionnaire has 11 sections covering parental background, including the education of household members; agricultural and non-agricultural activities and time use; household assets, earnings and expenditure; social and political capital and support networks, child care, education and activities; child health (including anthropometry); and caregiver perceptions and attitudes. The child questionnaire focuses on children’s activities, experiences, and relationships, and covers i) school and activities, ii) health, iii) social networks, iv) feelings and attitudes, v) relationships with parents, and vi) perceptions of the household’s economic status and future aspirations. The majority of the data analysed in section 3.1 comes from iv) and vi), supplemented by data on children’s perceptions of school and work from i). 13.2.2. Qualitative data Sites Five sites were selected to capture ethnically-based regional difference and enable comparison between the capital and a smaller urban centre (see Camfield and Tafere 2009 for a description of this process). These included two urban sites (Addis Ababa and a regional capital) and three rural,

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The sample comprised 495 boys and 484 girls, 583 of whom came from rural areas and 396 from urban. 4

two of which were relatively remote. The data analysed in this paper comes from three sites 7 Debre (urban, Addis Ababa region), Bale (near-rural, Oromia), and Angar (remote-rural, Tigray), which are described below. Debre is a densely populated community in the national capital (14,066 inhabitants) which is ethnically and religiously diverse, albeit with a predominance of the Amhara ethnic group and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. While indicators of absolute poverty were low and respondents reported good access to healthcare and education, they nonetheless perceived themselves as poor relative to others in the community, suggesting the presence of material inequality. Debre is located next to the city’s fruit and vegetable market, which affects the inhabitants both positively and negative: there are many economic opportunities for adults and children (e.g. street vending or renting buildings for storage), but the area is dirty due to rotting fruit and vegetables, young women reported harassment in the public spaces, and caregivers were concerned that their children were exposed to activities such as prostitution, gambling, and consumption of alcohol and drugs. Bale is a comparatively small (2,835) and ethnically homogenous community of predominately Oromiffa speaking Orthodox Christians, with a few Muslim families. It has good natural resources (for example, irrigated fields for vegetable growing, lake for fishing) and a temperate climate, but is nonetheless materially poor and has poor access to healthcare and education. Angar is a similar size to Bale and also ethnically homogenous with exclusively Tigrinyaspeaking Orthodox Christians. However, it is more remote as the nearest town is two to three hours walk, and the road is only usable in the ‘dry season’ and has been damaged by vehicles from a local private quarry. Respondents were materially poor, in receipt of government services, and had limited access to domestic utilities. Male educational participation was low, as boys were needed to herd cattle and both health and education services were basic and up to 1.5 hours travel from more remote areas. Sample Equal numbers of boys and girls were sampled in each site using additional criteria such as membership of minority ethnic groups, access to schooling, whether the household was female or male headed, and orphanage. The sampled children were compared with the general population of older children in the five sites to see if there were systematic differences that needed to be taken into account in analysis (see Camfield and Tafere 2009). For example, sampled children were slightly more likely to have engaged in paid work and report a work-related injury in the last 4 years 7

The original names of the communities have been replaced with pseudonyms. 5

and were also more likely to consider their household poorer than others and less likely to aim for university. Methods The qualitative research used a toolkit of methods developed for application in diverse cultural contexts (Crivello et al. 2008), including methods based on conversation, drawing (e.g. the Wellbeing Exercise described below), writing (e.g. a daily activity diary), and other activity-based techniques (e.g. creating a timeline of significant events in the child’s life). The data analysed in sections 4.2 and 4.3 comes from two sources: firstly separate group interviews with caregivers and male and female community informants (for example, government employees, elders) on understandings of well-being and transitions, using focusing questions such as “how are children expected to spend their time?” or “tell me some local sayings/ proverbs that relate to children”, etc. Secondly, a group activity called the Well-being Exercise conducted independently with five boys and five girls aged 11 to 13 in each site. The Well-being Exercise explores what children consider a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ life for children of the same age and gender, living in their community, and what they identify as sources of risk and protection. Children drew pictures individually of children experiencing good or bad lives, and explained their meaning to the group, often eliciting critical or challenging responses (for example, debates over whether a 12 year old child was too young to chew chat – a mild narcotic). This was followed by a collective discussion with children’s suggestions written on a flip chart divided into columns for ‘good life’ and ‘bad life’ so the suggestions could be more easily turned into ‘indicators’ which the participants ranked. Individual children’s ideas and rankings were recorded and followed up in individual interviews (not reported here). Careful attention was paid to the composition of the research team and the nature and scheduling of activities to enable respondents to feel more relaxed with the researchers. Informed consent was obtained at the start of the project; however, the team regularly checked participants’ willingness and reminded them of their right to disengage whenever they wanted to, which was exercised on several occasions (Morrow 2009).

13.3. RESULTS 13.3.1. Quantitative

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The analysis of the child and household questionnaires was carried out using the whole sample 8 and further analyses were done for subgroups of gender 9, location (rural versus urban), and perceived socio-economic status (grouped as poorer than other households in the community, average, richer than other households in the community). Most sections appeared in both the child and household questionnaires and the data could therefore be compared, for example, on the value of education; future aspirations relating to school and work; and two indicators of subjective well-being. However, we have also reported a section on perceptions of school from the child questionnaire, as education was a component of a good life for children in all sites, and a section on important qualities for children, future expectations, and the ages at which children are expected to make certain key transitions from the household questionnaire as these provide useful background. Most of the data was ordinal so the significance of differences could not be tested statistically; however, this was done for the subjective well-being indicators and the ages for key transitions using independent sample t-tests or ANOVA with a post-hoc Scheffe test, as appropriate. Children’s perceptions of schooling and work When children were asked what the best things about school were the most common response was ‘learning useful skills’ (34.1%, range 29.5% to 36.6%), followed by ‘teachers are good’ (20.8%, range 17.9% to 24.1%). When asked about the worst things, the overwhelming response was ‘nothing’ (27.7%, 20.6% to 34.8%) and this response was particularly common among girls (34.8%), perhaps indicating their awareness of the gender disparities in access to education that exist at all levels 10. The second most common response was ‘students fighting’ (18.4%, 15.8% to 22.4%). Conversely, in the group activities children, particularly girls, talked at length about shortcomings in the school infrastructure (for example, dirt, the absence of drinking water and toilets), and also about teacher absenteeism and violence. There are also some interesting differences between groups, for example, ‘lack of toilets’ is more of a concern for girls (7.4%) than boys (2.8%), which reflect the fears about sexual violence in mixed or isolated toilets articulated by girls during the community mapping activity. ‘Lack of [drinking] water’ is similarly a greater concern in rural (10.4%) than urban areas (5.4%), partly because urban schools are in better repair,

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n=979 for the child questionnaire and 980 for the household. These analyses were repeated using just the qualitative sample (n=60) but no significant differences were found. 9 In the case of the household questionnaire this was the gender of the child, not the respondent, which illustrates how expectations for children are shaped by the child’s gender, but not how these are shaped by the identity and experiences of the respondent. 10 Figures from the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (2000) report that 62.1% of girls who are old enough to have completed primary school have never been to school (EFA 2007:49), although this figure has declined in the 2005 DHS report (60.4% of 20-24 year old women). 7

but also because in some rural areas children travel up to an hour and a half to attend school so cannot return home if they need water or food during the day. Adult perceptions of i) important qualities for children to have, ii) future expectations, and iii) appropriate ages for key transitions Respondents were asked to endorse three qualities from a potential 14 11 as the most important for children to have; all groups chose the same qualities with only minor variations in percentages, namely hard work (mean 24.4%), independence (mean 18.3%), and religious faith (mean 13.1%). Respondents across all groups also reported similar future expectations from their children, even where they had migrated for education, work, or marriage. For example, while on average 82% of respondents expected their children to continue living close, over 95% expected some degree of financial, practical, and emotional support, both for themselves and their other children, and 91% expected help with family work. Urban respondents were most likely to expect the child to continue living close, rural least likely; however, this did not indicate an interruption of relationships as rural respondents were more likely than urban to expect their children to care for their younger siblings, and for them when they became old. Perhaps unsurprisingly respondents from poorer households were most likely to expect financial support from their children in the future, and this expectation is supported by similar assertions from children, particularly in relation to their mothers. There were also few significant differences in the ages children were expected to make key transitions or fulfil certain responsibilities (Table 1), even though these came out strongly in community focus groups (Tafere and Camfield, 2009), although girls were expected to marry and have children earlier than boys. Rural children were also expected to become financially independent and leave the household earlier than urban ones, which may reflect differences in their parents’ educational aspirations discussed later in this section. Table 13.1: Caregivers’ preferences regarding the timing of key transitions Caregiver Age NAME should earn money to support household

Urban

Rural

22.9 22.2 (4.24) (4.65) 21.1 20.8 (4.24) (3.72) Age NAME should leave f/t education 23.9** 23.0** (4.43) (3.88) Age NAME should be fin independent 24.9** 23.7** (5.35) (4.05) Age NAME should leave household 27.1* 26.1* (6.30) (4.95) Age NAME should get married 29.0 28.1 (6.63) (5.36) Age NAME should have child Age in years (standard deviation). Significance level **p=