Maintains that the United Nations Charter, which calls for "respect for human rights...without distinction to race, sex or religion" is commonly violated, particularly with respect to girls. Presents a lesson portraying dilemmas faced by four girls in different parts of the world as they confront problems. (CFR)

Explores, in a reprint of the 1989 Junior Division National History Day winning paper, the history of some technological developments in Pennsylvania's coal mining industry. Examines the "breaker boys," youths who sorted coal in severe working conditions. Introduces Ellen Webster Palmer, who addressed the problem by organizing the Boys'…

The Indian Children's Parliament (Rajastan, India) emerged from the Social Work and Research Centre (later known as the Barefoot College), which provides academic and vocational classes at night for rural working children. These children contribute to family incomes, but previously their opinions were not acknowledged. Students elect 17 Parliament…

Focuses on the use of primary sources to help students learn about children from the past. Offers resources and teaching ideas on topics such as children living during the frontier, the American Revolution, the U.S. Civil War, slavery and civil rights, and immigration. (CMK)

Context: Little is known about substance use, work characteristics, and injuries of youth from migrant farmworker families. Some evidence suggests that migrant youth may be at greater risk for substance use and work-related injuries than nonmigrant youth. Purpose: The aim of this study is to compare substance use, employment, and injury data from…

Recounts an ethnographic study of children's work in Lima, Peru, examining concepts of work, family, and childhood; adult representations and norms passed on to children through work; and child's point of view regarding work and how it evolves with time. Argues children and parents' views and practices regarding work and socialization give a…

Draws on publications, agency records, professional literature, and historical studies of the reformers who lobbied for regulation of child labor and compulsory school attendance. Examines the role of social workers in implementing the reforms and reactions of low-income families affected by the laws. Notes that professionals' failure to…

Explored the complex interrelationship between the family, child work and migration, the role of the family in decision making and migration process, and the economic benefits of labor migration for the child's family. Found that migrants' family-based contacts in location and recruitment process were important. Determined priorities identified by…

Discusses education issues in 1840-1870 for children of coalfield workers. Focuses on the Leicestershire and Derbyshire (England) coalfield children. Describes gender education strategies, mining legislation that considered youth as a labor source, and coalmine owners' goal to produce an educated workforce. States education had positive effects on…

Draws on ethnographic fieldwork in southern Bolivia to explore how rural Bolivian youth negotiate structural constraints on choices of work versus secondary education, including local versus urban location, economic resources, parental attitudes, gender, family characteristics, social networks and support, and peer role models. Suggests the notion…

Argues that the primary reason for Mexican American students' low academic achievement was the agrarian belief system, shared by both Mexicans and Whites, that valued children's labor in the fields more than in the school house. (SM)

Data from North Carolina and South Carolina in 1910 indicate that racially segregated labor markets and racially unequal school systems affected school enrollment of African-American and white children. Research focusing on the textile industry suggests that school enrollment expansion was constrained by limited availability of educational…

Provides a historical overview of the prerevolutionary Russian government's attempts at youth vocational education. Although the people favored these efforts, political opposition often weakened the policy. Entrepreneurial vocational schools and school/business cooperative efforts flourished in this environment. Briefly discusses selected schools…

Summaries are presented, by state, of labor standards legislation passed during 1984. Significant actions included laws concerning wages, child labor, school attendance, occupational safety and health, working hours, equal employment opportunity, worker privacy, labor relations, private employment agencies, employment and training, plant closings,…

Presents a series of excerpts from the UNICEF report, "The State of the World's Children 1997." The excerpts focus on the abysmal state of education for many children in developing countries. Grinding poverty, child labor, and a lack of educational support have produced a near-global crisis. (MJP)