In contemporary times, corporate philanthropy is positioned as an effective means to 'solve' a variety of social problems. Childhood obesity is one such 'problem' that has captured the interests of schools, corporations, industry groups and a number of 'not-for-profit' players. In this paper, I critically examine how the private sector uses the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore ways in which children and young people are being positioned as change agents for families through school health promotion initiatives in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach: The paper maps and describes the kinds of policies and initiatives that directly or indirectly regard children as…

In contemporary times, organisations across all sectors of society have been encouraged to collaborate and be 'part of the solution' to childhood obesity. This has led to a proliferation of anti-obesity/healthy lifestyles programmes that are funded, devised and implemented by private sector players (e.g. McDonald's, Nestlé) in schools across the…

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised huge concerns for the mental health of an entire generation of children. But the pandemic may represent only the tip of a mental health iceberg -- an iceberg we have ignored for far too long. For the first time, "The State of the World's Children" examines the mental health of children and adolescents.…

The policies and practices of early childhood teaching in Aotearoa New Zealand have been an ongoing site of political, economic, social and cultural contestation. Competing values and beliefs regarding experiences of both the child and the teacher have been central to the contesting. Helen May (2001, 2009) tracks these tensions through the waxing…

Normalising practices as a tool for controlling the body and bodily processes have been well-documented using Foucault's theories, including debates around breastfeeding. In this article we explore how the ideas of "normalisation" of the bottle-feeding culture of infants in New Zealand early childhood settings has become the accepted…

Adverse parenting practices, including child maltreatment, interfere with children's adjustment and life outcomes. In this article, Ronald Prinz describes the Triple P--Positive Parenting Program, designed to improve parenting population-wide. Prinz offers four main reasons to take a population approach. First, official records grossly…

Using international data on child well-being and educational attainment, this article compares child well-being in the United States to member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Multiple measures of child well-being are analyzed, such as material well-being (including poverty, unemployment, and income…

A wide array of health policies and initiatives have emerged in New Zealand recently in an attempt to resurrect a presumed "lost", adventure-loving, physically capable and non-obese Kiwi kid. Chief among these is "Mission-On"--a 67 million dollar package of 10 initiatives designed to explicitly target the eating and exercise…

The purpose of this paper is to review recent developments related to the development of indicators of educational progress in the context of the Post 2015 deliberations to generate a new international architecture for educational investment through to 2030. There have been a plethora of suggestions and several parallel consultation processes…

This report reviews the conceptual debates and existing data sources that relate to three ambiguous and controversial targets included in the post-2015 education framework: Relevant Learning Outcomes; Knowledge, Skills, Values, and Attitudes (for education for global citizenship and sustainable development); and Teachers and Safe, Inclusive, and…