Skip Navigation



Health Promotion International Advance Access published online on August 1, 2005
Health Promotion International, doi:10.1093/heapro/dai017
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
20/4/342    most recent
dai017v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by ROBINSON, L. M.
Right arrow Articles by OFFICER, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by ROBINSON, L. M.
Right arrow Articles by OFFICER, S.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Article

Welfare babies: poor children's experiences informing healthy peer relationships in Canada

LYNNE M. ROBINSON 1*, LYNN MCINTYRE 2, and SUZANNE OFFICER 2

1 School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, 6230 South Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3J5
2 Faculty of Health Professions, Dalhousie University, 5968 College Street, 3rd Floor, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3J5

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
LYNNE M. ROBINSON, E-mail: lynne.robinson{at}dal.ca


  Abstract

SUMMARY Positive peer relationships among children living in poverty are important for their well-being, resiliency and mental and physical health. This paper explicates the ‘felt experience’ of children living in poverty, and the implications of these experiences for healthy peer relationships, from a re-analysis of two qualitative research studies in Canada examining children living in food insecure circumstances. Poor children feel deprived, part of the ‘poor group’, embarrassed, hurt, picked on, inadequate and responsible. Poor children internalize their own lack of social resources in feelings of deprivation. They experience negative feelings relative to their peers--inadequacy, embarrassment and hurt. Children do identify group membership but it is not used as a social resource, as it could be, but rather as a symbol of social segregation. Children also feel responsible for ameliorating some of the effects of their poverty and this seems to strengthen their relationship with their mothers. This could equally be translated into peer-related support, such as standing up to poor bashing, or engaging constructively with higher social class peers. Health promotion strategies that seek to foster positive peer relationships and enhance children's sense of belonging should offer novel social environments in which poor children can engage a variety of peers.

Keywords: children; poverty; relationships.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.