Research Area 1: Social Justice for Children

In the first research area we will develop the normative framework for examining child poverty and social justice and engage with the issue of social justice for children. Here, the overall aim is to flesh out a characterization of social justice that both gives sufficient consideration to the special case of children and provides useful and employable guiding principles for the treatment of child poverty in the following research areas..

Research Area 2: The Injustice of Child Poverty

In the second research area we examine child poverty from a social justice perspective and develop a theory of the different forms of injustice that are connected to child poverty. The research in this is area is the main focus of our project and it can be further distinguished into four topics: (a) the deprivation of capabilities and functionings as the core injustice of child poverty; (b) structural causes of this injustice; (c) the developmental and life course injustice of child poverty; and (d) the different justice status of relative and absolute child poverty. Our main argument here is that child poverty diminishes or even prevents children to achieve those capabilities and functionings that are necessary to develop and sustain well-being and well-becoming.

Research Area 3: Responsibilities towards Children living in Poverty

In the third research area we ask what should follow from the developed insights into the violations of social justice through child poverty and who is responsible to secure social justice for children living in poverty. In particular, we will follow up two topics: (a) the different responsibilities of core agents in the child’s ecology and (b) the major obstacles to secure social justice for children affected by poverty.