Sharon Bessell BA (Hons 1st class, Tasmania), PhD (Monash) Senior Public Policy lecturer Crawford School of Economics and Government

Research interests

• Children’s participation in decision making and children’s citizenship
• Rights-based social policy for children
• Children in the care and protection system (out-of-home or foster care)
• Child labour in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, particularly in Indonesia
• Children’s participation in community development
• The physical and emotional punishment of children in Southeast Asia and the Pacific
• Child protection and rights-based policy
• Research with children: Ethics, methodologies, methods

• Gender and poverty
• Gender analysis
• Gender and political representation (focusing on Indonesia)

Country/Regional focus

• Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and the Philippines
• Pacific, especially Fiji
• Australia

Current Projects

Contributing to development worldwide, this research raises Australia's global standing and helps fulfil the values and responsibilities of the Australian people. It strengthens the basis for gender‑related and poverty‑related policy development and service delivery within Australia and helps correct the current over‑emphasis, in measuring domestic gender inequity, on the more privileged women. Because severe poverty and radically unequal gender relations burden many of our South East Asian and Pacific neighbours, development aid remains an important plank of our foreign policy. By providing better tools for measuring poverty and gender inequity, this project can improve our understanding of our region and augment the impact of our aid.

Focusing on the Australian context, which particular emphasis on children and  young people who have experienced the care and protection system, this project explores the attitudes and experiences of both adults and children in relation to children’s and youth participation in decision-making processes.

What is valued about childcare

A detailed study of one childcare centre, this research explores what children (aged four and five years), parents and staff consider to be good quality child care. 

Current Research Grants

Professor TW Pogge; Dr S Bessell; Ms JE Hunt; Dr CH Barry; Dr Liu; Professor AM Jagger; Ms J Sloane; Dr IA Smyth; Professor FA Castillo

ARC Linkage Grant

Assessing development: designing better indices of poverty and gender equity

2009 : $358,000
2010 : $345,000
2011 : $395,000
Total : $1,098,000

Collaborating/Partner Organisations: International Women's Development Agency, Oxfam Great Britain, Philippines Health Social Science Association, Action Against Hunger UK, University of Colorado at Boulder, Oxfam America (Southern Africa Regional Office)
Administering Institution: The Australian National University

Project Summary

Contributing to development worldwide, this research raises Australia's global standing and helps fulfil the values and responsibilities of the Australian people. It strengthens the basis for gender‑related and poverty‑related policy development and service delivery within Australia and helps correct the current over‑emphasis, in measuring domestic gender inequity, on the more privileged women. Because severe poverty and radically unequal gender relations burden many of our South East Asian and Pacific neighbours, development aid remains an important plank of our foreign policy. By providing better tools for measuring poverty and gender inequity, this project can improve our understanding of our region and augment the impact of our aid.

Recently Completed Research Projects

Children's agency in communities: A review of the literature and the policy and practice context (2008)

Dr Sharon Bessell, Professor Jan Mason (University of Western Sydney), Jarrah Hoffman-Ekstein and Annette Michaux (The Benevolent Society), Marie Fox (NAPCAN)
Funding Source: ARACY/ARC NHMRC Research Network Seed Funded Collaboration

This project explored the children’s roles and engagement with their communities, examining the way in which children have been represented in the literature, policy and practice relating to community strengthening.

View Report authored by Jarrah Hoff-man-Ekstein
View Presentation by Sharon Bessell and Jarrah-Hoffman-Ekstein

Children’s experiences and views of physical and emotional punishment (2005-06)

Dr Sharon Bessell, Dr Harriot Beazley (University of Queensland), Dr Judith Ennew (Knowing Children, University of Wales Swansea), Associate Professor Roxana Waterson (National University of Singapore)
Funding Source: Save the Children Sweden

This research records what 3,322 children from eight countries in the Southeast Asia and the Pacific region told researchers about everyday, common violence - both physical and emotional - used as punishment against them. It used a systematic, scientific approach, which sought information about children’s knowledge, experiences and views, using appropriate methods through which they could express themselves easily and without being harmed.

View the monograph
View the research protocol (including details of our methodology, methods used and ethical considerations

Child Labour Work Book: Rights-Based Situational Analysis Data Collection and Report Writing (2006)

Funding Source: Save the Children Sweden
Dr Sharon Bessell and Dr Judith Ennew (Knowing Children, University of Wales Swansea)

This research resulted in a Work Book, designed to be used in any country in the world, provides tools and step-by-step instructions on what data to collect and where to find it. Clear directions are provided on writing a situation analysis on working children and child labour, within overall national contexts. Such contextual situation analysis will develop better understanding of the circumstances of working children, and result in focused programme responses for better protection of working children and the fulfilment of their rights.

View Child Labour Workbook

Publications

Refereed articles and book chapters

• “Forming Partnerships: The Human Rights of Children in Need of Care and Protection
  (with Tali Gal), International Journal of Children’s Rights, forthcoming 2009, accepted August 2008.

• “Children’s Participation in Decision-Making in the Philippines: Understanding the attitudes of policy-makers and service providers”, Childhood, forthcoming May 2009, accepted October 2007.

• “Child Labor in Indonesia” in Hugh Hindman (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Child Labor, Sharpe Publishers, forthcoming 2008, accepted August 2007.

• “Fiji” (with Lynette Petueli) in Jyotsna Pattnaik (ed.) The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children’s Issues Worldwide, Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, 2007.

• ‘Children, Welfare and Protection: A New Policy Framework?’ in Ross McLeod and Andrew MacIntyre (eds.), Democracy and the Promise of Good Governance, ISEAS, Singapore, 2007.

• ‘Ethical Research with Children: The Time for Debate is Now’, Children, Communities Families Australia, Volume 1, Number 1, 2006.

• “Indonesia” in Manon Tremblay and Yvonne Gallagher (eds.), Sharing in Power: Women in Parliaments in Transitional and Developing Counties, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005.

• “Social Cohesion and Conflict Management: Rethinking the Issues through a Gender Sensitive Lens” in Nat Colletta (ed.), Social Cohesion and Conflict Management in Asia, World Bank/Asian Development Bank, Washington, 2000.

• “The Politics of Child Labour in Indonesia: Global Trends and Domestic Policy”, Pacific Affairs, Volume 72, Number 3, Fall 1999.

• “Marriageable Age: The Politics of Early Marriage in Twentieth Century Indonesia”, Indonesia, Number 63, April 1997 (co-authored with Dr Susan Blackburn).

Books

• What Children Say: Results of Comparative Research on Physical and Emotional Punishment of Children in Southeast Asia and the Pacific (with Harriot Beazley, Judith Ennew and Roxanna Waterson) , Save the Children Sweden, Bangkok, 2006.
  

• Women, Gender and Development in Indonesia, ISEAS, Singapore, April 2002 (co-edited with Kathryn Robinson).

• Education for Sustainable Development, Canberra, The Development Studies Network, 1999 (co-edited with Pamela Thomas).

Non-refereed articles and publications

• ‘Research with Children: Thinking about method and methodology’, Involving Children and Young People in Research, on-line publication of ARACY and the New South Wales Commission for Children and Young, forthcoming February 2009.

• ‘Brutal lessons: A culture of violence makes life tough for kids, Inside Indonesia, Issue 92, April-July 2008  [HYPERLINK http://www.insideindonesia.org/content/view/1096/47/]

• Workbook Child Labour:  Rights-Based Situation Analysis, Data Collection and Report Writing, Save the Children Sweden, Bangkok 2006 (with Judith Ennew).
   
• Comparative Research on the Physical and Emotional Punishment of Children in Southeast Asia and the Pacific 2005: Research Protocol, Save the Children Sweden, Bangkok, 2005 (with Harriot Beazley,. Judith Ennew and Roxanna Waterson)

• “Trafficking in Children: Rethinking the Issues through a Human Rights Lens”, Development Bulletin, Volume 66, 2004.

• “Adolescents and family planning: Issues and debates”, Development Bulletin, Number 47, Summer 1999.

• “Working Children and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:  Ten Years On”, Child Workers in Asia, Volume 15, Number 3, September–December 1999.

• “Review Article: Working Children:  Reconsidering the Debates, Report of the International Working Group on Child Labour, Jim McKechnie and Sandy Hobbs (editors)”, International Journal of Children’s Rights, Volume 7, 1999.

•  “Child Labour and the Rights of the Child”, Development Bulletin, Number 44, January 1998.
  “Children At Work”, Inside Indonesia, Number 46, March 1996.

• “Review Article:  Children, Work and “Child Labour”: Changing Responses to the Employment of Children by Ben White”, International Journal of Children’s Rights, Volume 4, Number 4, 1996.

• “The Exploitation of Child Labour:  The Case of the Girl Child”, Development Bulletin, Volume 36, January 1996.

• The Political Dynamics of Child Labour in Indonesia, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Clayton, 1995.

• ‘Children’s agency in communities’ (with Jarrah Hoffmann-Ekstein), presented via the ARACY Access Grid, 27 November 2008
  

• ‘Research with Children: Thinking about method and methodology’, presented at the ARACY/New South Wales Commission for Children and Young People Think Tank on Involving Children and Young People in Research, 11 November 2008.

• ‘Women’s Parliamentary Representation in Indonesia, Proportional Representation and the Quota’ presented at the Crawford Seminar Series, 9 September 2008.

• ‘Youth Livelihoods in Fiji’, Fiji Updates in Suva (University of the South Pacific) and Lautoka, 22 and 24 July 2008.

• ‘Policy, Research and Children’s Participation: The case of child labour in Indonesia’, presented at the ‘Seen and Heard Workshop’, University of New South Wales, September 2007.

• ‘Rights, Respect and Responsiveness: What Children and Young People want from the Charter of Rights’ report for the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services, The Australian Capital Territory, June 2006.

• ‘Children, Work and Citizenship: A Framework for Policy Development and Analysis’ paper presented to the Asia Pacific Childhoods Conference, National University of Singapore, 17-20 July 2006

• ‘Comparative Study of the Physical and Emotional Punishment of Children – Ethical Research with Children’ (with Roxanna Waterson) presented at the Asia Pacific Childhoods Conference, National University of Singapore 2006.

• Children, Human Rights and Social Policy: Is Citizenship the Way Forward?’, paper presented to the Crawford School Seminar Series, The Australian National University, May 2006
  ‘Forming Partnerships: The Human Rights of Children in Need of Care and Protection’ (with Tali Gal), paper presented to the RegNet Seminar Series, The Australian National University, December 2006.

• ‘Children’s and Young People’s Participation in Decision Making in the ACT: Attitudes Opportunities and Barriers’ paper presented to the Youth Coalition of the ACT Annual Conference: From Strength to Strength, 21-22 September 2006.

• ‘International Trends in Integrated Governance’ paper presented to Beyond the Roundabout: Pathways to Integration - Sharing Experiences in Collaborative Practice Symposium, 31 July 2006.

• ‘Children, Human Rights and Participation: Bridging the gap between assumptions and research’ (with Tim Moore), presented at the GovNet International Conference, 29-31 November 2006.

Teaching

• Gender and Policy POGO 8061
• Children and Social Policy POGO 8898
• Community and Social Policy POGO8099 (co-taught with Dr Ann Nevile)
• Policy and Social Capital POGO8094 (co-taught with Dr Ann Nevile)

Consultancies

Contact Details

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