Children and poverty: Why their experience of their lives matter for policy

Children's poverty has long been a central concern for policy makers and policy researchers. The body of extant research conducted and the range of programmatic interventions undertaken by successive governments in this and other countries is extraordinary. Nevertheless, children remain in poverty. Clearly there are many reasons for this, not least of which is the maintenance and intensification of market capitalism with its attendant blatant inequalities. Even so, the moral, political, social and economic imperatives for developing workable responses to children's poverty remain. In this paper we argue that we, in Australia, should adopt an approach increasingly taken in the UK. Drawing on, among other things, the new sociology of childhood, this approach begins not with the expertise of adult researchers and policy makers, but with that of children. We make the case for why children's perceptions and experiences of poverty are key concerns for policy. In doing so, we outline in theoretical terms why children's voices matter. Invoking the new sociology of childhood and the sociology of identity, we begin to sketch a conceptual framework for understanding why policy scholars and makers should carefully attend to the voices of their subjects is sketched - in this case, those of children. Finally, we outline some of the methodological implications of this for undertaking policy research informed by this approach.