Improving Children's Lives: Reducing Child Poverty and Inequality Around the World

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Why do some countries do better than others in giving their children a good start to life? Can governments improve children’s lives by learning from the best performing countries?

This free online course explores these questions using a combination of articles, videos, animations, articles, interactive data visualisations, discussions, and research “bites”.

We will introduce you to key findings from the world-leading research into child well-being conducted at the University of York and findings from major child well-being studies conducted by international organisations such as Unicef. As well as exploring children’s own perceptions of their well-being, we will explore variations in the levels of child poverty, material deprivation and in key health outcomes. In so doing we will explore both inequalities in child well-being and the impacts of inequality on child well-being.

This course will appeal to students and participants from around the globe, particularly those from within the OECD countries.

By the end of the course, you will:

• be familiar with trends in child well-being across rich countries

• be aware of major international resources for the analysis of children’s lives

• understand key debates about the measurement and conceptualisation of child well-being

• be aware of major policy debates relating to children’s lives

Learn with world-leading researchers on child well-being

The course has been developed by the University of York’s Department of Social Policy and Social Work, which is ranked 3rd in the UK and 25th in the world for Social Policy research. The course features contributions from some of the most prominent scholars in the field, including Professor Kate Pickett (author of best-selling book The Spirit Level) and Professor Jonathan Bradshaw (author of the first Unicef ‘Report Card’ to compare child well-being outcomes in rich countries).

This course is aimed at those with a good secondary education and an interest in the social sciences. The level is undergraduate level 1, so equivalent to the first year of a degree course. You do not need any prior knowledge of the field, but a keen interest in how child well-being is researched and understood internationally is essential.