Children and young people: Citizenship or residualism?

The pace of economic and social change has quickened in the last decade; our standard of living - and the associated values of the ‘Deakin settlement’ - has been under challenge (Kelly, 1992). Social policy frameworks are under stress as a consequence of the challenge to the model which secured a living wage, arbitrated industrial awards, tariff protection and a regulated economy.

It will be suggested that this ought to spawn a new contemporary formulation of the social citizenship rights of children and families. Change provides the opportunities for practical applications of this; and Victorian policy practitioners have the intellectual tradition and capacity to carry that debate. What is at issue is whether there is sufficient energy to avoid slipping back into outdated nineteenth century formulations of residualist policy.