G.K. (Kristoffel) Lieten (Belgium, 1946) studied in Antwerp, The Hague, Reading and New Delhi, where he obtained degrees in linguistics, political science and history respectively. He has worked extensively on political developments in South Asia and on issues related to development sociology. Lieten has been on the teaching staff at Department of Anthropology and Non-Western Sociology at the University of Amsterdam and presently holds the chair of Child Labour studies at the University of Amsterdam and at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. He is the director of the IREWOC Foundation (Institute for Research on Working Children) and in that capacity Dr. Lieten has initiated several research projects on child labour and child agency in various countries across the globe.

This book examines children living in adverse conditions in Vietnam, India, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Here Lieten addresses the idea of children as self-conscious actors, highlighting issues of child agency, the structural constraints to that agency, and the consequences that this may have for child-centred development work.

Introduction 1. Tradition and Child-Centred Approaches 2. Country Specific: Development Indicators, Child Conditions and Research Areas 3. Methodology 4. Leisure and Daily Life 5. School and Education 6. Child Labour 7. Ideas about Development: Problems and Priorities 8. Conclusions: Structural Constraints and Agency