Goldfarb Kathryn E
University of Chicago, 1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Harvard University, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, 61 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2015 Oct;143:271-8. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.11.036. Epub 2014 Nov 18.
This article explores the unintended consequences of the ways scholars and activists take up the science of child development to critique the Japanese child welfare system. Since World War II, Japan has depended on a system of child welfare institutions (baby homes and children's homes) to care for state wards. Opponents of institutional care advocate instead for family foster care and adoption, and cite international research on the developmental harms of institutionalizing newborns and young children during the "critical period" of the first few years. The "critical period" is understood as the time during which the caregiving a child receives shapes neurological development and later capacity to build interpersonal relationships. These discourses appear to press compellingly for system reform, the proof resting on seemingly objective knowledge about child development. However, scientific evidence of harm is often mobilized in tandem with arguments that the welfare system is rooted in Japanese culture, suggesting durability and resistance to change. Further, reform efforts that use universalizing child science as "proof" of the need for change are prone to slip into deterministic language that pathologizes the experiences of people who grew up in the system. This article explores the reasons why deterministic models of child development, rather than more open-ended models like neuroplasticity, dominate activist rhetorics. It proposes a concept, "ethics of engagement," to advocate for attention to multiple scales and domains through which interpersonal ties are experienced and embodied over time. Finally, it suggests the possibility of child welfare reform movements that take seriously the need for caring and transformative relationships throughout life, beyond the first "critical years," that do not require deterministic logics of permanent delay or damage.
本文探讨了学者和社会活动家运用儿童发展科学来批判日本儿童福利制度所产生的意外后果。自二战以来，日本依靠一套儿童福利机构（育婴院和儿童之家）来照顾国家监护的儿童。机构照料的反对者转而提倡家庭寄养和收养，并引用国际研究，指出在最初几年的“关键期”将新生儿和幼儿安置在机构中对其发展有害。“关键期”被理解为儿童接受照料塑造神经发育以及日后建立人际关系能力的时期。这些论述似乎有力地推动了制度改革，证据基于关于儿童发展的看似客观的知识。然而，伤害的科学证据往往与福利制度植根于日本文化的观点同时出现，这暗示了其持久性和对变革的抗拒。此外，将普遍适用的儿童科学作为变革必要性“证据”的改革努力容易陷入决定论的语言，将在该制度下成长起来的人的经历病态化。本文探讨了为何儿童发展的决定论模型而非像神经可塑性这样更具开放性的模型主导了社会活动家的言辞。它提出了一个概念“参与伦理”，倡导关注人际关系随着时间推移得以体验和体现的多个层面和领域。最后，它提出了儿童福利改革运动的可能性，这种运动认真对待一生中关爱和变革性人际关系的需求，超越最初的“关键几年”，且不需要永久延迟或损害的决定论逻辑。
