This article introduces the concepts of diaspora and transnational networks to research on children with migrant backgrounds. It is based on interviews with children who live in a Swedish multicultural area and the research questions focus on issues relating to diasporic consciousness and diasporic practices from a child's perspective. The results show how the children negotiate their identity and belongings to places, how they make their own distinctions between home and homeland and how in everyday life they actively contribute to sustaining transnational kin networks. Interrogating the competent childInspired by the new childhood sociology, the notion of the competent child has in the last two decades become prevalent in childhood research. 1 The competent child involves an understanding of the child as 'reflexive, autonomous

Developmental social welfare and developmental social work have been on the agenda in South Africa since liberation, but little has been reported. Founded in the historical context of radical community work in the freedom ght, developmental social work has found ways to empower groups and communities, in spite of an economic policy that does little to support it.

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Feminism's relationship to maternity as a part of women's lives has been marked by ambivalence and doubt. Feminist analyses has concentrated on maternity as a sphere for socialpolitical intervention and on the cultural representations of motherhood. But maternity as part of almost every womans life and lived expericence has been seen by feminists as a major arena for patriarchal oppression and reproduction of traditional gender roles and therefore analysed with doubt and distrust. In the article I argue for the need for a feminist research on the phenomenology of maternity. The empirical investigation of family strategies and maternity in 25 Danish single mother families, carried out by the author, showed an example of maternity as a base for autonomy and selfdetermination. The single mothers emphasized that their children and their work was their basis in life. Maternity was a source of pride and empowement for the mothers. The possibility to make their own decisions regarding themselves and their children was mentioned as a major advantage. The single mother's experiences raise the question if maternity as autonomy and selfreliance is only possible outside two parent relationship. The author argues, that this is not the case, but the development of a nurturing fatherhood which takes repronsibility for nuturing values both in private life and in relationship to the labour market and social policy is a prerequisite.

The article investigates the welfare regime of the free Lithuanian Republic from the perspective of children's policy. The main principles of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -child protection, child provision and child participation -serve as indicators for the level of child orientation. The article analyses legal and institutional issues related to the implementation of the Convention in Lithuania in the first decade of Independence 1990 -2001. Furthermore, it compares Lithuanian policy with the three welfare regimes identified by Esping-Andersen. Our results indicate that Lithuanian policy shows a low level of child orientation and that the Lithuanian welfare regime does not correspond to any of the welfare regimes in Esping-Andersen's typology. Lithuania still shows traits from the former Soviet regime. The new liberal extreme market orientation is not modified by social support institutions, and is combined with conservative ideologies on women and family.