This paper considers some of the ways in which representations of people experiencing poverty and disadvantaged places continue to be informed by ideas of individual inadequacy, dependency and disorder. Drawing on media reportage of poverty during the Glasgow East by-election in July 2008, it argues not only that people defined as ‘poor’ and locales that are severely disadvantaged continue to be ‘othered’ through such narratives, but also that this provides a clear indication of the ways in which the politics of poverty and state welfare are increasingly being fought-out in the media. It is argued that such misrecognition amounts to social injustice and stands in the way of progressive approaches to poverty and social welfare.

In a recent review of the mental health policies of its 42 member states in the European Region, the World Health Organization highlighted the need for further analysis of service user involvement in the policy making process. In the UK, a plethora of recent government policies and initiatives have stressed the importance of service user involvement in the design and delivery of health and social services. Their input is described as a fundamental requirement of a modern, flexible, responsive healthcare system. This paper reviews mental health policy in Northern Ireland, which has undergone a period of unprecedented activity and explores the extent to which service users have influenced the process of policy design and development. It raises questions about the extent to which a genuine commitment to and investment in user involvement has been achieved and comments on the prospects for the future.

Irresponsible and excessive consumption of alcohol and the associated problems it carries in its wake have become one of the key concerns for central government both in terms of community safety and public health. In response to the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England (DoH, 2007), the Department of Health (DoH) have announced a series of measures, one of which is to pilot screening and intervention for alcohol use programmes in a variety of locations, of which one is within a probation setting. This paper reports on the findings of a project that pre-empts the DoH initiatives, thus providing the opening comments in what is sure to be a debate about a new strategic and evidence-based approach to dealing with problematic alcohol use. The paper provides data and discussions on the Screening and Brief Intervention (SBI) project that screened 3,900 detainees in the Charles Cross custody suite in Plymouth, England during the period March 2007 to March 2008.

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study on the politicisation of domestic violence as it relates to the experiences of disabled survivors and argues that definitions of domestic violence are currently being debated within the disability and domestic violence spheres. Data are drawn from interviews with participants who have been active in politicising this issue and are affiliated to either the disabled people's movement or the movement against domestic violence in England and North Carolina. Although this issue is becoming increasingly politicised, this paper argues the process is currently marked by widespread discrepancies in defining domestic violence experienced by disabled people.

This article contributes to debates about agency (meaning the behaviour of individuals) and structure, by drawing on empirical research into personal debt. Consideration of debt allows for debate about agency and structure beyond the narrow confines of welfare, and for the examination of agency in relation to citizens at different points in the broader socio-economic structure, not solely poor people. Based on the research findings, themselves grounded in interviewees' experience, the question of why two people in the same material circumstances will have different experiences becomes reframed as why two people whose exercise of agency is the same, face very different outcomes? It is argued that while the research supports a ‘both-and’ rather than ‘either-or’ approach to understanding agency and structure, a ‘both-and’ approach still does not fully capture the experience of interviewees. The key point is that the exercise of agency is overlaid onto structural inequality, and it is understanding the exercise of ‘agency within structure’ that is critical.

The purpose of this themed section is to bring together a set of papers that highlight children's perspectives of poverty and disadvantage. The articles selected explore the experiences, paid and unpaid resource contributions, and perspectives of children who face economic adversity in different countries across a range of diverse settings. They reveal some of the complexity of children's lives using different methodological approaches drawn from a spectrum of qualitative research with disadvantaged children that is growing and changing as it responds to new and innovative ways of engaging with children. The themed section includes findings from a qualitative longitudinal study in the UK, findings from a survey of children's views in Norway that includes a qualitative component, and snapshots across time from seven years of research with working children in Indonesia. These papers, coupled with an extensive review of the growing body of literature on children's perspectives on poverty present a valuable insight into a developing field of research.

Underpinning Labour's welfare-to-work policies is an assumption that employment will benefit disadvantaged children and their families. However, the effect of low-income and unstable employment on lone mothers and their children is uncertain. This article draws on interviews with children drawn from a qualitative, longitudinal study of low-income working family life, to explore the accounts of those children whose mother's entry into the labour market was unsuccessful. The article examines how children experienced their mother's employment and the impact of ‘failed’ work transitions on their well-being and their perceptions of the value of work for them and their families.

Family relations have for many years been acknowledged as having a protective impact on children's development if positive and as representing a risk factor if negative. Studies based on statistical information have demonstrated an overrepresentation of a number of family problems in low-income families. Does this image change with children themselves as informants on child–parent relationships? The article examines Norwegian children's perception of parental acceptance, support and monitoring in low-income families compared to children living in families from all income groups.

While the causes of child labour are multifaceted and complex, economic disadvantage is generally identified as an important contributing factor. Child labour is also cited as perpetuating poverty. The precise relationship between child labour and poverty is, however, contested. This paper aims to deepen understanding of the relationship between children's work and poverty by focusing on children's views and experiences. Drawing on research with children in Indonesia, this paper examines two questions. First, how do working children define and experience poverty? Second, how do working children view the relationship between their work and poverty?

The purpose of this review is to examine agency in the worldwide literature on children's perspectives on poverty. By definition, asking children about their lives and responses to living in poverty assumes that they are competent actors – this is one of the positive features of the new and burgeoning literature on children's perspectives. Findings from research in poorer and richer countries are summarised and compared, and children's agency is categorised using frameworks proposed by Ruth Lister and John Micklewright into a number of different types, including self-exclusion, exclusion of children by other children, ‘getting by’, ‘getting (back) at’, ‘getting out’, and ‘getting organised’. The review concludes with suggestions on where more research is needed on children's agency in the context of poverty.