‘Street Children’ in India: A New Framework for Research

The article is an attempt to review the available literature on the genesis of ‘street children’ in India. It synthesises the key research findings and examines the frameworks followed by empirical studies to understand the prevalence and origin of this cohort. This review, based on academic as well as grey literature generated by civil society organisations in the country, reveals that research studies and reports generally adhere to the popular definition proposed by UNICEF in the 1980s to define a ‘street child’, even in the contemporary era. Therefore, this approach disregards the diverse and distinct experiences of ‘street children’ and their agency in constructing their everyday lives. The article further explores how the quantitative methodology adopted by the studies limits the exploration of complex social realities, especially in unveiling the underlying structural factors of this phenomenon. Based on the review and analysis, the article argues for the necessity of conducting qualitative research studies by utilising the concept of children in street situations and adopting a framework of structural analysis that considers the interface of institutions as well as the interactions of human actors to provide context-specific explanations.