Through Children's Eyes: An initial study of children's personal experiences and coping strategies growing up poor in an affluent Netherlands

This study seeks to promote children’s visibility and their voices within the scope of research on child poverty in rich countries through both a theoretical and empirical exploration. It discusses how recent sociological approaches to the study of childhood can further advance attempts to consider poverty from the perspective of the child. Additionally, to further understand children’s own responses to growing up in poverty, current literature on coping mechanisms among children is considered. Subsequently, this study seeks to give children’s perspectives, on the basis of qualitative in-depth interviews conducted in the Netherlands among six- to sixteen-year-old children (and their parents) of 65 families living at the national minimum benefit level.