Call for Papers

The World Conference on Child and Youth 2019 (CCY 2019) invites researchers, educators, academicians, and practitioners to send their abstracts for the conference. The conference will be held from 04^th – 05^th July 2019 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The theme of the conference will be “Well-being and Life Chances of Children and Youth in an Interconnected World: A Life Course Approach”.

The reality is that children and youth develop and flourish under widely varying social, cultural and material circumstances both within and across societies. This reality has become increasingly more complex in recent decades due to unprecedented changes that are occurring on a global scale. Increasingly people and families have shown greater mobility, moving across internal divisions (e.g., internal migration) and national borders either voluntarily or involuntarily. The resulting interactions and exchanges across societies and levels of society that result from movement and from modern communication channels have made the life circumstances of children and youth highly variable and dynamic. Such interactions influence and are in turn influenced by the social location of children, youth and families both within their own societies and the world at large. These consequent changes undoubtedly have significant implications for parenting, socialization, growing up and life opportunities afforded to children and youth around the world.

The International Conference on Child and Youth 2019 (CCY 2019), to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, will provide a forum for multidisciplinary groups consisting of experts, researchers, practitioners, policy makers and service providers to deliberate on and consider the well-being and changing life chances of children and youth in a rapidly changing world.  Given the highly complex and volatile nature of the life, the worlds of children and youth in many parts of the world today are highly variable and volatile. Thus, a multidisciplinary and intersectional approach to understanding the actual lived experiences of children and youth that influence their well-being and life opportunities appears warranted.

Although basic research in the core disciplines on children and youth continues to be critically important, the need for transcending conventional boundaries has become increasingly important. Moreover, in a fast changing world, the movement of children, youth and their families across social contexts (e.g., home to school) and geographical boundaries is not necessarily occurring in an orderly and predictable manner in many situations. As a result, the lived experiences of children and youth have also become highly variable and complex. Capturing these varying realities through research has become critically important in order to ascertain how to improve the well-being and life chances of children and youth not only for their own benefit but also to facilitate the development of public policies and strategies to address issues arising as a result. Enriching the scholarly and public discourse on these important issues and others will, we hope, ensure that adult populations become better informed and concerned about the issues connected with the well-being and life opportunities of children and youth in their own societies. Most importantly, the resulting increase in awareness and concern may result in leaders focusing their efforts on fostering optimal development for all.

The World Conference on Child and Youth 2019 (CCY 2019) is being held against this important background and this time of critical opportunities and challenges. CCY 2019 has been conceptualized in terms of three interconnected tracks in order to bring together researchers, policy makers, and service providers. This format is intended to facilitate interaction and the exchange of knowledge and ideas across these three professional constituencies. Our overall goal is to achieve an intellectual synergy among these groups to facilitate the spread of knowledge and a greater understanding of the opportunities for improved developmental outcomes and collaboration among providers, researchers, and policy makers.