Starting from approaches that Young Lives has adopted, this chapter identifies fundamental ethics questions and contributes to current debates about research practices, the ethics of longitudinal research with children, and research with communities in developing countries, in a spirit of shared enquiry and learning. It discusses some of the difficulties encountered in fieldwork and strategies for attempting to resolve them.

This chapter summarizes research within Young Lives into early childhood transitions, looking at children?s experiences of early transitions within early childhood and primary education in three of the four Young Lives study countries. Numerous lines of research have converged to produce a compelling case for prioritizing early childhood care and education (ECCE) services.

By examining statistical associations between adverse circumstances in households and outcomes for children, the chapter captures the underlying processes that structure childhood risk. The chapter focuses on crime, economic shocks (such as job loss), government regulations (such as forced resettlement or land redistribution), environmental hazards, housing disasters (for example, fire), the illness or death of a household member and other family adversities (for example, separation of family members).

This chapter contributes to the debate on what constitutes 'good childhood' and well-being by using the bottom-up approach and reporting the diverse opinions of Ethiopian children and their caregivers on what constitutes a good or bad life for children, elicited primarily through group interviews and activities. The chapter contrasts qualitative data from different exercises involving children, caregivers, and community informants who explore what constitutes well-being or a good life for children in their community.

This chapter reports on research carried out with boys and girls, aged 12 to 15, participating in Young Lives in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It focuses on young people?s descriptions, explanations, and experiences of poverty and inequality in two contrasting rural communities and highlights implications for research, policy and practice, and rights. Young people growing up in poor communities are generally alert to inequalities and injustices, and to their own disadvantaged situations.

Government, non-government, and donor organizations have developed a social assistance program known as Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) which has two sub-programs namely public work program (PWP) and Direct Support Program (DSP). PSNP is designed to reduce the vulnerability of poor people to drought and it targets household and in most cases without considering ex ante the issue of intra-household resource distribution.