Examining Professionals’ Perspectives on the Care of Unaccompanied Minors in the European Context: A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis Informed by Critical-Developmental Psychological Theorizing

This paper draws on key assertions within critical-developmental psychology to examine how generalised representations of concepts about child development are articulated in scholarship about the care of unaccompanied minors. When unaccompanied minors migrate to a new country to claim asylum, they encounter a range of different professionals whose perspectives on their care can be influenced by their professional roles, the immigration system under which they operate, their personal values, and media representations. In this paper, we argue that in addition to these factors, practitioners are influenced by generalised representations of child development more broadly. We conducted a qualitative evidence synthesis of 53 empirical papers comprising European samples of practitioners working across six sectors. Using critical-developmental theoretical assertions about innocence, vulnerability and risk, demarcations between childhood and adulthood, and the ‘othering’ of diverse childhoods, the analysis focused on three themes: (1) contaminated childhoods, (2) citizens of the future, and (3) children on the periphery. We argue that developmental psychology can play an important part in delivering to practitioners critically reflexive practices on how framings of child development can be used to improve the care of unaccompanied minors.