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Street Children in Nairobi: Gender Differences in Mental Health
Author(s) -
Aptekar Lewis,
CianoFederoff Lynda M.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
new directions for child and adolescent development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1534-8687
pISSN - 1520-3247
DOI - 10.1002/cd.23219998505
Subject(s) - mental health , citation , psychology , library science , state (computer science) , school psychology , counseling psychology , media studies , sociology , psychiatry , pedagogy , applied psychology , algorithm , computer science
Two common hypotheses have been advanced about the origins of street children: that modernization leads to a breakdown of families and that street children come from aberrant families who abandon, abuse, or neglect their children. After being accepted in Latin America, these hypotheses were also accepted in Kenya (Dallape, 1987-1 Kariuki, 1989; Kilbride and Kilbride, 1990-1 Onyango, Orwa, Ayako, Ojwang, and Kariuki, 1991; Wainaina, 1981). Despite the apparent common sense of these explanations, however, it may well be that only a small percentage of street children come from dysfunctional families. We think this is particularly true if street boys are considered separately from street girls.