Subverting neighbourhood normalcy and the impacts on child wellbeing in Malta

Abstract

Children's health and wellbeing are influenced by multiple factors in different environments including the family, the neighbourhood and the wider social context. This study, through in-depth interviews with children belonging to different familial compositions, explores how within three deprived Mediterranean Maltese neighbourhood communities, children's wellbeing is affected in diverse ways. It explores how the marital status of the parents is perceived in the neighbourhood's cultural and social context and how the child experiences repercussions of the familial status, which indirectly determines the child's wellbeing. It emphasises how the history of the place shapes the norms which are socially accepted in the locality, thus highlighting that health and wellbeing is contingent to place. Moreover, the socio-economical changes that occur across time in a place may alter the norms and affect people's wellbeing in different ways. It also shows how children are affected by the prevalent gendered norms and processes transmitted in the neighbourhood and how they are contingent upon the neighbourhood in which one lives. This emphasises that local place has an important role on the health and wellbeing of children, even in relation to their familial marital status.