He sees the roots of his interest in children’s lives and children’s rights in his Quaker upbringing. His commitment to advancing the understanding of children’s lives and perspectives met like-minded spirits in the early years of childhood studies and he has contributed seminal papers dissecting discourses around children’s development and needs. He has had a strong focus on work in international contexts, using a range of methods suited to the demands of the issue and setting. He sees childhood studies as a well-established field but with a major balance to overcome in the under-representation of majority world issues and research.