Combating child poverty has been a priority in European welfare states for decades. Yet the issue remains complex and contested. How should policy be designed to sustainably support children living in poverty and social inequality? And what role do schools play in this process?
Political and social discourse around child poverty often frames children as innocent victims—“the child of the bill”—because their parents are perceived as failing to take responsibility. This framing creates a sense of urgency and legitimizes interventions targeting children. At the same time, however, it obscures fundamental tensions and creates a paradox: children are always economically dependent on the adults in their household, even though those adults may be struggling just as much. Current policies, which increasingly focus on “capitalizing” on equal opportunities, often overlook the unjust socioeconomic conditions in which children and parents live and survive. Parents are easily labeled as “bad parents” if they fail to take advantage of available opportunities, risking stigmatization and sanctioning.
As a result, policy risks becoming symptom-focused, disconnected from deeper social inequalities and structurally unjust conditions that remain invisible.
In Ghent, these dilemmas are reflected in school policy. Practices in Ghent, with the Education Center Ghent as a key actor within a broad network of schools across different education systems, demonstrate the potential of poverty awareness in education.
Schools are prime locations where the impact of poverty becomes visible, but they are also places where poverty blindness occurs. Poverty can, metaphorically, become the “wallpaper” of school practices, leaving schools without essential leverage to adequately support children and families. At the same time, Ghent is developing a diverse range of approaches, from small-scale, supportive initiatives—such as providing school materials and organizing social activities—to more structural interventions that recognize poverty as a systemic and structural phenomenon and integrate this understanding into school policy and educational practice.
This experimental approach shows how locally anchored, poverty-aware school policies can help break the vicious cycle of poverty. It also highlights tensions: how do we ensure that poverty awareness does not place responsibility solely on the child or family, without accounting for broader social and economic contexts? How can schools build bridges with welfare actors, balancing individual support with collective action against inequality?
These questions are being addressed in research under the Pelicano Chair, as well as in the Master’s thesis workshops Poverty and Education I and Poverty and Education II, where researchers and students work with practice partners to explore the tensions between education, policy, and family situations. This transdisciplinary coalition also led to the awarding of the 7th ROSA (Rotary Science Award) in spring 2025.
Exploring this issue underscores the importance of an integrated approach in which combating poverty is not separate from social policy and sound education policy. Instead, these domains should reinforce each other, with attention to the whole family and the child’s living environment. It also calls for partnerships between schools, social services, neighborhood organizations, and policymakers, ensuring that the multiplicity of experiences and needs is addressed.
For policymakers, school teams, and researchers, this means thinking beyond the traditional focus on individual opportunities and blame. It requires embracing complexity and opening schools as socio-educational spaces that also prioritize collective support. In this context, Ghent—with its experimental approach to poverty awareness—can serve as an example of how urban education policy can contribute to structural change, shared responsibility, and socially just policy.