Administration Without Consideration: Public Administration’s Oversight of Children

Abstract

American children regularly encounter government through routine interactions with public administrators. Because of the unique nature of working with children, these interactions differ from those with adults. Although the public administration literature focuses on implementation of public policy and interactions between citizens and government, few studies contemplate children as different from adults in the administrative context and thus inform the interactions between public administrators and children. As a result, there is an absence of basic understanding of children within the context of public administration—who they are, how they think, what they need. This oversight generates a theoretical shortcoming, as well as real consequences for children.