ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theoretical foundations for research on childhood poverty. It focuses on the role of adaptive preferences, a term, which is important for the Capability Approach in a daily life of improvisation and routine, and looks at imitation as a social practice and the way that children imagine a good life. The children never know which of the mostly voluntary adults will be waiting for them and whether an announced activity will actually take place. Scientific attention to the experiences of children whose daily lives are shaped strongly by poverty takes the form of observing and describing what happens to them, how they handle it, and what responses are made to it. The chapter addresses a specific context of growing up in which preferences are also formed. Imitations, just like displays, are social practices that we observe in many protocols, and particularly the former offer access to the ideas about life of the children themselves.
