The quality of the caregiving environment is one of the most impactful elements on youth’s development, with evidence suggesting these experiences are embedded at the neural level. This chapter reviews empirical research characterizing relations between parenting and child and adolescent brain development with respect to a full continuum of maladaptive to adaptive parenting behavior. We consider evidence directly linking parental factors on neural indices of development, as well as growing evidence characterizing individual differences in neurobiological susceptibility to the caregiving environment. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for this research.

The child welfare system is primarily designed to serve children who have been maltreated, a form of parenting that is arguably the most deleterious that children can experience. The latest national data indicate that there were 618,000 children in the U.S. Who were maltreated in 2020, at a rate of 8.4 per thousand children (Administration for Children and Families, 2020). Beyond being direct victims of child abuse and neglect, they may experience a multitude of environmental risks, including poverty, parental mental illness, parental substance use, and family and community violence (Hecht & Hansen, 2001; McKenzie et al., 2011). These contextual risks lead to a variety of adverse outcomes for maltreated children that span developmental domains (Jonson-Reid et al., 2012; Jones Harden et al., 2016; Toth & Manly, 2019). The features of the parenting that maltreated children experience may exacerbate or compensate for these contextual risks, and influence their short- and long-term developmental trajectories.

In this chapter, we begin with the definition of culture and a discussion of theoretical frameworks for understanding the influences of culture on parenting. We discuss the meta-analysis studies examining the links of parenting styles and child outcomes across culture groups. We then provide a qualitative review of selected empirical studies on parenting in four cultural contexts: (1) low- to middle-income countries of sub-Saharan Africa, (2) Southeast Asian countries, (3) refugee families from sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, and (4) refugee and immigrant families in Western destination countries. These four cultural contexts were selected because: (1) parenting practices in these cultural contexts have been understudied, despite the strong need for research-based interventions to prevent/reduce risks and promote resilience in children living in those communities; and (2) the unique sociocultural characteristics or processes of these contexts create several new directions for parenting research. Implications of the research findings for policy and intervention are also discussed. We conclude the chapter with a summary of new themes in the research on culture and parenting.

In 2019, migration due to humanitarian crises has reached an unprecedented high with more than 272 million people not residing in their homes. As around 50 percent of recent refugees and immigrants worldwide were underaged, adverse experiences linked to migration hit them during critical periods of youth development. Strong families can provide resources to protect youth development amid seeking refuge and immigration. Specifically, effective parenting behavior was found to buffer the negative impact of adversity. In response to the increasing numbers of migrants and refugees worldwide, several receiving countries have modified their refugee policies, with consequences for the post-migration living circumstances of refugee and immigrant families. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the impact of selected refugee policy domains (right to asylum, detention, family unification) on parenting behavior. We focus on the United States and Germany as the two Western countries with the largest populations of immigrants and refugees based on their population sizes. Although to different extents, both countries restricted their refugee policies since immigration has started to increase in 2015. Mechanisms through which refugee policies affect parenting include parent-child separation, hardship, access barriers to support services, experiences of community violence and demanding asylum policies. Apart from specific regulations for unaccompanied minors in Germany, children’s needs for positive development are left widely unattended in the current refugee policies of both countries. Interdisciplinary research needs to empirically substantiate cascading effects from refugee policies to family- and individual-level processes such as parenting and child development. A better understanding of these links can contribute to support immigrant and refugee families upon arrival, reduce emerging disparities and promote pluralistic societies of tomorrow.

Employment and earnings are the cornerstone of economic well-being for families worldwide, with the responsibilities of parenting occurring alongside paid work. For this reason, as well as for early educational enrichment, children spend a fair amount of time under the care and supervision of nonparental providers or in settings other than their home environment while caregivers work. This chapter focuses on families with young children age 0-5 and considers the context of work and employment for parents, the role of child care and early education as supports for working parents, and the theoretical and empirical linkages between parents’ work contexts and parenting. Many employment circumstances, such as unpredictable work schedules, work during nonstandard hours, and temporary work arrangements, make the combination of work and parent roles more difficult, while other characteristics, such as flexible work schedules, can support parents in fulfilling their dual roles. Early care and education can provide crucial support for parents’ work but is not always affordable or available during parents’ work hours. The chapter concludes with a discussion of U.S.-based public policies that can support work, earnings, and child care and thus promote economic security and stability for families and parenting.

This chapter explores the changes that AI brings about in corporate law and corporate governance, especially in terms of the challenges it poses for corporations. The law scholar Jan Lieder argues that whilst there is the potential to enhance the current system, there are also risks of destabilisation. Although algorithms are already being used in the board room, lawmakers should not consider legally recognizing e-persons as directors and managers. Rather, academia should evaluate the effects of AI on the corporate duties of boards and their liabilities. By critically examining three main topics, algorithms as directors, AI in a management board, and AI in a supervisory board, the author suggests the need for transparency in a company’s practices regarding AI for awareness-raising and the enhancement of overall algorithm governance, as well as the need for boards to report on their overall AI strategy and ethical guidelines relating to the responsibilities, competencies, and protective measures they established. Additionally, the author argues that a reporting obligation should require the boards to deal with questions of individual rights and explain how they relate to them.

This chapter explores some philosophical quandaries facing the natural law outlook, with particular emphasis on the prospects for a natural law account of human rights. The chapter begins by considering challenges to natural law’s reliance on the notion of human nature. It then examines the role of time in natural law theories, focusing on the question of whether natural law changes. Next, the chapter looks at the place of rights in the natural law tradition, critically discussing the suggestion that the notion of rights is at odds with the core themes of the natural law outlook, before considering what natural law has to offer to human rights theory. Finally, I turn to the place of God within natural law theories, raising the issue of whether natural law assumes a theistic worldview. I argue throughout the chapter that a hermeneutic and historicised view of natural law, which sees it as shaped by and discovered through human social practices, holds important advantages in responding to each of these challenges.

This chapter by the law scholar Antje von Ungern-Sternberg focuses on the legality of discriminatory AI which is increasingly used to assess people (profiling). Intelligent algorithms – which are free of human prejudices and stereotypes – would prevent discriminatory decisions, or so the story goes. However, many studies show that the use of AI can lead to discriminatory outcomes. From a legal point of view, this raises the question whether the law as it stands prohibits objectionable forms of differential treatment and detrimental impact. In the legal literature dealing with automated profiling, some authors have suggested that we need a ‘right to reasonable inferences’, i.e. a certain methodology for AI algorithms affecting humans. von Ungern-Sternberg takes up this idea with respect to discriminatory AI and claims that such a right already exists in antidiscrimination law. She argues that the need to justify differential treatment and detrimental impact implies that profiling methods correspond to certain standards. It is now a major challenge for lawyers and data and computer scientists to develop and establish those methodological standards.

In this chapter, law and technology scholar Jonathan Zittrain warns of the danger of relying on answers for which we have no explanations. There are benefits to utilising solutions discovered through trial and error rather than rigorous proof: though aspirin was discovered in the late 19th century, it was not until the late 20th century that scientists were able to explain how it worked. But doing so accrues ‘intellectual debt’. This intellectual debt is compounding quickly in the realm of AI, especially in the subfield of machine learning. Whereas we know that ML models can create efficient, effective answers, we don’t always know why the models come to the conclusions they do. This makes it difficult to detect when they are malfunctioning, being manipulated, or producing unreliable results. When several systems interact, the ledger moves further to the red. Society’s movement from basic science towards applied technology that bypasses rigorous investigative research inches us closer to a world in which we are reliant on an oracle AI, one in which we trust regardless of our ability to audit its trustworthiness. Zittrain concludes that we must create an intellectual debt ‘balance sheet’ by allowing academics to scrutinise the systems.

In this chapter, Fruzsina Molnár-Gábor and Johanne Giesecke consider specific aspects of how the application of AI-based systems in medical contexts may be guided under international standards. They sketch the relevant international frameworks for the governance of medical AI. Among the frameworks that exist, the World Medical Association’s activity appears particularly promising as a guide for standardisation processes. The organisation has already unified the application of medical expertise to a certain extent worldwide, and its guidance is anchored in the rules of various legal systems. It might provide the basis for a certain level of conformity of acceptance and implementation of new guidelines within national rules and regulations, such as those on new technology applications within the AI field. In order to develop a draft declaration, the authors then sketch out the potential applications of AI and its effects on the doctor–patient relationship in terms of information, consent, diagnosis, treatment, aftercare, and education. Finally, they spell out an assessment of how further activities of the WMA in this field might affect national rules, using the example of Germany.

This essay demonstrates the relationship between rights, natural law, and civic friendship by showing how the latter, the aim of law according to classic natural law theory, cultivates a culture of care for the other for one’s own sake, which is the basis of rights protections. It considers these connections in the teachings of key contributors to the classic natural law tradition, Aristotle and Aquinas, and engages their ideas with how rights are understood in modern liberal theory. The focus on the good regime of civic friendship responds to some contemporary concerns over the abstractness of human rights. While rights protections exist because the virtue of human beings cannot be depended upon, they still depend upon a standard of civic friendship that habituates citizens into regarding others as having absolute worth which finds its experiential origins in friendship.

In this chapter, the law scholar Christoph Krönke focuses on the legal challenges faced by healthcare AI Alter Egos, especially in the European Union. Firstly, the author outlines the functionalities of AI Alter Egos in the healthcare sector. Based on this, he explores the applicable legal framework as AI Alter Egos have two main functions: collecting a substantive database and proposing diagnoses. The author spells out that concerning the database, European data protection laws, especially the GDPR, are applicable. For healthcare AI in general, the author analyses the European Medical Devices Regulation (MDR). He argues that MDR regulates the market and ensures high standards with regard to the quality of medical devices. Altogether, the author concludes that AI Alter Egos are regulated by an appropriate legal framework in the EU, but it has to be open for developments in order to remain appropriate.