Between Care and Control: Age Assessments and the Regulation of Unaccompanied and Asylum-Seeking Children

This article offers a critical conceptual review of age assessments in England and examines their implications for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC). Drawing on Foucault's theories of biopower and governmentality, age assessments are conceptualised as technologies of control that set the parameters for who is deemed ‘deserving’ of care and protection and who is excluded from child welfare systems. Rather than serving neutral or protective functions, it is argued that age assessment processes frequently involve coercive techniques, culturally contingent assumptions and the subordination of social work ethics to border enforcement imperatives. The paper argues that strengthening safeguarding requires a shift towards participatory, rights-based approaches that presume minority in cases of doubt, centre children's voices and resist coercive assessment practices. Through a rights-based and antioppressive lens, the paper situates age assessments within a broader framework of securitized migration policy, racialized suspicion and diminishing professional autonomy. This contribution advances current debates by showing how age assessment functions as a governing practice, while identifying pathways for ethical resistance and child-centred reform.