Based on research about after-school experiences and dilemmas conducted over a four-year period with employed parents and their children, this book draws on the stories these parents and children told--often using their actual words--to emphasize the wide variety of children's after-school arrangements, children's movement over time in and out of different arrangements, and the importance to children of multiple facets of their after-school arrangements, not simply the presence or absence of an adult caretaker. The book also emphasizes that children are not randomly assigned to after-school arrangements. Rather, parents and children struggle to reach optimal solutions to what are often difficult child care dilemmas. To understand these dilemmas, and the diverse strategies that families adopt, one must attend to the individual situations of children as family members understand them.
This book was written to contribute to the development of new family and work policies and practices by illuminating the difficulties families face and their consequences for children. Written for psychologists, sociologists, and other social scientists who study families, maternal employment, child care, or child development, it will also be useful for parents, educators, community leaders, and public policymakers concerned about the well being of children whose parents are employed.

Although pupil disaffection has been a major concern to professionals, policy makers and researchers for quite some time, recent professional books in the area tend to focus on behaviour and exclusion from schools. Despite considerable government funding in both LEA's and schools- to promote new measures to improve school attendance, non-attendance at school is a relatively neglected topic as far as serious researched-based literature is concerned. This book will be the first in several years concerned with non-attendance.
Previously unpublished research material in the book will provide a multi-disciplinary evaluation of practice at LEA, whole school and individual levels.

First published in 1998.This text reviews current knowledge and research in key areas of adolescent sexuality, focusing on the implications of this for young people's sexual health. The book includes chapters on adolescent sexual knowledge, teenage relationships and sexual behaviour, HIV/AIDS education, sexual identity, peer education and the prevention of teenage pregnancy. The book is aimed at all those who work with young people, including those involved in health education, youth work, sex education and those in youth organisations. The book is written in straightforward language, with the aim of disseminating relevant research to all those who work with young people. The focus of the book is on understanding the implications of research in this area for young people's sexual health, risk reduction and education.

Using the examples of attachment theory and language development, part one of this book elaborates a cultural approach to early development. Part two considers children's emerging capacities for empathy, perspective taking and social understanding, exploring how young children negotiate, talk about and play out relationship themes. The way children learn through relationships is examined in Part three - which covers topics such as "scaffolding" learning, and how children learn to collaborate with each other. Part four returns to the issue of cultural variation, asking how far textbook accounts of early social relationships reflect particular cultural beliefs and practices, and taking examples from such diverse contexts as Cameroon, Guatemala, Italy, Japan and the United States.

The problems of studying families arise from the difficulty in studying systems where there are multiple elements interacting with each other and with the child. How should this system be described? Still other problems relate to indirect effects; namely the influence of a particular dyad's interaction on the child when the child is not a member of the dyad. While all agree that the mother-father relationship has important bearing on the child's development, exactly how to study this--especially using observational techniques--remains a problem. While progress in studying the family has been slow, there is no question that an increase in interest in the family systems, as opposed to the mother-child relationship, is taking place. This has resulted in an increase in research on families and their effects.
This volume, by leading figures in child development on families, attests to the growing sophistication of the conceptualization and measurement techniques for getting at family processes. The third in a series that aims to address topics relevant to the developmental problems and developmental disabilities of retardation, this volume is divided into two parts. Section 1 presents basic family processes and approaches for describing family dynamics. It deals with these issues from a broad perspective, including studying families at dinner, families in different cultural contexts, and the understanding of family in nonhuman primates. Section 2 looks at family processes in the service of studying families at-risk. The risk factors include poverty, malnutrition, and developmental delay and retardation. The study of family processes in these contexts provides data on family dynamics as well as how these dynamics impact on the children's developing competence. This volume will be informative for researchers, clinicians, and educators from a variety of disciplines and settings. The editors' aim is to bring a greater clarity to issues concerning the family life of children and highlight new research and possibilities for intervention.

In the burgeoning research literature on adolescents, the relative paucity of work examining ethnic variations in developmental processes is a glaring gap, particularly because approximately one third of American young people now come from an ethnic minority background. A primary factor in this research imbalance has been the lack of training in methods and research instruments needed to properly study ethnically diverse populations. This book was developed in response to this need.
Its chief objective is to present recent theoretical, conceptual, and methodological advances in the study of ethnicity and development during adolescence. The chapters address fundamental and enduring issues concerning the incorporation of ethnicity into research designs. Topics such as demographics, "ethnicity-friendly" research paradigms, and practical challenges that arise throughout the research cycle are addressed by scholars who have "been there" and learned how to successfully study the effects of race and ethnicity on developmental processes and outcomes. Established scholars and newcomers to research, working both in academic and applied settings with adolescents as their focus, will find this book a valuable resource.

Young and Homeless in Hollywood examines the social and spacial dynamics that contributed to the construction of a new social imaginary--"homeless youth"--in the United States during a period of accelerated modernization from the mid 1970s to the 1990s. Susan Ruddick draws from a range of theoretical frameworks and empirical treatments that deal with the relationship between placemaking and the politics of social identity.

In answering these questions, Janet Sayers highlights the revolution wrought in both sexes' psychology by adolescence, particularly by its fantasies of divided selves and loves and of 'boy crazy' grandiosity and romance.
Illustrated throughout with fascinating examples from a groundbreaking study of adolescent memories and dreams, Boy Crazy presents an engaging account of this little-researched period of human development. Sayers also draws on her own work as a therapist, and weaves in vignettes from fiction and film, to demonstrate the significance we attach in adulthood to our experiences as adolescents. She suggests that men and women respond differently to the sexual awakening that takes place during their teens, and to their own memories of that part of their life. In relating the findings of her research the author also explores to what extent the theories of Freud, Jung and feminism shape our understanding of the formative effect of adolescent experiences and emotions.
Boy Crazy provides a fascinating insight into the repercussions of adolescence on our adult lives and loves and will appeal to the general and specialist reader alike.

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The formation of identity in adolescence is the most central concept in psychological and sociological studies of young people. Most theories to date assume that adolesence share the same conditions under which their identities are formed. Personality Development in Adolescence is a collection of work by leading researchers that considers different contexts affecting personality and identity development. Three main contexts are considered: cultural, family and life-span development.
Of central importance to developmental psychologists, this collection will also be valuable to social workers, teachers, nurses and all those whose work involves young people

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Full Contributors:
Susan Grieshaber, Queensland University of Technology, Anna M Bower, Queensland University of Technology, Keith Gilbert, Queensland University of Technology, Virginia Casper, Harriet K Cuffaro, Steven Schultz, Jonathan G Silin and Elaine Wickens, all at Bank Street College of Education, New York, Ann Farrell, Queensland University of Technology, Lyn Martinez, Principal Education Officer, Equity Programs Unit, Queensland, Bronwyn Davies, James Cook University, Australia, Glenda McNaughton, University of Melbourne, Australia, Susan Danby, Queensland University of Technology, Kathy Lowe, Teacher, Australia, Margaret White, Macquarie University, Australia

Children as Consumers explores how children become socialised into the consumer society, how they respond to advertising and other sales promotions, what they like and dislike, what they believe and disbelieve, and whether they need to be protected through special legislation and regulation.
Children as Consumers will have wide appeal to students of psychology, sociology and media studies. It will also be useful to professionals inadvertising and marketing, media commentators and business studies students.

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Bringing together the leading researchers on children, adolescents, and the media, this books offers their cutting-edge, 'big picture' ideas for the future of research and scholarship in the field. Individual chapters focus on topics such as the role of big data in media research, digital literacy, parenting in the era of mobile media, media diversity in the digital age, the impact of media on child development, children's digital rights, the implications of 'intelligent' characters and parasocial relationships, and the effectiveness of transmedia for informal education. Several chapters also explore the theoretical and methodological challenges facing children's media researchers. Offering new directions for research, the contributors consider the implications of the changing media landscape for parents, educators, advocates, and producers. Leading scholars from North America, Europe and Asia, grounded in different theoretical and methodological traditions, join forces to discuss the impact of growing up in a media- saturated world, and to stimulate thinking about the field of children and media in unexpected ways. This book was originally published as two special issues of the Journal of Children and Media.

The recent review of the Diploma in Social Work highlighted the fact that children and young people who are in care have less successsful records of educational achievement than their peers. Social Work with Children encourages students to view the educational experiences of the young people they will work with seriously and to provide them with the necessary information to do so with confidence and authority. It takes account of the problems asssociated with inter-agency and inter-professional work drawing upon the authors own practical experience and research. Illustrative case studies are provided.

This book is about learning and ethnography in the context of technologies. Simultaneously, it portrays young people's "thinking attitudes" in computer-based learning environments, and it describes how the practice of ethnography is changing in a digital world. The author likens this form of interaction to "the double helix," where learning and ethnography are intertwined to tell an emergent story about partnerships with technology. Two school computer cultures were videotaped for this study. Separated not only by geography -- one school is on the east coast of New England and the other on the west coast of British Columbia on Vancouver Island -- they are also separated in other ways: ethnic make-up and inner-city vs. rural settings to name only two. Yet these two schools are joined by a strong thread: a change in their respective cultures with the advent of intensive computer-use on the part of the students. Both school communities have watched their young people gain literacy and competence, and their tools have changed from pen to computer, video camera, multimedia and the Internet. Perhaps most striking is that the way they think of themselves as learners has also changed: they see themselves as an active participant, in the pilot's seat or director's chair, as they chart new connections between diverse and often unpredictable worlds of knowledge.

This text provides a comprehensive overview of the issues, research and debates relating to children and the experience of childhood in late 20th-century Britain. It addresses such key issues as child poverty, juvenile crime, child protection and childrens' rights and their implications for the development of policy and the provision of services for children. A key feature of the book is its examination of the changing nature of childhood, both in terms of adult and child expectations and perceptions. In addition, the book provides a synthesis of recent empirical research, theory and policy and presents first-hand accounts from children and parents.

The idea that Britain, the US and other western societies are witnessing the rise of an underclass of people at the bottom of the social heap, structurally and culturally distinct from traditional patterns of "decent" working-class life, has become increasingly popular in the 1990s. Anti-work, anti-social, and welfare dependent cultures are said to typify this new "dangerous class" and "dangerous youth" are taken as the prime subjects of underclass theories. Debates about the family and single-parenthood, about crime and about unemployment and welfare reforms have all become embroiled in underclass theories which, whilst highly controversial, have had remarkable influence on the politics and policies of governments in Britain and the US. This text addresses the underclass idea in relation to contemporary youth. It focuses upon unemployment, training, the labour market, crime, homelessness, and parenting. It should be of interest to students of social policy, sociology and criminology.

Increasingly children are being seen as competent social agents in their own right, rather than as inchoate versions of adults. This poses questions for how we understand the social worlds of pre-adolescent children and their relationships with each other, as well as adults.
This volume explores children's relationships from a variety of theoretical and methodological standpoint, through the use of a wide range of empirical data. A practical application of the children's social competence model, it focuses on children's social interactions, as opposed to what children's social competence means from the adult perspective of researchers and policy makers. It looks at the ways in which children are allowed, by adults, to be socially competent.

"Youth in Prison" tells the story of youths in a "model" juvenile prison program--a program created after a class action lawsuit for inhumane and illegal practices. It captures the lives of these youths inside and outside of prison: from drugs, gangs, and criminal behavior to the realities of families, schools, and neighborhoods. Drawing on experience that encompasses twenty years of juvenile justice research and policy analysis, the authors spent two years scrutinizing the prison's attempts to combine accountability and treatment for youths with protection for the public. Situating these within the larger social and political context, the authors have fashioned a book about all of us: those kept, those charged with their keeping, and the society that condones and demands this imprisonment.

This volume demonstrates the power of art therapy as a tool for intervening with children from violent homes. Emphasis is given to the short-term setting where time is at a premium and circumstances are unpredictable - because within this setting, mental health practitioners often experience a sense of helplessness in their work with the youngest victims of abusive families.; In this new edition, the author describes the intervention process from intake to termination, highlighting the complex issues involved at various levels of evaluation and interpretation. The text is augmented with 95 children's drawings, which serve to fill the gap between theory and reality.; Specific topics include: inherent frustrations for therapists working in battered women's shelters; what to include in art evaluation; evaluating child abuse and neglect; group art intervention in shelters; and art expression as assessment and therapy with sexually abused children.

Weaving personal narrative with a synthesis of feminist mothering theory and psychoanalytic theories of narcissism, Isaac D. Balbus describes his effort to share in the care of his daughter during her first four years. "Emotional Rescue" is a poignant reflection on the connections between the problems in his child-rearing practice and the development of his child-rearing theory.

A text which addresses the relationship between childhood, competence and the social arenas of action in which children live their lives. Taking issue with the view that children are merely apprentice adults, the contributors develop a picture of children as competent, sophisticated social agents, focusing on the contexts which both enable and constrain that competence.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415916135

This work examines the way in which personality and identity of the pupil is shaped by his or her experiences in school. The text considers the way in which teachers in secondary schools are working, and to some extent living, with adolescent pupils for the majority of time in their weekday waking lives. The book examines: to what extent teachers provide both positive and negative role models for pupils to follow; the factors restricting the ability of teachers to teach effectively; and conversely, what factors work to their advantage.; The text provides an overview of the debates and research into areas of: teaching children about controversial subjects such as sex and drugs; gender differences; identities; peer groups; relations with adults; and beliefs and values.

This work examines the way in which personality and identity of the pupil is shaped by his or her experiences in school. The text considers the way in which teachers in secondary schools are working, and to some extent living, with adolescent pupils for the majority of time in their weekday waking lives. The book examines: to what extent teachers provide both positive and negative role models for pupils to follow; the factors restricting the ability of teachers to teach effectively; and conversely, what factors work to their advantage.; The text provides an overview of the debates and research into areas of: teaching children about controversial subjects such as sex and drugs; gender differences; identities; peer groups; relations with adults; and beliefs and values.