In 1998, the Foundation for Child Development (FCD) provided Kenneth Land a grant to explore the feasibility of producing the first national composite index of the status of American children that would chart changes in their well-being over time. Important questions needed to be answered: was it possible to trace trends in child and youth well-being over several decades? Could such an index provide a way of determining whether the United States was making progress in improving its children's lives? The Index of Child and Youth Well-Being (CWI) was born from these questions. Viewing the CWI trends from 1975 to present, there is evidence that the well-being of American children lags behind other Western nations. As conditions change, it is clear that the index is an evolving and rich enterprise. This volume attests to that evolution, and what the CWI promises for understanding the progress - or lack of progress - in enhancing the life prospects of all American children.

The monograph disseminates the very topical issue of retirement and its timing as the key to one of the greatest challenges facing ageing societies. Postponing retirement is now almost universally regarded as indispensable in order to relieve European welfare states from the demography-related financial pressures. This seminal study, derived from a statistical analysis of a large-scale survey data, provides a thorough understanding of the micro- and macro-level determinants of retirement timing in contemporary Western Europe. The book is the first monograph to combine the analysis of the retirement attitudes with the analysis of the retirement behaviour within one research. It tackles the question as to whether early retirement can be explained by "early exit culture", triangulating life course theory with a social stratification approach. The author used a novel and innovative approach to obtain the results. The methodology includes: tobit models of proscriptive age norms; simulations of the impact of class structure on a country's average retirement age; competing risks models of different work-exit modalities; duration selection models of retirement timing.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Disasters are an increasingly common and complex combination of environmental, social and cultural factors. Yet existing response frameworks and emergency plans tend to homogenise affected populations as 'victims', overlooking the distinctive experience, capacities and skills of children and young people. Drawing on participatory research with more than 550 children internationally, this book argues for a radical transformation in children's roles and voices in disasters. It shows practitioners, policy-makers and researchers how more child-centred disaster management, that recognises children's capacity to enhance disaster resilience, actually benefits at-risk communities as a whole.

When people -- whether children, youth, and adults -- migrate, that migration is often perceived as a rupture, with people separated by great distances and for extended periods of time. But for migrants and those affected by migration, the everyday persists, and migration itself may be critical to the continuation of social life. Everyday Ruptures illuminates the wide-ranging continuities and disruptions in the experiences of children around the world, those who participate in and those who are affected by migration.

The book is organized around four themes:
- how children's agency is affected by institutions, families, and beliefs
- how families and individuals create and maintain kin ties in conditions of rupture
- how emotion and affect are linked to global divisions and flows
- how the actions of states create ruptures and continuities

Though it may seem hard to believe, it took America's lawmakers some 110 years before they crafted legislation aimed at protecting the welfare of children. Eventually, laws were passed to aid and protect children. This ideal student reference examines and explains in detail 20 such laws that have affected America's youth in various ways. A discussion of the history and impact of each law is followed by a carefully edited version of the law itself. Examples include the National School Lunch Act, which provided free or reduced-cost meals to young students; the Uniform Drinking Age Act, which set the national drinking age at 21; the Fair Labor Standard Act, the first successful federal attempt to regulate child labor; and the Selective Service Act, which required young men to register for the draft.

The landmark laws are divided into three parts: Health and Welfare Laws, Citizenship and Democratic Participation Laws, and Education Laws. The laws are organized chronologically within each section. An introductory overview examines the history of children's issues in federal legislation and explores reform movements and the advocacy of children's concerns. The introduction also makes manifestly clear that students are not an unempowered constituency, and have ample opportunities to make their voices heard. A timeline and appendix will also aid student research, making this volume an indispensable guide to America's laws concerning its young people.

Learn how to incorporate adult play therapy into your practice with this easy-to-use guide

In the Western world there has been a widening belief that play is not a trivial or childish pursuit but rather a prime pillar of mental health, along with love and work. Play Therapy with Adults presents original chapters written by a collection of international experts who examine the diverse approaches and clinical strategies available for successfully incorporating play therapy into adult-client sessions.

This timely guide covers healing through the use of a variety of play therapy techniques and methods. Various client groups and treatment settings are given special attention, including working with adolescents, the elderly, couples, individuals with dementia, and clients in group therapy.

Material is organized into four sections for easy reference:

• Dramatic role play
• Therapeutic humor
• Sand play and doll play
• Play groups, hypnoplay, and client-centered play

Play Therapy with Adults is a valuable book for psychologists, therapists, social workers, and counselors interested in helping clients explore themselves through playful activities.

The present book intends to provide an update on immunosenescence and how deficiencies in the immune system contribute to a higher susceptibility to infections, decline in organ function, reduced vaccination responses, age-related disease and the ageing process itself, negatively affecting longevity. Our focus is on the main changes in immune system cells and their products occurring during the ageing process and the possible consequences for health and disease. This includes: discussion of the modulatory and/or suppressive mechanisms associated with the alterations in T regulatory cells, B regulatory cells and Myeloid Derived Suppressor cells; changes in the immune system observed in chronic neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, lung disease and frailty will also be discussed. Most importantly we provide recent literature information about possible interventions (focusing on physical activity) that could alleviate the negative effects of immunosenescence. The Ageing Immune System and Health is a comprehensive guide on the field intended to all physicians, researchers, professors and students interested on relationship between immune system, ageing and health.

"This book discusses the meaning and practice of British community cohesion policies, youth identities in racially-tense areas and the British government's attempts to "prevent violent extremism" amongst young Muslims"--

"Americans at Midlife" is an exploration of the middle years within the framework of trends in the larger society, including longer life expectancy and an aging population; changes in marriage, divorce, and family composition; increased participation of women in the labor force; and the growth of two-income families.Major interests at midlife center around work and careers, current and future economic well-being, and planning for retirement. Other major concerns involve relationships with younger and older generations: boomerang kids who leave home and return, and aging parents, often healthy and active now, who may need care in their later years.

The book begins with a discussion of how demographic and social changes affect midlife, followed by chapters on work and retirement planning or looking for the good years, the not-so-empty nest, and aging parents. A chapter on mid-life women considers the implications of combining work and caregiving and raises concerns about their economic well-being, given their longer life expectancy and often more limited resources. The book ends with a consideration of policy issues that may affect midlife in the future.

The dominant cultural script is that the Baby Boomers have 'had it all', thereby depriving younger generations of the opportunity to create a life for themselves. Bristow provides a critical account of this discourse by locating the problematisation of the Baby Boomers within a wider ambivalence about the legacy of the Sixties.

This book seeks to place children and young people centrally within the study of the contemporary British home front, its cultural representations and its place in the historical memory of the First World War. This edited collection interrogates not only war and its effects on children and young people, but how understandings of this conflict have shaped or been shaped by historical memories of the Great War, which have only allowed for several tropes of childhood during the conflict to emerge. It brings together new research by emerging and established scholars who, through a series of tightly focussed case studies, introduce a range of new histories to both explore the experience of being young during the First World War, and interrogate the memories and representations of the conflict produced for children. Taken together the chapters in this volume shed light on the multiple ways in which the Great War shaped, disrupted and interrupted childhood in Britain, and illuminate simultaneously the selectivity of the portrayal of the conflict within the more typical national narratives.

At the end of the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of German children were sent to the front lines in the largest mobilisation of underage combatants by any country before or since. Hans Dunker was just one of these children. Identified as gifted aged 9, he left his home in South America in 1937 in pursuit of a 'proper' education in Nazi Germany. Instead, he and his schoolfriends, lacking adequate training, ammunition and rations, were sent to the Eastern Front when the war was already lost in the spring of 1945. Using her father's diary and other documents, Helene Munson traces Hans' journey from a student at Feldafing School to a soldier fighting in Zawada, a village in present-day Czech Republic. What is revealed is an education system so inhumane that until recently, post-war Germany worked hard to keep it a secret. This is Hans' story, but also the story of a whole generation of German children who silently carried the shame of what they suffered into old age.

This book presents a wealth of insights and new conceptualizations for the development of "Assistive Technologies for the Interaction of the Elderly." The book arranges the chaptersaccording to important aspects of maximizing the use value in innovation projects. Every chapter will include an executive summary reporting the main results, a storyline using everyday language, and scientific excursions, wherever useful.

The book shows how an innovation project should be structured towards maximum use value and how a project should be structured in order to make a difference. It describes the useful categorization of the large group of the elderly to maximize the focus of the innovation and demonstrates the user involvement into innovation activities. Of course, the assessment of such innovative projects is discussed as well as the lessons learned . The book also explores the business opportunities and the financial evaluation of aspects of assistive technology.

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By the year 2000 more than half of mainline Protestants will be over the age of sixty. Older adults have special needs to which many pastors are not adequately prepared to minister. Pastoral Care of Older Adults addresses such problems, many of which were identified in an extensive survey of clergy. The book provides practical guidance for parish pastors, and other counselors, to deal with such issues as Alzheimer's disease, the chronically ill, relocation, health crises, grief, depression, anxiety, gender differences, poverty, and the issues faced by the children of older adults.

This book discusses peer group programs and long range community efforts to rehabilitate street youth, gang members, and other youth who have low self-esteem, come from dysfunctional families, and are failures in school and society in general. Through his experience and workshops, Frank has found ways for these youth to deal with their rage and shame in a productive, effective, and edifying manner. The author shows how behavior and attitude improve when the youths learn to curb their feelings of inadequacy by building positive self-esteem. This will be an excellent tool for educators, counselors, social workers, and others concerned with troubled adolescents.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"In this volume, Amy Best offers critical youth studies an epistemological compass, a collection of essays that spans across nations, methods, sexualities, ethnicities, generations and age, reflecting provocatively on how we create knowledge with, for and by youth. This book promises to be a classic for the next generation of scholars perched to engage critically, respectfully, theoretically and provocatively with youth, to inscribe a twenty-first century signature on critical youth studies."
--Michelle Fine, co-author of "Working Method: Research and Social Justice"

"A powerful and compelling book that represents cutting-edge new directions in critical youth studies. This is a passionate call for a critical moral consciousness that will create more humane spaces for today's youth in our complex global culture."
--Norman K. Denzin, co-editor of "The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research"

From youth culture to adolescent sexuality to the consumer purchasing power of children en masse, studies are flourishing. Yet doing research on this unquestionably more vulnerable--whether five or fifteen--population also poses a unique set of challenges and dilemmas for researchers. How should a six-year-old be approached for an interview? What questions and topics are appropriate for twelve year olds? Do parents need to give their approval for all studies?

In Representing Youth, Amy L. Best has assembled an important group of essays from some of todayas top scholars on the subject of youth that address these concerns head on, providing scholars with thoughtful and often practical answers to their many methodological concerns. Theseoriginal essays range from how to conduct research on youth in ways that can be empowering for them, to issues of writing and representation, to respecting boundaries and to dealing with issues of risk and responsibility to those interviewed. For anyone doing research or working with children and young adults, Representing Youth offers an indispensable guide to many of the unique dilemmas that research with kids entails.

Contributors include: Amy L. Best, Sari Knopp Biklen, Elizabeth Chin, Susan Driver, Marc Flacks, Kathryn Gold Hadley, Madeline Leonard, C.J. Pascoe, Rebecca Raby, Alyssa Richman, Jessica Taft, Michael Ungar, Yvonne Vissing, and Stephani Etheridge Woodson.

The growing number of elder men providing hands-on care to loved ones, particularly spouses, undeniably represents a hidden segment of the home care population. With that in consideration, caregiving in communities of color, in particular, is increasing while numbers of informal (unpaid) caregivers are projected to triple by 2030. Despite statistics, studies on African-American men who care for other elders (such as spouses and parents) - indeed, "the hidden among the hidden" - are negligible. This text follows a study conducted by Helen Black, a research scientist focusing on aging, alongside John Groce and Charles Harmon, founders of Mature Africans Learning from Each Other (M.A.L.E.), in which they interviewed elderly African-American men in caregiver roles. As a whole, The Hidden Among the Hidden is unique in its study of caregiving in the areas of subject matter, methodology, and presentation of findings. The men whose attitudes and behaviors toward caregiving are recorded in this book share a wealth of knowledge for other caregivers, gerontologists, healthcare professionals, students, and the community in general.

"Transitions and the Lifecourse" investigates and challenges dominant interpretations of transitions in late life. Amanda Grenier takes a cross-national and interdisciplinary comparative approach to the topic of aging and the life course, yielding a fresh perspective on these transitions as well as considering some innovative strategies for addressing concerns related to them. Scholars and students interested in social gerontology, policy studies in health and social care, and older people's accounts of lived experience will find this book to be a stimulating read.

This handbook offers a practical guide to all aspects of planning, evaluating, and implementing student activities. This work is both a functional handbook and an instructional reference tool. After establishing a basic foundation, they describe activities in specific areas: performance activities, student leadership, and class-related clubs and trips. Sybouts and Krepel present methods for planning and evaluating, financing, using available resources, and identifying legal considerations. They confront frequently raised and often controversial questions about school activities. This comprehensive volume also provides a list of supplementary readings and a bibliography for further study.

More than any other textbook on the market, "Play and Child Development, Fourth Edition," ties play directly to child development. The authors address the full spectrum of play-related topics and seamlessly blend research, theory, and practical applications throughout this developmentally-based resource. Readers will learn about historical, theoretical, and practical approaches to promoting development through integrated play and learning approaches across various age or developmental levels. The book analyzes play theories and play therapy; presents a history of play; and discusses current play trends. It explores ways to create safe play environments for all children, and how to weave play into school curricula. Finally, the authors examine the role of adults in leading and encouraging children's natural tendencies toward learning by playing. Special coverage includes a full chapter on play and children with disabilities, and the value of field trips in supporting learning. This edition offers expanded and/or updated coverage on evidence based play theory, child development, play environments, and early play-based curricula for children of all abilities in various learning contexts. All content in the text is purposefully arranged to guide its readers through key and core topics leading to a comprehensive understanding of play intended to help prepare pre-service teachers to lead and support children's play in a number of contexts: preschools, elementary schools, park systems, and research programs.

This book offers a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich study of the intersections of contemporary Christianity and youth culture, focusing on evangelical engagements with punk, hip hop, surfing, and skateboarding. Ibrahim Abraham draws on interviews and fieldwork with dozens of musicians and sports enthusiasts in the USA, UK, Australia, and South Africa, and the analysis of evangelical subcultural media including music, film, and extreme sports Bibles. Evangelical Youth Culture: Alternative Music and Extreme Sports Subcultures makes innovative use of multiple theories of youth cultures and subcultures from sociology and cultural studies, and introduces the "serious leisure perspective" to the study of religion, youth, and popular culture. Engaging with the experiences of Pentecostal punks, surfing missionaries, township rappers, and skateboarding youth pastors, this book makes an original contribution to the sociology of religion, youth studies, and the study of religion and popular culture.