The news of teenagers and even younger children committing ever more serious and violent crimes continues to shock and baffle. The escalating psychological and social toll of youth crime is being paid by all from victims to offenders to parents and siblings to teachers and to the community as a whole. "Adolescent Reputations and Risk" looks beyond traditional theories to examine, from a solid empirical basis, the motivation and values that make some young people choose antisocial over positive behavior, resulting in potent new insights and possible solutions to this ongoing problem.

Synthesizing 15 years of research with delinquent youth, this volume describes the volatile dynamic of child and adolescent social worlds, emphasizing reputation enhancement and goal-setting as bases underlying deviant behavior. In innovative and accessible terms, "Adolescent Reputations and Risk" addresses delinquency throughout the course of childhood and adolescence, offers the first detailed explanation of delinquency by integrating goal-setting and reputation enhancement theories, provides evidence analyzing deviant trends in goal-setting and reputation enhancement terms among primary and high school students, answers key questions on topics such as impulsivity, drug and inhalant use, early-childhood psychopathy, links between ADHD and aggression, and the psychology of loners and includes current data on interventions for at-risk youth, including family and school methods, cognitive-behavioral therapy, wilderness and boot camp programs, and interactive multimedia strategies.

This volume is an essential resource for clinical child, school, and counseling psychologists; social workers; and allied education and community mental health professionals and practitioners."

This collection provides a guide to the legal requirements surrounding children's rights. The book discusses the practicalities and problems of listening to the child in educational, social and health settings.

In this collection, the contributors look at the current spread of universalizing discourses concerning young children across the globe, examining the way these discourses, which purport to describe everyone in a scientific and neutral way, actually create mechanisms through which children are divided and excluded. The contributors to this book employ post-structuralist, postcolonial, and feminist theoretical frameworks.

A must-read book equipping you to better protect your child. Day after day the media reveal the latest cases of child abuse, but do we believe these could happen in our street, our church, our home? Policing Innocence is a ground-breaking book for any adult who cares for a child - family, professionals, church leaders and workers, friends, neighbours. Protecting children is a battle, and Policing Innocence is one of the most powerful weapons available to fight that battle. It empowers you by revealing the truth about the pervasive and invisible dangers children face in their everyday lives. Policing Innocence is the best armour you have to protect them; it is never offensive, always appropriate and totally practical. Drawing on her experience as a police officer in the Paedophile Unit, mother of two, and church member, Rebecca Andrews navigates us through a challenging yet vital issue with an entertaining style full of humour and honesty. This book is one of the most important you can read; it is unique in addressing such essential issues, and its easy-to-read style ensures that you will enjoy it. Policing Innocence has been acclaimed on nationwide BBC radio, and addresses crucial subjects like the Justice System, parenting, the Internet, grooming mechanisms, female abusers, the Sex Offenders Register and critically, why so many abusers target churches. Rebecca addresses the burning 'how does it happen' questions, and with refreshing honesty she tells us how she does her job. Policing Innocence is powerful, challenging, shocking, funny, revealing, un-missable - it is a book your child needs you to read

In low-income U.S. cities, street fights between teenage girls are common. These fights take place at school, on street corners, or in parks, when one girl provokes another to the point that she must either "step up" or be labeled a "punk." Typically, when girls engage in violence that is not strictly self-defense, they are labeled "delinquent," their actions taken as a sign of emotional pathology. However, in Why Girls Fight, Cindy D. Ness demonstrates that in poor urban areas this kind of street fighting is seen as a normal part of girlhood and a necessary way to earn respect among peers, as well as a way for girls to attain a sense of mastery and self-esteem in a social setting where legal opportunities for achievement are not otherwise easily available. Ness spent almost two years in west and northeast Philadelphia to get a sense of how teenage girls experience inflicting physical harm and the meanings they assign to it. While most existing work on girls' violence deals exclusively with gangs, Ness sheds new light on the everyday street fighting of urban girls, arguing that different cultural standards associated with race and class influence the relationship that girls have to physical aggression.

Linda Spear provides a detailed and illuminating overview of the genetic, hormonal, and neurological developments that take place during adolescence, and shows how these changes, along with influential sociocultural factors, interact to produce distinctly adolescent behaviors and thought processes. The tension between taking risks, impulsivity, and self-control a struggle evinced by many adolescents, especially those in therapeutic treatment is also examined for its sources within the brain. The result is a fascinating overview of the adolescent brain, with profound implications for the clinical treatment of adolescents."

In its various manifestations, the campaign to end child soldiering has brought graphic images of militarized children to popular consciousness. In the main, this has been a campaign that has seemed to speak to African contexts without as much reflection on the myriad ways in which the lives of children are militarized in advanced (post)industrial societies. Proceeding from this quite striking omission, the contributors to this volume move beyond the usual focus on the global South. Making what will be an important contribution to a much needed critical turn in the vast and still rapidly growing child soldier literature, they address multifarious ways in which childhood is militarized beyond the global South through enactments of militarism that have drawn much less in the way of critical inquiry.

This book explores the adoption of "active ageing" policies by EU15 nations and the impact on older peoples' work and retirement policy options. It explores the labor market policies (including unemployment benefits, active labor market policies and partial pension receipt) and pension policies (pension principles, early retirement and incentives for deferral) adopted by these nations from the mid-1990s onwards, addressing three main questions. First, to what extent was the EU's vision of "active ageing" adopted in EU15 nations between 1995 and 2010? Second, what was the nature of policy reforms in these nations over this time period? Finally, which sub-groups within the older age cohort were subject to active ageing policies in these countries? The data indicate convergence towards the EU-vision of active ageing is complex, with nations adopting a variety of different reforms and policy mixes, which in turn focus on different groups within the older age cohort.

From politics to popular culture, baby boomers exert a profound impact on America. As they enter middle age and retirement, this generation, unprecedented in size, will confront a vast new realm of problems, choices, and decisions. Their needs will make the "graying of America" the most significant demographic event of our time. As a resource fitted to such an event, Aging: Lifestyles, Work, and Money, provides a definitive, comprehensive source of information about people aged 65 years and older. The information is indexed and included under easy-to-follow headings, allowing the reader to locate facts quickly and as needed, or browse and encounter valuable information serendipitously. More than 180 tables, graphs, and charts provide carefully selected information on: Marital status Living arrangements Family life Geographic location and geographic mobility Transportation and housing Community life Social activity Leisure Crime Citizenship Language Education Income and poverty Finances-assets, savings, debt, and attitudes consumer spending Work and retirement Social Security Vierck and Hodges not only provide exhaustive coverage of vital statistics (including many previously unpublished features), but also offer analytical support--describing trends, offering insights, and providing a framework for understanding the data. This volume is ideally suited to the elderly whose concerns it investigates, as well as to medical and nursing libraries, and anyone interested in the manifold issues associated with the elderly. It includes a bibliography, a listing of Web sites, and an appendix listing world records and fascinating facts, providing a record of some extraordinary achievements of theelderly.

During China's Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong's "rustication program" resettled 17 million urban youths, known as "sent downs," to the countryside for manual labor and socialist reeducation. This book, the most comprehensive study of the program to be published in either English or Chinese to date, examines the mechanisms and dynamics of state craft in China, from the rustication program's inception in 1968 to its official termination in 1980 and actual completion in the 1990s. Rustication, in the ideology of Mao's peasant-based revolution, formed a critical component of the Cultural Revolution's larger attack on bureaucrats, capitalists, the intelligentsia, and "degenerative" urban life. This book assesses the program's origins, development, organization, implementation, performance, and public administrative consequences. It was the defining experience for many Chinese born between 1949 and 1962, and many of China's contemporary leaders went through the rustication program. The author explains the lasting impact of the rustication program on China's contemporary administrative culture, for example, showing how and why bureaucracy persisted and even grew stronger during the wrenching chaos of the Cultural Revolution. She also focuses on the special difficulties female sent-downs faced in terms of work, pressures to marry local peasants, and sexual harassment, predation, and violence. The author's parents were both sent downs, and she was able to interview over fifty former sent downs from around the country, something never previously accomplished. China's Sent-Down Generation demonstrates the rustication program's profound long-term consequences for China's bureaucracy, for the spread of corruption, and for the families traumatized by this authoritarian social experiment. The book will appeal to academics, graduate and undergraduate students in public administration and China studies programs, and individuals who are interested in China's Cultural Revolution era.

Military recruitment will become more difficult in times of demographic aging. The question arises whether demographic change will constrain the capacity of aging states like Germany to conduct foreign policy and pursue their national security interests. Since contemporary military operations still display a strong human element, particular scrutiny is given to the empirical analysis of the determinants of military propensity and military service among youth.

An additional human capital projection until 2030 illustrates how the decline in the youth population will interact with trends in educational attainment and adolescent health to further complicate military recruitment in the future. A concluding review of recruiting practices in other NATO countries provides insight in best-practice policy options to reduce the military's sensitivity to demographic change.

Following this approach, the book gives prominence to a topic that has thus far been under-represented in the greater discussion of demographic change today, namely the demographic impact on international affairs and strategic calculations.

Ever since the killings at Columbine High School created a renewed focus on the problems of adolescent aggression, professionals in education, criminal justice, and social services have been seeking ways to curb its rising tide. This volume examines adolescent aggression from many perspectives--biological, psychological, and social--and analyzes some of the contributing factors to this growing problem. Written by internationally recognized experts in adolescent psychology, this book not only covers the causes of teen violence but, more important, offers solutions. McCarthy, Hutz, and their contributors reveal the precursors to violent behavior, and provide strategies for working with adolescents to prevent future violence. The symptoms and strategies are described clearly in a way that can be understood and adapted by parents, schools, social service agencies, and criminal justice institutions. Topics include: substance abuse; suicide and self-harm; sexual aggression; anger management and impulse control; gang violence; school violence; bullying; resilience; and increasing critical thinking skills. This book is a must-read for anyone who lives, works, or comes in contact with youth.

This text provides insights into the field of international human rights politics - the protection of children and their rights - by looking at the negotiations leading to the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

aChildren and Youth in a New Nation is a rich and welcomed introduction to the many faces of childhood in America from the Revolution to the eve of the Civil War. The history of childhood is often treated as a marginal topic, disconnected from major historical themes. This volume seeks to correct that misperception by demonstrating that the growth of the republic and the emergence of new ideas about childhood and the shifting experience of actual children were inextricably linked.a
--Steven Mintz, Columbia University, and author of "Huckas Raft: A History of American Childhood"

In the early years of the Republic, as Americans tried to determine what it meant to be an American, they also wondered what it meant to be an American child. A defensive, even fearful, approach to childhood gave way to a more optimistic campaign to integrate young Americans into the Republican experiment.

In Children and Youth in a New Nation, historians unearth the experiences of and attitudes about children and youth during the decades following the American Revolution. Beginning with the revolution itself, the contributors explore a broad range of topics, from the ways in which American children and youth participated in and learned from the revolt and its aftermaths, to developing notions of aideala childhoods as they were imagined by new religious denominations and competing ethnic groups, to the struggle by educators over how the society that came out of the Revolution could best be served by its educational systems. The volume concludes by foreshadowing future achild-savinga efforts by reformers committed to constructing adequate systems of public health and child welfare institutions.

Rootedin the historical literature and primary sources, Children and Youth in a New Nation is a key resource in our understanding of origins of modern ideas about children and youth and the conflation of national purpose and ideas related to child development.

Taking a sociocultural approach to understanding violence, the authors in this collection examine how norms of gender, culture and educational practice contribute to school violence, providing strategies to intervene in and address violence in educational contexts.

Nuclear family and kibbutz childrearing practices are compared from a Rawlsian perspective of justice. Based upon the kibbutz educational system, which has reinstituted the family, Geiger and Fischer propose a model of educational change for consideration in the United States. This model is designed to strengthen the nuclear family while improving the prospects of disadvantaged, anomic, and unattached youth.

Geiger and Fischer examine, within a Rawlsian perspective, several child-rearing institutions affecting children. Justice as fairness would consider a child-rearing institution and its inequalities as fair if there are no alternative arrangements under which the prospects of least-advantaged children could be improved. Among these least-advantaged children are those who are neglected, abused, and stripped of self-respect. As the nuclear family disintegrates, the authors ask whether it can fulfill its child-rearing function. Utilizing a self-report study conducted on socialization and delinquency in Israel as well as several other observational studies, the authors demonstrate that in a more egalitarian structure such as the kibbutz, least-advantaged children have more opportunities to develop into autonomous responsible individuals. For Americans, the kibbutz educational system shows new paths for change from nursery school through high school that would allow for greater bonds between the family, school, work, and the community. An emerging sense of community would also stimulate the moral and intellectual growth of disadvantaged youth. This book is recommended to researchers and policy makers in the areas of education, delinquency, and social welfare.

'Street Girls' tells the inspirational story of the Meninadan a Project - a charity established to reach out to the street-girls of Belo Horizonte in Brazil. It will introduce you to the Street Girls themselves and inspire you with stories of how God has brought hope to their lives through Matt Roper and the Meninadanca team. Its personal, readable style coupled with a poignant immediacy make this a uniquely compelling and moving read.

Comparing the educational experiences of adolescents from a variety of 'visible' ethnic minority groups across Europe, and focusing on underprivileged urban contexts, this book reveals the structural inequalities, as well as the often conflicting inter-ethnic relations which develop in classrooms, playgrounds and larger communities.

The past decade brought forth a wave of excitement and promise for researchers and practitioners interested in community practice as an approach based on social justice principles and an embrace of community participatory actions. But, effective community practice is predicated on the availability and use of assessment methods that not only capture and report on conditions, but also simultaneously set the stage for social change efforts. This research, therefore, serves the dual purpose of generating knowledge and also being an integral part of social intervention. Research done in this way, however, requires new tools. Photovoice is one such tool - a form of visual ethnography that invites participants to represent their community or point of view through photographs, accompanied by narratives, to be shared with each other and with a broader community. Urban Youth and Photovoice focuses on the use of this method within urban settings and among adolescents and young adults - a group that is almost naturally drawn to the use of photography (especially digital and particularly in today's era of texting, facebook, and instagram) to showcase photovoice as an important qualitative research method for social workers and others in the social sciences, and providing readers with detailed theoretical and practical account of how to plan, implement, and evaluate the results of a photovoice project focused on urban youth.

The children and grandchildren of South Asian migrants to the UK are living out British identities which go largely unrecognized as dominant voices both inside and outside their communities, seeking to foreground and hold in place alternative positionings of them as primarily Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims or Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis or Panjabi, Gujarati, Hindi, and Urdu speakers. This ignores their everyday low-key Britishness, albeit a Britishness with new inflections. It is this sensibility which marks them as "Brasians."

This handbook describes evidence-based methods of assessing psychological, educational, behavioral, and developmental problems in children and adolescents. It provides state-of-the-art analyses of leading assessment tools and methods. Chapters provide an overview of childhood assessment issues, diagnostic classification systems, interviewing and report writing, traditional assessment tools and methods, such as Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). In addition, chapters address daily living, academic, and social skills, commonly encountered psychological conditions, and developmental disorders, reviewing definitions and etiology, history of assessment and diagnosis, possible comorbid conditions, and current measures and procedures. The handbook also covers specific childhood disorders that often present assessment challenges in children, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, pain, and feeding and eating disorders. Topics featured in this handbook include: Adaptive and developmental behavior scales. Diagnostic classification systems and how to apply them to childhood problems and disorders. Intelligence testing and its use in childhood psychological assessment. Assessment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in persons with developmental disabilities. Self-Injurious behavior in children. Prevalence and assessment of common sleep problems in children. The Handbook of Childhood Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities Assessment is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and related therapists and professionals in clinical child and school psychology, pediatrics, social work, developmental psychology, behavioral therapy/rehabilitation, child and adolescent psychiatry, and special education.

The New Cockney provides a sociolinguistic account of speech variation among adolescents in the 'traditional' East End of London. Embedded in its social context, it focuses on the interaction and social practices within a single community and highlights some of the possible mechanisms for language change.

With 70 per cent of its people under the age of 30, Africa is the world's youngest continent. African youngsters have been largely characterized as either vulnerable victims of the frequent humanitarian crises that plague their homelands, or as violent militarized youth and 'troubled' gang members. Young people's contributions to processes of educational provision, peace building and participatory human development in Africa are often ignored. While acknowledging the profound challenges associated with growing up in an environment of uncertainty and deprivation, African Childhoods sheds light on African children's often constructive engagement with a variety of societal conditions, adverse or otherwise, and their ability to positively influence their own lives and those of others.

Bringing together academic and practitioner points of view, this edited collection shows how violence enters into ordinary, routine practices of childhood and children's experiences. The contributing authors seek to understand how violence is enacted against children in infancy, adolescence, in school, in care, at home and on the street.