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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 book investigates how constructed representations of the child have and continue to restrict children's opportunities to engage in moral discourses, and the implications this has on children's everyday experiences. By considering a moral dimension to both structure and agency, the author focuses on the nature of the images that are used to represent the child and how these sit in contrast to the active and meaning-driven way in which children negotiate their everyday lives. The book therefore argues that 'morality' provides a filter to understand the backdrop for interaction, as well as offering a focus for engaging with the individual as a social agent, acting and reacting in the world around them. Negotiating Childhoods will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, childhood studies, criminology, social work, culture and media studies and philosophy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

Who is that with the long tail? What is making that sound? Who is diving in the pond? Lift the flaps to see what the birds are doing. Some like to play tag, others hide acorns and another builds nests in the strangest of places. With colourful illustrations and simple and interactive text, this is the perfect introduction to birds for little ones. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world famous centre for botanical and mycological knowledge. With two inspiring gardens at Kew in London, and Wakehurst in Sussex, visitors are enchanted with the wonder of plant diversity. Over the past 250 years Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has made innumerable contributions to increasing the understanding of plants and fungi, with many benefits for humankind. Bloomsbury's Lift and Look board books have large cut-out flaps, specially designed for small hands. They also feature bright and beautiful illustrations and fun, engaging text, which children will adore. Available in a range of young children's favourite topics, including Bugs, Garden, School, Dinosaurs and Space.

Concepts of who and what children are and what childhood consists of have changed over time. Our historical and contemporary notions of childhood also change according to the context of the interaction between the child and the state. This book is concerned with various ideas of what childhood consists of where the child is involved with the legal system. An identification of legal concepts of childhood can offer many insights into our treatment of children,the capacities which we expect them (possibly unfairly) to possess and the extent of any protection which they deserve or can expect from those charged with the responsibility for their welfare. Each essay in this collection focuses on a particular legal discipline which centrally involves children whether as litigants, victims or perpetrators of crimes, owners of property, recipients of welfare services etc. The object of the analysis is to assess how children are regarded by lawyers in each discipline; for example, as objects of concern, requiring protection; as autonomous possessors of rights; as lacking in moral consciousness or full mental capacity; or as fully aware of and accountable for their actions. In order to make comparisons with notions of childhood in other contexts, the substantive part of the book will also include essays on the perspectives on childhood at the core of other disciplines including sociology, psychology, philosophy and literature.

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.

This book investigates sociological, demographic and geographic aspects of aging in rural and nonmetropolitan areas of the United States. Population aging is one of the most important trends of the 20th and 21st centuries, and it is occurring worldwide, especially in more developed countries such as the United States. Population aging is more rapid in rural than urban areas of the U.S. In 2010, 15 percent of the nonmetropolitan compared to 12 percent of the metropolitan population were 65 years of age and older. By definition rural communities have smaller sized populations, and more limited healthcare, transportation and other aging-relevant services than do urban areas. It is thus especially important to study and understand aging in rural environments. "Rural Aging in 21st Century America" contributes evidence-based, policy-relevant information on rural aging in the U.S. A primary objective of the book is to improve understanding of what makes the experience of rural aging different from aging in urban areas and to increase understanding of the aged change the nature of rural places. The book addresses unique features of rural aging across economic, racial/ethnic, migration and other structures and patterns, all with a focus on debunking myths about rural aging and to emphasize opportunities and challenges that rural places and older people experience."""

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.

This unique research tool will lead researchers and practitioners to published materials and documents that can provide answers needed for making informed decisions regarding issues related to today's children. Comprised of approximately 1,400 entries, this guide reflects an interdisciplinary approach citing sources from the fields of psychology, education, sociology, medicine, law, home economics, and the arts. Chapter 12, with its focus on creativity, is unique in its coverage of drama, dance, art, and music. The bibliography of music resources by Marian Ritter is the first of its kind.

Appropriate for a wide range of users, this book is designed for students just beginning to seek answers to questions concerning children, as well as professionals with years of experience in dealing with childhood problems. It will also be helpful for those wishing to learn about using databases in the literature searching process. A carefully organized table of contents and complete subject index allow for ease of entry location.

An examination of the cultural values of working class Chicana adolescents with an emphasis on the social, political, and economic factors that shape these cultural values. This book addresses a gap in the literature on youth gangs and youth culture by examining the motivations and issues of gang affiliation, teen pregnancy, and academic failure from the point-of-view of teenage girls. Furthermore, the book emphasizes female participation in gangs as well as the impact that gangs have on non- participating adolescents. The author also discusses how current public policy is based on erroneous assumptions associated with the culture of poverty model. This book attempts to explain what appears to be self-defeating behavior of many Chicana adolescents. It explores the logic underlying their life choices and examines the connection between these choices and larger social processes. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty in ethnic studies, multicultural studies, Hispanic Studies, Sociology, and Women's Studies. In addition social service professionals and related professionals will find it helpful.

The essays in this volume offer fresh and innovative considerations both of how children interacted with the world of print, and of how childhood circulated in the literary cultures of the eighteenth century. They engage with not only the texts produced for the period's newly established children's book market, but also with the figure of the child as it was employed for a variety of purposes in literatures for adult readers. Embracing a wide range of methodological and disciplinary perspectives and considering a variety of contexts, these essays explore childhood as a trope that gained increasing cultural significance in the period, while also recognizing children as active agents in the worlds of familial and social interaction. Together, they demonstrate the varied experiences of the eighteenth-century child alongside the shifting, sometimes competing, meanings that attached themselves to childhood during a period in which it became the subject of intensified interest in literary culture.

The "Handbook of Sociology of Aging" is the most comprehensive, engaging, and up-to-date treatment of developments within the field over the past 30 years. The volume represents an indispensable source of the freshest and highest standard scholarship for scholars, policy makers, and aging professionals alike.

The "Handbook of Sociology of Aging "contains 45 far-reaching chapters, authored by nearly 80 of the most renowned experts, on the most pressing topics related to aging today. With its recurring attention to the social forces that shape human aging, and the social consequences and policy implications of it, the contents will be of interest to everyone who cares about what aging means for individuals, families, and societies.

The chapters of the "Handbook of Sociology of Aging" illustrate the field's extraordinary breadth and depth, which has never before been represented in a single volume. Its contributions address topics that range from foundational matters, such as classic and contemporary theories and methods, to topics of longstanding and emergent interest, such as social diversity and inequalities, social relationships, social institutions, economies and governments, social vulnerabilities, public health, and care arrangements. The volume closes with a set of personal essays by senior scholars who share their experiences and hopes for the field, and an essay by the editors that provides a roadmap for the decade ahead.

The "Handbook of Sociology of Aging" showcases the very best that sociology has to offer the study of human aging.

Based on an extensive national survey of workers and four separate industry-specific surveys, Generations and Work will examine and provide answers to the most common issues and problems of multi generational work by assessing differences and commonalities between and among generations.