In this volume, guest editor Qvortrup brings together contributions representing structural, historical, and comparative perspectives on the study of children and youth. Here, childhood is conceived as a structural feature of society, subject to the stable and changing forces of the larger social context, and comparable across time and cultures. Such perspectives have been relatively under-represented in the "New Sociology of Childhood," which has tended both to stress children's agency, and to favour ethnographic methods of inquiry. The series editors are pleased to expand and enliven the foci of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth with this volume edited by the internationally renowned Danish Sociologist Jens Qvortrup, the first non-U.S. editor in the series' history.

Many countries will be confronted with ageing populations in the coming decades. This will crucially affect the economic outlook for the economy. Population changes directly affect the size of the labour force and consequently potential employment and output growth. In addition, changes in demographic trends strongly influence savings and investment behaviour, the outlook for the public finances, a range of financial market variables and, more controversially, may impact on the pace of productivity growth in an economy. Because the timing and magnitude of demographic changes varies significantly across regions, international capital flows will play an important role for the allocation of investment. This book offers a comprehensive treatment of ageing related issues based on a five region overlapping generations model and provides a quantitative assessment until 2050.

Children in Culture is one of the first fully multi- and interdisciplinary collections of essays on theoretical approaches to childhood and formulates and presents new and exciting ideas about the construction of childhood as a cultural identity. The ten original chapters have been written especially for this volume by some of the most eminent writers on childhood in their fields: psychology (Valerie Walkerdine; Rex and Wendy Stainton Rogers), history (Jenny Bourne Taylor; Kimberly Reynolds; Paul Yates), critical theory (Erica Burman), literary criticism (Margarida Morgado; Sara Thornton), children's literature criticism (Karin Lesnik-Oberstein; Stephen Thomson), and film and drama theory (Joe Kelleher).

Demographic ageing is identified as a global challenge with significant social policy implications. This book explores these implications, with a particular focus on the pressures and prospects for ageing societies in the context of austerity. The book presents a carefully crafted study of ageing in Ireland, one of the countries hardest hit by the Eurozone financial crisis. Providing a close, critical analysis of ageing and social policy that draws directly on the perspectives of older people, the text makes significant advances in framing alternatives to austerity-driven government policy and neoliberalism, giving a refreshing interdisciplinary account of contemporary ageing.

This book highlights different aspects of the problem of elder abuse and neglect in India, and discusses its forms as well as means of prevention, intervention and management. It presents a framework for understanding the occurrence of elder abuse and neglect in India, placing the discussion within the global context. Elder abuse and neglect is a growing concern in South Asia, and this is the first comprehensive account of the topic from India. It uses data from different parts of India to describe the various dimensions of elder abuse and neglect among different population categories and sections in society. Covering rural and urban areas in different states, it discusses current perspectives on elder abuse and neglect at the household level, widows, HIV-affected populations, and those residing in institutions. This book comprises views from experts in the field and is of interest to researchers and academics from the social and behavioural sciences, policy makers, and NGOs.

This new Reader aims to guide students through some of the key readings on the subject of terrorism and political violence. In an age when there is more written about terrorism than anyone can possibly read in a lifetime, it has become increasingly difficult for students and scholars to navigate the literature. At the same time, courses and modules on terrorism studies are developing at a rapid rate. To meet this challenge, this wide-ranging Reader seeks to equip the aspiring student, based anywhere in the world, with a comprehensive introduction to the study of terrorism. Containing many of the most influential and groundbreaking studies from the world's leading experts, drawn from several academic disciplines, this volume is the essential companion for any student of terrorism and political violence. The Reader, which starts with a detailed Introduction by the editors, is divided into seven sections, each of which contains a short introduction as well as a guide to further reading and student discussion questions: Terrorism in Historical Context Definitions Understanding and Explaining Terrorism Terrorist Movements Terrorist Behaviour Counterterrorism Current and Future Trends in Terrorism. This Reader will be essential reading for students of Terrorism and Political Violence, and highly recommended for students of Security Studies, War and Conflict Studies and Political Science in general, as well as for practitioners in the field of counter-terrorism and homeland security. Contributors: David C. Rapoport, Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Jack Gibbs, Leonard Weinberg, Ami Pedahzur, Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler, Alex Schmid, Martha Crenshaw, Max Taylor, John Horgan, Magnus Ranstorp, C.J.M. Drake, Ehud Sprinzak, Jennifer S. Holmes, Sheila Amin Gutierrez de Pineres, Kevin M. Curtin, Xavier Raufer, Donatella della Porta, Robert Pape, Mia Bloom, Chris Dishman, Andrew Silke, Muhammad Hanif bin Hassan, Gary Ackerman, Bruce Hoffman, John Mueller, Mohammed Hafez, Karla J. Cunningham, Jonathan Tonge, Lorenzo Vidino and Michael Barkun.

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of youth, in all its diversity, in Muslim Central Asia and the Caucasus. It brings together a range of academic perspectives, including media studies, Islamic studies, the sociology of youth, and social anthropology.

While most discussions of youth in the former Soviet South frame the younger generation as victims of crisis, as targets of state policy, or as holy warriors, this book maps out the complexity and variance of everyday lives under post-Soviet conditions. Youth is not a clear-cut, predictable life stage. Yet, across the region, young people's lives show forms of experimentation and regulation. Male and female youth explore new opportunities not only in the buzzing space of the city, but also in the more closely monitored neighbourhood of their family homes. At the same time, they are constrained by communal expectations, ethnic affiliation, urban or rural background and by gender and sexuality. While young people are more dependent and monitored than many others, they are also more eager to explore and challenge. In many ways, they stand at the cutting edge of globalization and post-Soviet change, and thus they offer innovative perspectives on these processes.

This book was published as a special issue of Central Asian Survey.

Coping With Your Grown Children is the only book to analyze-and lay out specific coping strategies for dealing with-the problems today's parents face with their adult offspring such as: * failure of the child to really "grow up" or achieve full potential * unemptied nests * moving back home after broken marriages * turning your home into a "daycare center" for your grandchildren * substance abuse, cult involvement, trouble with the law * alternative lifestyles or homosexuality * physical or psychiatric problems * or maybe you just think there's a problem!

Drawing from discussions that pulled together child researchers working near the borders of Mexico, the United States and Canada, this book explores how material and metaphoric borders give way to young people's experimentations with cultural, social and political change. The contributors highlight the capacities of children to revolutionize thought and practice through creative re-imagining of the boundaries, borders, events, circumstances and familial relations that affect their everyday lives. The first section, in different ways, highlights borders and movements through them as a bricolage of images, symbols, tensions and joys. In the second section, the idea of a portable border is explored in three chapters that consider a migrants' lifecourse, citizenship and political activism respectively. The last section of the book brings together three chapters that uncover how youth resist, confront and transform the borders that envelop their lives. By weaving narratives pertaining to young people's creative stories, transnational migrations, personal identities, pen-pal programs, masculinites, inter-generational change, border crossings, political activism and addictions, the contributors in toto raise the idea of young people taking bounded and embodied events, places and institutions and moving them towards something emancipatory sin fronteras - without borders. This book was published as a special issue of Children's Geographies.

Hans-Werner Wahl, Hermann Brenner, Heidrun Mollenkopf, Dietrich Rothenbacher and Christoph Rott Ageing research has been identi?ed as a prototypical ?eld of inquiry deserving the full exploitation of single discipline approaches and interdisciplinary synergies amongst these single perspectives. Although this is a generally accepted insight, there still is a strong need to provide models of how this global and most fundamental challenge can be dealt with. It seems in any case necessary to narrow down the wide scope of ageing research issues to sets of key constructs most promising in terms of interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation. Againstthis,themajoraimofthebookistoprovideacomprehensive treatment of one well-selected set of key issues of recent ageing research, i. e. health, competence and well-being. In addition, the book's ambition is to identify priorities for future ageing research and to further new avenues for interdisciplinary approaches and social policy applications. The substance of the book is based on an international conference which took place on June 18 and 19, 2004 in Heidelberg, Germany. Framed within the array of health, competence and well-being perspectives in ageing research, the idea of the conf- ence was to provide an integrated presentation of ?ndings generated in the German Centre for Research on Ageing at the University of Heidelberg (Deutsches Zentrum f. ur Alternsforschung, DZFA). The centre's three departments, i. e.

This book brings together recent UK studies into children's experiences and practices around food in a range of contexts, linking these to current policy and practice perspectives. It reveals that food works not only on a material level as sustenance but also on a symbolic level as something that can stand for thoughts, feelings, and relationships. The three broad contexts of schools, families and care (residential homes and foster care) are explored to show the ways in which both children and adults use food. Food is used as a means by which adults care for children and is also something through which adults manage their own feelings and relationships to each other which in turn impact on children's experiences. The book examines the power of food in our daily lives and the way in which it can be used as a medium by individuals to exert power and resistance, establish collective identities and notions of the self and to express moralities about notions of 'proper' family routines and 'good' and 'healthy' lifestyle choices. It identifies inter-generational and intra-generational differences and commonalities in regard to the uses of and experiences around food across a range of studies conducted with children and young people. This book was published as a special issue of Children's Geographies.

Long Lives Are for the Rich is the title of a silent ominous program that affects the lives of millions of people. In all developed countries disadvantaged and, especially, poor people die much earlier than the most advantaged. During these shorter lives they suffer ten to twenty years longer from disabilities or chronic disease. This does not happen accidentally: health inequalities – including those between healthy and unhealthy life styles – are mainly caused by social inequalities that are reproduced over the life course. This crucial function of the life course has become painfully visible during its neoliberal reorganization since the early 1980s. Studies about aging over the life course, from birth to death, show the inhumane consequences as people get older. In spite of the enormous wealth that has been piled up in the US for a dwindling percentage of the population, there has been growing public indifference about the needs of those in jobs with low pay and high stress, but also about citizens from a broad middle class who can hardly afford high quality education or healthcare. However, this ominous program affects all: recent mortality rates show that all Americans, including the rich, are unhealthier and dying earlier than citizens of other developed countries. Moreover, the underlying social inequalities are tearing the population apart with nasty consequences for all citizens, including the rich. Although the public awareness of the consequences has been growing, neoliberal policies remain tempting for the economic and political elites of the developed world because of the enormous wealth that is flowing to the top. All this poses urgent questions of social justice. Unfortunately, the predominant studies of social justice along the life course help to reproduce these inequalities by neglecting them. This book analyzes the main dynamics of social inequality over the life course and proposes a theory of social justice that sketches a way forward for a country that is willing to invest in its greatest resource: the creative potential of its population.

The world is full of disparities where graying appears as a new social element. The demographic change, along with the differences in wealth and knowledge will greatly influence the future. Globalization will be faster and the knowledge network stronger.

The slender family and the empty home will see growth of new human emotions, which will break away from the confines of biological compulsions. Remaining in touch with the planetary network will be the way of the future man. Working for the network will be his purpose of life. "The Aging World" is an exploration of the developing challenge.

The future will not happen, it will have to be created in the close world. The billion strong elderly will have to join the mainstream economy, as the age-integrated society will not afford their leisure.

Prof. Ranjit Kumar Chandra, the noted immunologist writes: " Humans are complex organisms; their evolution is a result of complex interactions of genes and environment. Bagchi has attempted the almost impossible task of looking at the interplay of history, demography, macroeconomics and sociology and its impact on the aging of world populations. His analyses appear convincing. It will be interesting to watch how his predictions will unfold in reality."

This book reveals the dramatic stories of twenty outstandingly gifted people as they grew from early promise to maturity in Britain. Recorded over the last thirty-five years by award-winning psychologist, Joan Freeman, these fascinating accounts reveal the frustrations and triumphs of her participants, and investigates why some fell by the wayside whilst others reached fame and fortune.

These exceptional people possess a range of intellectual, social and emotional gifts in fields such as mathematics, the arts, music and spirituality. Through their particular abilities, they were often confronted with extra emotional challenges, such as over-anxious and pushy parents, teacher put-downs, social trip-wires, boredom and bullying in school and conflicting life choices. Their stories illustrate how seemingly innocuous events could have devastating life-long consequences, and confront the reader with intriguing questions such as: Does having a brilliant mind help when you are ethnically different or suffering serious depression? How does a world-class pianist cope when repetitive strain injury strikes, or a young financier when he hits his first million? What is the emotional impact of grade-skipping?

Joan Freeman's insights into the twists and turns of these lives are fascinating and deeply moving. She shows us that while fate has a part to play, so does a personal outlook which can see and grab a fleeting chance, overcome great odds, and put in the necessary hard work to lift childhood prodigy to greatness. Readers will identify with many of the intriguing aspects of these people's lives, and perhaps learn something about themselves too.

This text analyses how the current generation of young adults enters the labour market and tries to create their own autonomous household, with or without children, exploring questions such as what does it mean to be a young adult in Europe today and what social policies help them to combine work and family life?

After being questioned by a parent about how sports affects children, Griffin examined the impact of sports on children and reflected upon his own experiences with sports. What effect does sports have on work habits, social skills, confidence, independence, and aspirations? Does a sports experience provide the foundation for achievement in school and later life? Is competition good or harmful? What about the effects of sports involvement on girls? What are the characteristics of good athletes? How can parents help their children be successful in sports?

Griffin shares with parents and other readers his investigations of the published research pertaining to these questions and offers his own experiences and analyses. He asserts that sports is best assessed as it relates to the central issues children and adolescents confront while growing up--the agenda of the childhood, as he calls it. Griffin's explorations lead him to an examination of schools, professional sports, race and class, and the popular media as they affect children's interest and involvement in sports. He also investigates the phenomena of achievement (not just in sports) and good parenting.

Over the past decade, the European Union and national policy-makers alike have paid more attention to childhood poverty and children's rights. Whether this has led to better policies, and whether these policies have in turn resulted in less childhood poverty and more human dignity, remains debatable. Children's rights may provide some common ground for the different perspectives on the causes of poverty. They also introduce specific process requirements, in particular the participation of the poor. At the same time, children's rights may gain from an encounter with child poverty studies, not least in grasping the complexity of child poverty and in making a realistic assessment of their own potential for addressing child poverty. This book introduces several approaches in the field of child poverty and children's rights studies, and identifies intersections between different theoretical approaches from both domains. It is a collaborative project of Centrum OASeS and the UNICEF Chair in Children's Rights, both located at the University of Antwerp. The Chair, established in 2007, acts as a knowledge broker of children's rights within the academic community and between the academic community and policy and practice, through teaching, research, and service to the community. The research topics of the Centrum OASeS include poverty and other forms of social exclusion, ethnic minorities, urban policy, social economy and supported employment, and social networks.

"Childhood in Question" explores the historical development, from the 1600s to the 1960s, of childhood experience. Drawing on artifacts as diverse as state papers, legal records, diaries, letters and oral sources, the authors probe a series of key issues: the definition of "the child" and the formation of identity; the emotional world of childhood; the changing attitudes of the state to family intimacy and parent-child relations; the sexuality of children; children and authority; and children and crime.

Children and questions of moral behaviour are prominent social discourses. Adult attitudes towards children and their recognition of right and wrong impact upon society deeply, shaping the ways in which we think about children's participation, their citizenship and how they are 'governed' within the community. But upon what basis are such practices and policies built and how do they reflect the reality of social life for children? This work argues that much of society's thinking in relation to children and questions around social behaviour are linked to misplaced assumptions that are routed in views from the past. However, it is by engaging with children though a sociological perspective that it becomes clear that morality is not something that just happens to children but is part of their everyday lives.

"Instead of seeing the family as a "monolithic" entity, as though separate from its surroundings, this new approach draws attention to assemblages of various types that in different constellations and through different transactions relate people to each other as families and kin"--

This study investigates the role of youth in peacebuilding, and addresses the failure of states and existing research to recognise youths as political actors, which can result in their contribution to peacebuilding being ignored.

Henry Giroux continues his critique of the US political and popular culture 's influence on the lives of our children.

In his controversial new book, Giroux argues that the US is at war with young people. No longer seen as the future of a democratic society, youth are now derided by politicians looking for quick-fix solutions to crime and demonized by the popular media. This perception of fear and disdain is being translated into social policy . Instead of providing a decent education to young people, we offer them the increasing potential of being incarcerated. Instead of guaranteeing them decent health care, we serve them more standardized tests. There's a war on in the US these days, and Giroux sees our youth as the target.

The idea of universal human rights has been perhaps the most contentious concept of the twentieth century. Originally presented as a response to the atrocities of the past and an attempt to stifle the potential ills of the future, the concept has been under heated assault by adherents to the concept of 'cultural relativism.' The basic conflict between these two extreme perspectives lies with the degree to which either should be the primary consideration when dealing with the great diversity of peoples worldwide. While proponents of universal human rights believe that a fundamental group of human rights exist and can be applied uniformly throughout the world, cultural relativists are primarily concerned with protecting and understanding, usually in functionalist terms, the diversity of cultures worldwide. This overarching conflict is the underlying focus of Cultural Relativism in the Face of the West. Billet examines the debate between the uniform application of universal human rights and cultural relativism. In so doing, Billet outlines the foundations of both schools of thought and provides a history of their evolution. The book also examines case studies that involve either women or children and are typically viewed by the West as violations of fundamental human rights.