In recent decades, sociological research has investigated the nature of the school institution and its uneven effects on the progress of families, societies, and the global community. Yet, relatively little comparative research on schooling has dealt in a serious way with links between schooling and the other major contexts of childhood: families and communities. This edition of Research in the Sociology of Education speaks to the diverse contexts in which children function around the world, and to how these contexts shape school experiences and outcomes. The editions authors are international and interdisciplinary. They offer a pastiche of perspectives on a single topic: how the non-school contexts of childhood interact with the school institution to advance modern and not-so-modern forms of virtue, merit, and attainment, in cultural context.
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*Offers qualitative and statistical portraits of children living in Asian and African countries
*Links educationalopportunities to the child's socialization
*Urges social scientists and policy makers to consider a child's surroundings when modeling the modern school system

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.

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.

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.

This book is a pioneering study of trust dynamics in children's lives that develops a new theoretical angle for studying children's participation and citizenship. Trust and mistrust are concepts that often figure in sociological research on childhood but despite their significance they remain under-theorized. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence from a range of institutional and cultural contexts, this book explores the impact of trust dynamics in shaping children's participation, citizenship and well-being that sets the agenda for future research.

Like the occupants of the children's table at a family dinner, scholars working in childhood studies can seem sidelined from the "adult" labor of humanities scholarship. "The Children's Table" brings together scholars from architecture, philosophy, law, and literary and cultural criticism to provide an overview of the innovative work being done in childhood studies--a transcript of what is being said at the children's table. Together, these scholars argue for rethinking the academic seating arrangement in a way that acknowledges the centrality of childhood to the work of the humanities.
The figure we now recognize as a child was created in tandem with forms of modernity that the Enlightenment generated and that the humanities are now working to rethink. Thus the growth of childhood studies allows for new approaches to some of the most important and provocative issues in humanities scholarship: the viability of the social contract, the definition of agency, the performance of identity, and the construction of gender, sexuality, and race. Because defining childhood is a means of defining and distributing power and obligation, studying childhood requires a radically altered approach to what constitutes knowledge about the human subject.
The diverse essays in "The Children's Table" share a unifying premise: to include the child in any field of study realigns the shape of that field, changing the terms of inquiry and forcing a different set of questions. Taken as a whole, the essays argue that, at this key moment in the state of the humanities, rethinking the child is both necessary and revolutionary.
Contributors: Annette Ruth Appell, Sophie Bell, Robin Bernstein, Sarah Chinn, Lesley Ginsberg, Lucia Hodgson, Susan Honeyman, Roy Kozlovsky, James Marten, Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Carol Singley, Lynne Vallone, John Wall.

What is happening to young adults in contemporary Europe? How central is ethnic background to their prospects and lives? This book provides a comparative analysis of the situation of over 2500 children of international migrants in Europe. Focussing on Britain, France and Germany, it examines nine ethnic/nationality groups including Pakistanis and Indians in Britain, Magrebians in France and Turks in Germany. The book includes new empirical material on language use, educational experiences, labour market entry, political incorporation and cultural behaviour of young adults in these three countries based upon a unique comparative international survey. Roger Penn and Paul Lambert offer an antidote to the hysteria surrounding international migrants that has become increasingly evident in the media since 2001. Their findings indicate that there is a widespread process of assimilation underway in each of the three countries, alongside the maintenance of cultural and religious identities associated with parents' country of birth.

This book documents the first five years of life of the children of the influential Millennium Cohort Study, which is tracking almost 19,000 babies born in 2000 and 2001 in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This book is the second in a series of books which will report on the findings from the data and follows on from "Children of the 21st Century: From Birth to Nine Months" (The Policy Press, 2005). It takes an extended look at the children's lives and development as they grow and begin formal education, and the implications for family policy, and service planning in health and social services. The chapters in this book are written by experts across a wide range of social science and health fields and form a unique look at the early lives of children that cuts across disciplinary boundaries. It is essential reading for academics, students and researchers in these fields. It will also be of interest to policy makers and practitioners with an interest in children's early years, family life, child development, child poverty, childcare and education and health care.

A timely, original study of the emergence of a new type of thinking about children and their rights in contemporary urban China, which draws on diverse evidence from Chinese government, academic, media, and pedagogic publications, as well as on participant observation and interviews in two primary schools and among elite and middle class families in Shanghai, China. Drawing on rich, ethnographic data, this book debunks many popular and scholarly stereotypes about the predominance of Confucian ideas of parental authority in China or about the indifference to individual human rights in the political and public culture of the PRC. This book also recognizes the complexities and conflicts that exist in Chinese discourses about and practices toward children, as older ideas of filiality, neoliberal ideologies, and the new awareness of children's right to privacy, to expressing their views, and to protection against violence compete and collude in complicated, often contradictory ways.

This book's most important goal is to explore styles of teaching and learning that can promote resiliency among women from disadvantaged backgrounds. These findings can be useful in affecting policy decisions as professionals begin the process of restructuring our educational system to meet the needs of a diverse student population. Higher education is now attempting to attract and encourage varied students and this book will provide educators with information not only about how to educate women from difficult backgrounds, but how women in this population have felt about their past, their success, and their schooling. The author provides insights into what disadvantaged women need and want from schools.

The author conducted in-depth interviews with 21 academically high achieving women who were also disadvantaged as children, having faced multiple risk factors. Qualitative measures were used to explore how our education system has either assisted these women in their achievement or set up barriers to their success. The interpretations, however, go beyond simply listing what was good and bad in these women's education experiences. The results suggest patterns in their psychology and in the traditional social structures that discourage learning among certain populations. The author discusses the sociological and psychological barriers to education (especially higher education) for women who have experienced disadvantages.

The testimonies of individuals who survived the Holocaust as children pose distinct emotional and intellectual challenges for researchers: as now-adult interviewees recall profound childhood experiences of suffering and persecution, they also invoke their own historical awareness and memories of their postwar lives, requiring readers to follow simultaneous, disparate narratives. This interdisciplinary volume brings together historians, psychologists, and other scholars to explore child survivors' accounts. With a central focus on the Kestenberg Holocaust Child Survivor Archive's over 1,500 testimonies, it not only enlarges our understanding of the Holocaust empirically but illuminates the methodological, theoretical, and institutional dimensions of this unique form of historical record.

Children play a crucial role in today's economy. According to some estimates, children spend or influence the spending of up to $500 billion annually. Journalists, sociologists, and media reformers often present mass marketing toward children as a recent fall from grace, but the roots of children's consumerism -- and the anxieties over it -- date back more than a century. Throughout the twentieth century, a wide variety of groups -- including advertisers, retailers, parents, social reformers, child experts, public schools, and children themselves -- helped to socialize children as consumers and struggled to define the proper boundaries of the market. The essays and documents in this volume illuminate the historical circumstances and cultural conflicts that helped to produce, shape, and legitimize children's consumerism. Focusing primarily on the period from the Gilded Age through the twentieth century, this book examines how and why children and adolescents acquired new economic roles as consumers, and how these new roles both reflected and produced dynamic changes in family life and the culture of capitalism. This volume also reveals how children and adolescents have used consumer goods to define personal identities and peer relationships -- sometimes in opposition to marketers' expectations and parental intentions.

With the intensity of the California gold rush, corporations are racing to stake their claim on the consumer group formerly known as children. What was once the purview of a handful of companies has escalated into a gargantuan enterprise estimated at over $15 billion annually. While parents struggle to set limits at home, marketing executives work day and night to undermine their efforts with irresistible messages.
In "Consuming Kids," psychologist Susan Linn takes a comprehensive and unsparing look at the demographic advertisers call "the kid market," taking readers on a compelling and disconcerting journey through modern childhood as envisioned by commercial interests. Children are now the focus of a marketing maelstrom, targets for everything from minivans to M&M counting books. All aspects of children's lives - their health, education, creativity, and values - are at risk of being compromised by their status in the marketplace.
Interweaving real-life stories of marketing to children, child development theory, the latest research, and what marketing experts themselves say about their work, Linn reveals the magnitude of this problem and shows what can be done about it. With a foreword written by research psychologist and author Penelope Leach, "Consuming Kids" is a call to action for parents, educators, legislators and anyone who cares about the health and well-being of children.

Thatcher's Grandchildren explores sociological and political issues about childhood that have that have become increasingly significant in the twenty first century within a political landscape framed by neo-liberalism. Issues addressed include child protection and abuse, the media, education and schooling, and poverty.

The problem of children 'in trouble' is the subject of repeated media panics and of heated political rhetoric. Drawing on wide-ranging original research, Carol Hayden reviews evidence about children in trouble across a range of circumstances, demonstrating the tensions between welfare and justice, care and control in the treatment of these vulnerable young people and evaluating the methodological as well as practical implications of the current 'what works' debate within social policy. All students and professionals working with children, whether in social work, teaching or the criminal justice system, will find this book invaluable.

In a constantly changing world, individuals are forever growing to meet the challenges and developments that emerge around them. In contemporary society, technology is at the heart of change. Literature, too, reflects the evolution of culture and increasingly represents and considers technology. And as children become young adults, their reading helps shape their understanding of the world. This book examines representative works of science fiction, children's literature, and popular culture to show how these works reflect the process of growing up in a technological world. The volume looks at the simple picture books and comic books that appeal to small children; the formulaic adventures that fascinate older children; the films and television programs that are watched by children and young adolescents; the music videos and programming that appeal to young adults; and the popular novels that interest older readers. Included are discussions of Superman, the Hardy Boys, Star Trek, science fiction films, and music videos. The book points to similarities among popular culture, science fiction, and children's literature and demonstrates the relevance of these works to contemporary society.

This International Volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth shows the breadth of current empirical research that focuses on children and youth around the world. Coming from a range of methodological and theoretical orientations, this volume showcases the lives of children and the policies that shape children's lives on five continents. Across these research articles, it becomes clear that we cannot continue to assume a certain meaning of childhood, because this concept is bound by both cultural and structural factors. Cultural expectations influence how societies view children and how children view themselves. A handful of these studies show how immigrant children and youth provide particularly interesting insight as they navigate more than one cultural context. Structural factors also become salient, as children come from unequal backgrounds, different levels of economic development, and face varying political concerns. While these papers come from different doorsteps of the world, cultural and structural threads of continuity connect them as meaningful for children. This volume illustrates how international childhood researchers can use current concepts and theories into unlikely contexts exposing their limitations and helping to inform more versatile and robust lines of thinking for children and youth studies.

Educating young people about sex and sexuality remains one of the most controversial and political areas of the school curriculum. Drawing on young people's own understandings of their sexual selves, knowledge and practices "Sexual Subjects" considers the implications for how we conceptualize the effectiveness of sexuality education. Reshaping thinking around youthful (hetero)sexualities "Sexual Subjects" challenges current approaches to teaching about sex and sexuality.

This timely volume offers an in-depth theoretical analysis of children's experiences growing up with mobile internet technologies. Drawing on up-to-date research, it explores the relationship between childhood as a social and cultural construction and the plethora of mobile internet technologies which have become ubiquitous in everyday life.

The presence of Asian immigrants and citizens has a long history in the United States. Asian American Children: A Historical Handbook and Guide provides insights into the diverse experience of these children and their families from their first appearance here to the present. Essays review topics such as identity, family structures, labor, gender, and class. Selected primary documents review topics such as racial quotas, biculturalism, and refugees. This is the first work to cover the historical and the contemporary experience of these children from a multiplicity of views, using essays and documents. Beginning c. 1850, this work relates the experiences and context in which diverse groups of Asian American children lived their lives. The voices of children, included in the primary documents, provide a vivid narrative of immigrant life over the past 150 years. While the lives of children were generally included in historical narratives of the country, a focus specifically on children allows the reader to more fullyunderstand the central place of family in the economic and social development of a nation.

This text provides a critical analysis of the social construction of childhood and children's agency. Through an interdisciplinary synthesis combining social theory, social policy and the empirical findings of social science research, it bridges the current gap between theory and practice, offering an incisive theoretical account of childhood that is grounded in substantive areas of children's lives such as health, education, crime and the family. This furthers understanding of the impact of policy on children's everyday lives and social experiences.

There is a growing interest in philosophy with children, based on the belief that classroom philosophising not only enhances children's oral language, literacy and thinking but also promotes independence of mind and spirit, benefiting the children, their teachers and the school as a whole.
Children as Philosophers is an accessible and thought-provoking book that balances an exploration of theoretical and critical considerations of using philosophy in the classroom with real examples of children working as philosophers.
Based on research by the author with primary school students, and full of practical suggestions for teachers, it demonstrates that, from a young age, children are capable of engaging in a sophisticated process of dialogue and enquiry and argues that they should have space and time to do so. The book offers a structure for moral enquiry within the PSHE and Citizenship curriculum. It discusses the pleasures and challenges for adults in managing discussion and facing children's claims to knowledge in the philosophical arena. The book addresses the well-established Philosophy for Children movement, developed in the USA and Australia, and puts this into a UK context.

This book explores the role of children and young people within early modern England's Catholic minority. It examines Catholic attempts to capture the next generation, Protestant reactions to these initiatives, and the social, legal and political contexts in which young people formed, maintained and attempted to explain their religious identity.

Examining context-specific conditions in which girls live, learn, work, play, and organize deepens the understanding of place-making practices of girls and young women worldwide. Focusing on place across health, literary and historical studies, art history, communications, media studies, sociology, and education allows for investigations of how girlhood is positioned in relation to interdisciplinary and transnational research methodologies, media environments, geographic locations, history, and social spaces. This book offers a comprehensive reading on how girlhood scholars construct and deploy research frameworks that directly engage girls in the research process.