"Richly illustrated by quotes and life histories, the manuscript is an excellent ethnography of the ways in which young people develop resilience through continual reworking of webs of care, nurturance and interaction amongst themselves and with their families... The text is well written, comprehensive and based on a rich source of empirical material that is well analyzed and interpreted." . Tatek Abebe, Norwegian Centre for Child Research, Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology, Trondheim

"The book is a unique study based on long -term detailed field research. The author adopts the novel approach of analyzing gender and masculinity from the perspective of children and their families and how they experience it, and in the process offers a searing and unsparing gaze on the plight of families and children living in difficult circumstances. Dr. Heinonen's findings have profound implications, not just for policy makers and NGOs but for our very conception of 'street children' and 'youth gangs'. It is a major contribution to African ethnography and gender studies." Marieme S. Lo, PhD, University of Toronto

The rapidly expanding population of youth gangs and street children is one of the most disturbing issues in many cities around the world. These children are perceived to be in a constant state of destitution, violence and vagrancy, and therefore must be a serious threat to society, needing heavy-handed intervention and 'tough love' from concerned adults to impose societal norms on them and turn them into responsible citizens. However, such norms are far from the lived reality of these children. The situation is further complicated by gender-based violence and masculinist ideologies found in the wider Ethiopian culture, which influence the proliferation of youth gangs. By focusing on gender as the defining element of these children's lives - as they describe it in their own words - this book offers a clear analysis of how the unequal and antagonistic gender relations that are tolerated and normalized by everyday school and family structures shape their lives at home and on the street."

Reducing Cyberbullying in Schools: International Evidence-Based Best Practices provides an accessible blend of academic rigor and practical application for mental health professionals, school administrators and educators, giving them a vital tool in stemming the problem of cyberbullying in school settings. It features a variety of international, evidence-based programs that can be practically implemented into any school setting. In addition, the book looks at a broad array of strategies, such as what can be learned from traditional bullying programs, technological solutions, policy and legal solutions, and more.

A powerful female, pre-adolescent, consumer demographic has emerged in tandem with girls becoming more visible in popular culture since the 1990s. Yet the cultural anxiety that this has caused has received scant academic attention. In Tweenhood, Melanie Kennedy rectifies this and examines mainstream, pre-adolescent girls' films, television programmes and celebrities from 2004 onwards, including A Cinderella Story (2004), Hannah Montana (2006) and Camp Rock (2008). Her book forges a dialogue between post-feminism, film and television, celebrity and most importantly; the figure of the tween. Kennedy examines how these media texts, which are so key to tween culture, address and construct their target audience by helping them to 'choose' an appropriately feminine identity. Tweenhood then, she argues, is transient and a discursive construct whose unpacking highlights the deification of celebrity and femininity within its culture.

This book explores the daily mobilities and immobilities of children and young people in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors draw on findings from rural and urban field research extending over many years, culminating in a 24-site study across three African countries: Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa. Wider reflections on gender, relationality, the politics of mobility, and field methodology frame the study. By bringing together diverse strands of a complex daily mobilities picture-from journeys for education, work, play/leisure and health, to associated experiences of different transport modes, road safety, and the virtual mobility now afforded by mobile phones-the book helps fill a knowledge gap with crucial significance for development policy and practice.

This evidence-based text explores children's health and wellbeing from birth to adolescence, taking into account the familial, cultural, social, economic, environmental and global contexts of their lives. Divided into three parts, this book draws on an international body of research and theoretical perspectives on the determinants of health, such as hereditary, socioeconomic, environmental, geopolitical, gender and cross-cultural factors. It begins with an overview of child health and wellbeing before exploring global influences on health. The second part of the book focuses on health promotion and safeguarding. The final part looks at a range of health conditions that may impact children's health, including infectious diseases, chronic health conditions and mental health. The book ends with a discussion of the role and contribution of families, carers, health professionals, hospitals, the wider community, charities and government, and examines how children with health needs and their families can best be supported. Each chapter includes critical questions, case studies and reflection points, all followed by a commentary to help the reader to think through the issues. Designed for all those working with children, or studying to work with children, Health and Wellbeing for Babies and Children: Contemporary Issues is ideal for students undertaking courses on public health nursing, children's nursing, early years education, childhood studies and social work, among others.

A crucial contemporary dynamic around children and young people in the Global North is the multiple ways that have emerged to monitor their development, behaviour and character. In particular disabled children or children with unusual developmental patterns can find themselves surrounded by multiple practices through which they are examined. This rich book draws on a wide range of qualitative research to look at how disabled children have been cared for, treated and categorised. Narrative and longitudinal interviews with children and their families, along with stories and images they have produced and notes from observations of different spaces in their lives - medical consultation rooms, cafes and leisure centres, homes, classrooms and playgrounds amongst others - all make a contribution. Bringing this wealth of empirical data together with conceptual ideas from disability studies, sociology of the body, childhood studies, symbolic interactionism and feminist critical theory, the authors explore the multiple ways in which monitoring occurs within childhood disability and its social effects. Their discussion includes examining the dynamics of differentiation via medicine, social interaction, and embodiment and the multiple actors - including children and young people themselves - involved. The book also investigates the practices that differentiate children into different categories and what this means for notions of normality, integration, belonging and citizenship. Scrutinising the multiple forms of monitoring around disabled children and the consequences they generate for how we think about childhood and what is 'normal', this volume sits at the intersection of disability studies and childhood studies.

This book addresses the impact of globalization on the lives of youth, focusing on the role of legal institutions and discourses. As practices and ideas travel the globe-such as the promotion and transmission of zero tolerance and retributive justice programs, the near ubiquitous acceptance of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the transnational migration of street gangs-the legal arena is being transformed. The essays in this book offer case studies and in-depth analyses, spanning diverse settings including courts and prisons, inner-city streets, international human rights initiatives, newspaper offices, local youth organizations, and the United Nations. Drawing on everyday social practices, each chapter adds clarity to our current understanding of the ways in which ideas and practices in different parts of the world can affect youth in one particular locale.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"In this remarkable volume, Paula S. Fass, a pioneer and pace-setter in the burgeoning field of children's history, demonstrates that a knowledge of history is essential to understanding contemporary controversies over child protection, the commercialization of childhood, multiculturalism in public schools, and the impact of globalization."
--Steven Mintz, author of "Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood"

aThought-provokinga--"Choice"

Paula S. Fass, a pathbreaker in children's history and the history of education, turns her attention in Children of a New World to the impact of globalization on children's lives, both in the United States and on the world stage. Globalization, privatization, the rise of the "work-centered" family, and the triumph of the unregulated marketplace, she argues, are revolutionizing the lives of children today.

Fass begins by considering the role of the school as a fundamental component of social formation, particularly in a nation of immigrants like the United States. She goes on to examine children as both creators of culture and objects of cultural concern in America, evident in the strange contemporary fear of and fascination with child abduction, child murder, and parental kidnapping. Finally, Fass moves beyond the limits of American society and brings historical issues into the present and toward the future, exploring how American historical experience can serve as a guide to contemporary globalization as well as how globalization is altering the experience of American children and redefining childhood.

Clear and scholarly, serious but witty, Children of a New World provides afoundation for future historical investigations while adding to our current understanding of the nature of modern childhood, the role of education for national identity, the crisis of family life, and the influence of American concepts of childhood on the world's definitions of children's rights. As a new generation comes of age in a global world, it is a vital contribution to the study of childhood and globalization.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

aMarten adds to the growing body of literature on the history of family life with this rich collection of original essays and transcriptions from primary documents. Divided into thematic subdivisions relating to Europeans and Native Americans, issues of family and community, and the process of becoming American, the 12 essays contributed mainly by history academics examine children's lives from the varied cultures found in Colonial North America and contain copious footnotes and a list of suggested further reading. Such topics as parenting practices, health, education, gender roles, and rites of passage are touched on. The small selection of primary documents (excerpts from letters, diaries, and autobiographies) add depth to an already well-written and researched work whose real strength is its juxtaposition of children's lives across a variety of Colonial cultures.a
--"Library Journal"

"Providing fresh historical perspectives on key features of children's lives, this book offers compelling, new materials on childhood in colonial America, and on groups--including Native Americans and Hispanics--too often left out of conventional coverage."
--Peter Stearns, George Mason University

"Children in Colonial America is a highly original contribution to the history of childhood. The collection's unique strength lies in its great range of regions and peoples represented: from Indian children of Mexico to young Africans in Jamaica, from Separatist Pilgrims in the Netherlands and Plymouth to Catholic girls in Germany, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. Although ideal for the classroom, these essays offer much that will be of interest toseasoned scholars."
--Gloria L. Main, University of Colorado-Boulder

aFew books can be all things to all people, but this one is an exception.a
--Kenneth J. Blume

aA useful and largely impressive anthology on an under-studied topic.a
--"PhiloBiblos"

The Pilgrims and Puritans did not arrive on the shores of New England alone. Nor did African men and women, brought to the Americas as slaves. Though it would be hard to tell from the historical record, European colonists and African slaves had children, as did the indigenous families whom they encountered, and those children's life experiences enrich and complicate our understanding of colonial America.

Through essays, primary documents, and contemporary illustrations, Children in Colonial America examines the unique aspects of childhood in the American colonies between the late sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. The twelve original essays observe a diverse cross-section of children--from indigenous peoples of the east coast and Mexico to Dutch-born children of the Plymouth colony and African-born offspring of slaves in the Caribbean--and explore themes including parenting and childrearing practices, children's health and education, sibling relations, child abuse, mental health, gender, play, and rites of passage.

Taken together, the essays and documents in Children in Colonial America shed light on the ways in which the process of colonization shaped childhood, and in turn how the experience of children affected life in colonial America.

Inquiring into childhood is one of the most appropriate ways to address the perennial and essential question of what it is that makes human beings - each of us - human. In Childhood in History: Perceptions of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, Aasgaard, Horn, and Cojocaru bring together the groundbreaking work of nineteen leading scholars in order to advance interdisciplinary historical research into ideas about children and childhood in the premodern history of European civilization. The volume gathers rich insights from fields as varied as pedagogy and medicine, and literature and history. Drawing on a range of sources in genres that extend from philosophical, theological, and educational treatises to law, art, and poetry, from hagiography and autobiography to school lessons and sagas, these studies aim to bring together these diverse fields and source materials, and to allow the development of new conversations. This book will have fulfilled its unifying and explicit goal if it provides an impetus to further research in social and intellectual history, and if it prompts both researchers and the interested wider public to ask new questions about the experiences of children, and to listen to their voices.

Childhood in America has changed, and not for the better. From day care for babies, to the exhausting array of activities for children, to the storm of lurid and violent shows now deemed appropriate for the young, to the expectation that teenagers build resumes, childhood has been thoroughly redefined. Anne R. Pierce argues that this radical re-definition has been embraced with remarkably little discussion about what children, by nature, need. Pierce submits that we have latched onto opinions about childrearing that are potentially harmful to children. If traditions are choices to be embraced or abandoned at our discretion, and adult self-fulfillment is a primary determinant in those choices, the fundamentals of the well-wrought childhood are easily forgotten. Steeped in intellectual permissiveness, we have convinced ourselves that parental substitutes are as good as parents themselves at caring for children, that the concepts of nurture and of the maternal are archaic and irrelevant, that more lessons and sports are better than less and that the earlier one embarks upon them the better, and that innocence and knowledge are less important than worldly attitudes and competitive skills. Understanding and challenging the theories and agendas behind childrearing trends is a pressing need, and the subject of this book. Pierce takes an honest look at the evidence on the effects of daycare and of hyper-structuring children. She gives voice to the many intelligent and estimable educators, child-development experts, researchers, and social commentators who are ignored because their conclusions are hard to bear. Equally important, Pierce says, is attention to that inner tug of love and conscience, which many of us have been programmed to ignore.Modern American children are expected to adjust and to understand as adults would the complexities and vicissitudes of public as opposed to private life. For them, childhood is fast becoming a distant memory. Could it be that America's thrust forward leaves children without a solid foundation upon which to grow? This is the sobering question asked, and answered, in this challenging book.

This book explores the ways in which notions of childhood are being influenced by a rapidly expanding consumer-media culture in the 21st Century. It has been argued that new stages of childhood are being created and defined by children's role as consumers. The concept of 'tween', girls aged between 9 and 14, has generated the greatest debate. While the fantasy world of 'tween' offers girls a space to fashion a young, feminine identity it has been widely argued that the consumer-media's messages pressure tween girls to consume and adopt highly sexualised appearances and behaviours. The author considers how the art of consumption for 'tween' girls is intrinsically linked with their desire for independence and belonging, and how their consumption is interwoven with other important social and cultural influences. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of Childhood and Youth Studies, Cultural Studies, Feminist and Women's Studies and Sociology.

During the final decade of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), young citizens found themselves at the heart of a rigorous programme of socialist patriotic education, yet following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the emphasis of official state rhetoric, textbooks and youth activities changed beyond recognition. For the young generation growing up during this period, 'normality' was turned on its head, leaving a sense of insecurity and inner turmoil. Using a combination of archival research and interviews, together with educational materials and government reports, this book examines the relationship between young people and their two successive states in East(ern) Germany between 1979 and 2002. This unusual time-span straddles the 1989/1990 caesura which often delimits historical studies, and thus enables not only a detailed examination of GDR socialisation, but crucially also its influence in unified Germany. Anna Saunders explores the extent to which a young generation's loyalties can be officially regulated in the face of cultural and historical traditions, changing material conditions and shifting social circumstances, and finds GDR socialisation to be influential to post-unification loyalties through its impact on the personal sphere, rather than through the official sphere of ideological propaganda. At a time of globalisation, this lucid study not only provides unique insight into the functioning of the GDR state and its longer-term impact, but also advances our broader understanding of the ways in which collective loyalties are formed. It will be of particular interest to those in the fields of German History and Politics, European Studies and Sociology. -- .

First published in 1981, this work is based on the author's research in the playgrounds of two Oxford schools. It describes the order amongst the apparent chaos by relating the playtime activities - the games, rhymes and taunts of five-to-ten-year-olds in first and middle schools - to children's goals, problems and solutions. It shows how children learn and display in the playground a remarkably complex set of social skills and the study clearly demonstrates the importance of playtime for preparing a child to cope in the adult world.

In the light of the complex demographic shifts associated with late modernity and the impetus of neo-liberal politics, childhood continues all the more to operate as a repository for the articulation of diverse social and cultural anxieties. Since the Thatcher years, juvenile delinquency, child poverty, and protection have been persistent issues in public discourse. Simultaneously, childhood has advanced as a popular subject in the arts, as the wealth of current films and novels in this field indicates. Focusing on the late twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries, this collection assembles contributions concerned with current political, social, and cultural dimensions of childhood in the United Kingdom. The individual chapters, written by internationally renowned experts from the social sciences and the humanities, address a broad spectrum of contemporary childhood issues, including debates on child protection, school dress codes, the media, the representation and construction of children in audiovisual media, and literary awards for children's fiction. Appealing to a wide scholarly audience by joining perspectives from various disciplines, including art history, education, law, film and TV studies, sociology, and literary studies, this volume endorses a transdisciplinary and meta-theoretical approach to the study of childhood. It seeks to both illustrate and dismantle the various ways in which childhood has been implicitly and explicitly conceived in different disciplines in the wake of the constructivist paradigm shift in childhood studies.

The book seeks to demonstrate the ways in which collective impact approaches have guided the development of literacy coalitions over time. Since community collaboration strategies developed to address social issues, coalitions have grown from small networking organizations to powerful forces for change. The history of literacy coalitions offers a timeline outlining the why, who, what, where, when and how of communities that were influenced by social and political changes and the ways coalitions responded and thrived. The lack of literacy has held back economic development in the US and coalitions shine a light on issues associated with illiteracy and low school achievement. Not all coalitions succeed and the book explores models of success, funding strategies, evaluation and impact. The goal is to assist those developing coalitions by providing not only lessons learned but a blueprint for success.

This book makes a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of childhood studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture by drawing on the intersecting fields of girlhood, evangelicalism, and reform to investigate texts written in North America about girls, for girls, and by girls. Responding both to the intellectual excitement generated by the rise of girlhood studies, as well as to the call by recent scholars to recognize the significance of religion as a meaningful category in the study of nineteenth-century literature and culture, this collection locates evangelicalism at the center of its inquiry into girlhood. Contributors draw on a wide range of texts, including canonical literature by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan Warner, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and overlooked archives such as US Methodist Sunday School fiction, children's missionary periodicals, and the Christian Recorder, the flagship newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. These essays investigate representations of girlhood that engage, codify, and critique normative Protestant constructions of girlhood. Contributors examine girlhood in the context of reform, revealing the ways in which Protestantism at once constrained and enabled female agency. Drawing on a range of critical perspectives, including African American Studies, Disability Studies, Gender Studies, and Material Culture Studies, this volume enriches our understanding of nineteenth-century childhood by focusing on the particularities of girlhood, expanding it beyond that of the white able-bodied middle-class girl and attending to the intersectionality of identity and religion.

What is it like to be a child growing up in Britain these days? Is it a happy time, or is there too much to worry about? What are the best and worst aspects of being a child today? Children these days draws on the accounts of over two thousand children, and five hundred adults, to examine the present day meaning of childhood and its implications for policy and practice. Key questions addressed by the study include how is childhood perceived? What is it like to grow up and become an adult? What are the influences and controls on young people? Are young people protected or over-protected? How much do young people and adults respect and talk to each other? To what extent is Britain a child-friendly society? The book provides unique evidence on children's and adults' views of childhood, and draws conclusions on the attitudes and policies to be challenged and developed in the 21st century. It will make a significant contribution to contemporary debate and discussion on the future of childhood. Children these days is essential reading for policy makers, practitioners, academics, researchers, and students on childhood studies, social sciences, and social policy courses. It has been written in a style that means it is also accessible to others with a more general interest in children and childhood.

There have long been doubts within social work about the viability of reconciling participatory practice with the statutory power that comes hand-in-hand with child protection work. This book explores this issue by proposing an original theory of children's participation within statutory child protection interventions. It prioritises children's voices through presentation of a wide collection of children's experiences of the child protection system including three unique in-depth accounts. Identifying the different ways in which children engage with professionals in the child protection process, Duncan explores why they act in the ways that they do. The book reveals why some children are sceptical participants or become disaffected with the system whilst others participate more positively within it. Participation in Child Protection will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including social work, sociology, psychology, counselling, law and education, as well as child protection professionals such as social workers, child protection police officers, health visitors and teachers.

Bringing together new perspectives in childhood studies and animal studies, this book is the first collection to critically address the manifold alignments and frequent co-constitutions of children and pets in our families, our cultures, and our societies. The cultural politics of power shaping relationships between children, pets, and adults inform the wide range of essays included in this collection, as they explore issues such as protection, discipline, mastery, wildness, play, and domestication. The volume use the frequent social and cultural intersections between children and pets as an opportunity to analyze institutions that create pet and child subjectivity, from education and training to putting children and pets on display for entertainment purposes. Essays analyze legal discourses, visual culture, literature for children and adults, migration narratives, magazines for children, music, and language socialization to discuss how notions of nationalism, race, gender, heteronormativity, and speciesism shape cultural constructions of children and pets. Examining childhood and pethood in America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific, this collection shows how discourses linking children and pets are pervasive and work across cultures. By presenting innovative approaches to the child and the pet, the book brings to light alternative paths toward understanding these figures, leading to new openings and questions about kinship, agency, and the power of care that so often shapes our relationships with children and animals. This will be an important volume for scholars of animal studies, childhood studies, children's literature, cultural studies, political theory, education, art history, and sociology.

First published in 1984, this book focuses on the support and reassurance needed by parents of children with handicaps. It provides a practical guide in relation to daily care and is equally as relevant to professionals, therapists, teachers, doctors and psychologists who must advise parents. Written by an Occupational Therapist, the book highlights the need to make such children as independent as possible and gives advice on care of a special baby, modifications to the home environment, the needs of a child with a physical handicap, problems of educational handicap, and the place of a child in the family and community.

Conflict Narratives in Middle Childhood presents evidence from twenty years of research, examining nearly 3,000 narratives from 1,600 children in eight settings in two countries about their own experiences with interpersonal conflict. Close readings, combined with systematic analysis of dozens of features of the stories reveal that when children are invited to write or talk about their own conflicts, they produce accounts that are often charming and sometimes heartbreaking, and that always bring to light their social, emotional, and moral development. Children's personal stories about conflict reveal how they create and maintain friendships, how they understand and react to the social aggression that threatens those friendships, and how they understand and cope with physical aggression ranging from the pushing and poking of peers to criminal violence in their neighborhoods or families. Sometimes children describe the efforts of adults to influence their conflicts - efforts they sometimes welcome and sometimes resist. Their stories show them 'taking on' gender and other cultural commitments. We are not just watching children become more and more like us as they move through the elementary school years - we are watching them become the architects of a future we will only see to the extent that we understand their way of making sense.

This book takes on current perspectives on children's relationships to literacy, media, childhood, markets and transtionalism in converging global worlds. It introduces the idea of multi-sited imaginaries to explain how children's media and literacy performances shape and are shaped by shared visions of communities that we collectively imagine, including play, media, gender, family, school, or cultural worlds. It draws upon elements of ethnographies of globalization, nexus analysis and performance theories to examine the convergences of such imaginaries across multiple sites: early childhood and elementary classrooms and communities in Puerto Rico and the Midwest United States. In this work we attempt to understand that the local moment of engagement within play, dramatic experiences, and literacies is not a given but is always emerging from and within the multiple localities children navigate and the histories, possibilities and challenges they bring to the creative moment.

From the running of boys' clubs and, catching truants to supervising troublesome kids and giving them a 'clip round the ear', the role of the police has been a recurrent theme in the debate about juvenile delinquency. Set against the context of wider developments in youth justice in Britain, this book examines the origins, key features and outcomes of police work with young people, the realities of multi-agency decision-making, and the impact on young people and their families.