Between 1900 and 2000 an unprecedented effort to use state regulation to guarantee health, opportunity, and security to America's children failed to reach its goals. This account of the period reveals that the achievements envisioned were extremely ambitious and reflected entrenched, but self-contradictory, values as well as Americans' inconsistent expectations of government. Based on extensive research, the volume analyzes the period's public policies that affected children's welfare, work, education, and health.

In "African American Childhoods, " historian Wilma King presents a selection of her essays, both unpublished and published, which together provide a much-needed survey of more than three centuries of African American children's experiences. Organized chronologically, the volume uses the Civil War to divide the book into two parts: part one addresses the enslavement of children in Africa and explores how they lived in antebellum America; part two examines the issues affecting black children since the Civil War and into the twenty-first century. Topics include the impact of the social and historical construction of race on their development, the effects of violence, and the heroic efforts of African American children when subjected to racism at its worst during the civil rights movement.

Karen Orr Vered demonstrates how children's media play contributes to their acquisition of media literacy. Theorizing after-school care as intermediary space, a large-scale ethnographic study informs this theory-rich and practical discussion of children's media use beyond home and classroom.

Interpreter-mediated child interviews, by their nature, involve communication with vulnerable interviewees who need extra support for three main reasons: their age (under 18), language and procedural status (victim, witness or suspect). The CO-Minor-IN/QUEST research project (JUST/2011/JPEN/AG/2961; January 2013 - December 2014) studied the interactional dynamics of interpreter-mediated child interviews during the pre-trial phase of criminal proceedings. The project aimed to provide guidance in implementing the 2012/29/EU Directive establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime. This book sets out the key findings from a survey conducted in the project partners' countries (Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK) targeting the different professional groups involved in child interviewing. Both the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the respondents' answers is discussed in detail. The book also provides hands-on chapters, addressing concrete cases of children involved in criminal procedures who required the assistance of an interpreter to ensure their rights were fully protected.Finally, a set of recommendations is offered to professionals working in this area.

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.

In the context of a growing global awareness of the significance of children's rights and perspectives created by the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, this edited collection of papers explores the extent to which children's interests are finding expression in different societies in Western Europe. Its aim is to compare the ways in which social and welfare issues around childhood are being framed and realised, both within policies and legislation and through cultural practices. If, as is frequently argued, "the child is a nation's future," such a comparative project is timely, given the drive for a common European political identity.

The cult of the child performer was a significant emergence of the Victorian age. Fierce public debate and lasting legislation grew out of the conflict between a desire for juvenile display and a determination to stop exploitation. This study explores the social and artistic context of their lives and their developing professionalism as actors.

What do we as a society, and as parents in particular, owe to our children? Each chapter in "Taking Responsibility for Children" offers part of an answer to that question. Although they vary in the approaches they take and the conclusions they draw, each contributor explores some aspect of the moral obligations owed to children by their caregivers. Some focus primarily on the responsibilities of parents, while others focus on the responsibilities of society and government.

The essays reflect a mix of concern with the practical and the philosophical aspects of taking responsibility for children, addressing such topics as parental obligations, the rights and entitlements of children, the responsibility of the state, the role and nature of public education in a liberal society, the best ways to ensure adequate child protection, the licensing of parents, children's religious education, and children's health. "Taking Responsibility for Children" will be of interest to philosophers, advocates for children's interests, and those interested in public policy, especially as it relates to children and families.

Children today are growing up in a world of global media. Many have also become global citizens, through their experience of migration and transnational networks. "Global Children, Global Media" provides a comprehensive critical review of research and debate in the overlapping fields of media, globalization, migration and childhood. It also presents empirical research, using innovative visual methods, in which children's voices are featured prominently and directly. By representing these issues from the perspective of children, the book casts new light on established academic debates about cultural identity, diaspora and transnationalism, and addresses questions about social cohesion, belonging and citizenship that are of considerable concern in contemporary public and political debate. "Global Children, Global Media," now available in paperback, will provide insights both for scholars and researchers, and for educators and media practitioners who work directly with children and young people in this field.

Children today are growing up in a world of global media, in which the voices of many cultures compete for attention. Increasing numbers of children are also citizens of the globe: they live in multicultural societies, many have migrated themselves and live within active diasporic and transnational networks. The authors offer a fresh perspective on the relationships between media, globalisation and contemporary childhood.

This volume provides practitioners with clear, helpful information about the process of understanding and engaging a wide array of boys and adolescent males in counseling. It supplies case examples and covers topics including race, ethnicity, religion, and other cultural factors of boys. A practical tool for school and mental health practitioners who need to understand and respond to the developmental and special issues of boys and adolescent males, Counseling Troubled Boys creates a bridge between young men and helping professionals. The key content includes adjustment issues, strategies for establishing rapport, interventions, case studies, and suggestions for future training and research.

This book is the result of a four-year, in-depth study using social science methodology of those refugees who came as children or youths from Central Europe to the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, fleeing persecution from the National Socialist regime. This study examines their fates in their new country, their successes and tribulations.

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

How does the built environment affect children - their health, their behaviour, education and development? To support them, what do we need to consider and what do we need to do? Can our surroundings foster environmental and social awareness and responsibility?
Based on Christopher Day's experiences designing schools and early childhood centres in the United States and Britain, this groundbreaking book sets out to answer these questions and to offer solutions.
Children all too often find themselves living in alien surroundings designed with the needs of adults in mind, cut off not just from the natural environment but also childhood itself. Society's reaction - to cocoon children from the outside world or to resort to drugs to control behaviour - fails to address the fundamental causes of problems which lie in the environment not the children themselves.
One of the world's leading thinkers on the impact of buildings on people, Christopher Day's insights offer new light on one of the most important issues for today's society.
* Groundbreaking study of the impact of the built environment on children's health and behaviour
* What our surroundings teach our children
* Designing environments that nourish imagination and creativity

Children live in rapidly changing times that require them to constantly adapt to new economic, social, and cultural conditions. In this book, a distinguished, interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the issues faced by children in contemporary societies, such as discrimination in school and neighborhoods, the emergence of new family forms, the availability of new communication technologies, and economic hardship, as well as the stresses associated with immigration, war, and famine. The book applies a historical, cultural, and life-course developmental framework for understanding the factors that affect how children adjust to these challenges, and offers a new perspective on how changing historical circumstances alter children's developmental outcomes. It is ideal for researchers and graduate students in developmental and educational psychology or the sociology and anthropology of childhood.

The first fully comparative empirical analysis of the relationship between education and social cohesion, this book develops a new "distributional theory" of the effects of educational inequality on social solidarity. Based on a wide-ranging theoretical critique, and extensive analysis of data on inequality and social attitudes for over 25 developed countries, the study shows how educational inequality undermines social trust, civic co-operation and the rule of law. It is not how much education a country has that matters for social cohesion but how it is distributed and the co-operative values that people learn.

An anthropologist uses spelling bees as a lens to examine the unique and diverse traits of Generation Z--and why they are destined for success At first glance, Generation Z (youth born after 1997) seems to be made up of anxious overachievers, hounded by Tiger Moms and constantly tracked on social media. One would think that competitors in the National Spelling Bee -- the most popular brain sport in America -- would be the worst off. Counterintuitively, anthropologist Shalini Shankar argues that, far from being simply overstressed and overscheduled, Gen Z spelling bee competitors are learning crucial twenty-first-century skills from their high-powered lives, displaying a sophisticated understanding of self-promotion, self-direction, and social mobility. Drawing on original ethnographic research, including interviews with participants, judges, and parents, Shankar examines the outsize impact of immigrant parents and explains why Gen Z kids are on a path to success.

Are schools failing working class children or does working class life present alternative means for gaining social status that conflict with what it means to do well at school? Focusing on Southeast London, this book provides insight into class values and reveals the complex cultural politics of white working class pride.

An illustrated, essential guide to engaging children and youth in the process of urban design From a history of children's rights to case studies discussing international initiatives that aim to create child-friendly cities, Placemaking with Children and Youth offers comprehensive guidance in how to engage children and youth in the planning and design of local environments. It explains the importance of children's active participation in their societies and presents ways to bring all generations together to plan cities with a high quality of life for people of all ages. Not only does it delineate best practices in establishing programs and partnerships, it also provides principles for working ethically with children, youth, and families, paying particular attention to the inclusion of marginalized populations. Drawing on case studies from around the world-in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United States-Placemaking with Children and Youth showcases children's global participation in community design and illustrates how a variety of methods can be combined in initiatives to achieve meaningful change. The book features more than 200 visuals and detailed, thoughtful guidelines for facilitating a multiplicity of participatory processes that include drawing, photography, interviews, surveys, discussion groups, role playing, mapping, murals, model making, city tours, and much more. Whether seeking information on individual methods and project planning, interpreting and analyzing results, or establishing and evaluating a sustained program, readers can find practical ideas and inspiration from six continents to connect learning to the realities of students' lives and to create better cities for all ages.

This volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth showcases timely and important work of active, early-career sociologists helping to define the direction of the sub-field. Their work shares basic premises and concerns: Children and youth are active agents in their own "socialization," produce meaning and action collaboratively with peers, and struggle for agency in various social contexts. These themes shape essentially all of the contributions.

The volume is organized in two parts. Following the Introduction, six chapters make up Part One, "Empirical Studies." Two quantitative analyses lead off: first an examination of residential mobility, peer networks and life-course transitions; second, a look at adolescents' participation in a particular social movement. Two ethnographic studies follow - here the foci are "Zero Tolerance" school discipline policies, and female athletes' construction of femininity. A comparative content analysis of teen magazine advice columns, and a qualitative study of construction of "adoptive family" identities, round out Part One.

Three chapters constitute Part Two, "Innovations in Theory and Research Methods." The first offers an analysis of two films that explore children's struggle for agency and control. The next chapter develops a typology of children's participation in social movements, employing fascinating first-person narrative accounts. The final chapter demonstrates the unique ability of group interviews to capture processes through which adolescents accomplish group talk, develop shared perspectives, and construct gender identities.

Wiggling a pencil so that it looks like it is made of rubber, "stealing" your niece's nose, and listening for the sounds of the ocean in a conch shell- these are examples of folk illusions, youthful play forms that trade on perceptual oddities. In this groundbreaking study, K. Brandon Barker and Claiborne Rice argue that these easily overlooked instances of children's folklore offer an important avenue for studying perception and cognition in the contexts of social and embodied development. Folk illusions are traditionalized verbal and/or physical actions that are performed with the intention of creating a phantasm for one or more participants. Using a cross-disciplinary approach that combines the ethnographic methods of folklore with the empirical data of neuroscience, cognitive science, and psychology, Barker and Rice catalogue over eighty discrete folk illusions while exploring the complexities of embodied perception. Taken together as a genre of folklore, folk illusions show that people, starting from a young age, possess an awareness of the illusory tendencies of perceptual processes as well as an awareness that the distinctions between illusion and reality are always communally formed.

Contemporary Issues in Childhood provides undergraduate students with a comprehensive introduction to the current influences and challenges that surround childhood, families and communities. The text carefully explores the lives of children and young people to make clear the link between this particular demographic and social contexts such as family, community and society. Key theories and concepts are examined in each chapter, using Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model to highlight the complex and individual nature of child development. Written by highly experienced authors who represent a variety of professional disciplines, the book offers a comprehensive introduction to encourage critical reflection on the influences and experiences of children and childhood. A range of rich, practical examples accompany the text, in addition to discussion questions, case studies and further reading designed to support readers in reflecting on their own experiences as learners. Contemporary Issues in Childhood is essential reading for students on Education Studies courses and Childhood, Family and Community Studies courses, as well as preservice and in-service educators. It will also be of great interest to Early Childhood Studies and Special Needs/Inclusive Studies students.

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.

Patriarchal law from Spain to the New World In a pioneering study of childhood in colonial Spanish America, Bianca Premo examines the lives of youths in the homes, schools, and institutions of the capital city of Lima, Peru. Situating these young lives within the frame-work of law and intellectual history from 1650 to 1820, Premo brings to light the colonial politics of childhood and challenges readers to view patriarchy as a system of power based on age, caste, and social class as much as gender. Although Spanish laws endowed elite men with an authority over children that mirrored and reinforced the monarch's legitimacy as a colonial ""Father King,"" Premo finds that, in practice, Lima's young often grew up in the care of adults - such as women and slaves - who were subject to the patriarchal authority of others. During the Bourbon Reforms, city inhabitants of all castes and classes began to practice a ""new politics of the child,"" challenging men and masters by employing Enlightenment principles of childhood. Thus the social transformations and political dislocations of the late eighteenth century occurred not only in elite circles and royal palaces, Premo concludes, but also in the humble households of a colonial city.

Why is it that so many children in the US and England underperform academically in comparison with people in many other industrialized countries? Despite the ongoing search for effective teaching approaches, it would appear that for many children, motivation is the central issue. Arguing that current perspectives on motivation are too narrow, this book draws upon a major five year international study that has examined the impact of factors at the level of the child, the school, the family and wider society. In providing recommendations for policy and practice, this text sets a challenge to those who seek simplistic solutions to problems of student apathy and disaffection.