Most Americans take it for granted that a thirteen-year-old in the fifth grade is "behind schedule," that "teenagers who marry "too early" are in for trouble, and that a seventy-five-year-old will be pleased at being told, "You look young for your age." Did an awareness of age always dominate American life? Howard Chudacoff reveals that our intense age consciousness has developed only gradually since the late nineteenth century. In so doing, he explores a wide range of topics, including demographic change, the development of pediatrics and psychological testing, and popular music from the early 1800s until now. "Throughout our lifetimes American society has been age-conscious. But this has not always been the case. Until the mid-nineteenth century, Americans showed little concern with age. The one-room schoolhouse was filled with students of varied ages, and children worked alongside adults.... This is] a lively picture of the development of age consciousness in urban middle-class culture." --Robert H. Binstock, The New York Times Book Review "A fresh perspective on a century of social and cultural development."--Michael R. Dahlin, American Historical Review

Largely as a result of social policies and cultural factors, the Nordic countries continually score high in lifestyle measures, quality of life and children's outcomes. This book brings together authors from the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) to share knowledge and understanding regarding families, children, primary education and children's leisure time activities. The empirical research and theoretical contributions provide important insights into the 'Nordic model' and explore the issues facing Nordic countries. The book reveals that while there are many similarities across the countries, differences also arise. The content of the book is more relevant now than ever, as countries look at better ways to support their populations. Nordic Families, Children and Early Childhood Education will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including Education, Sociology and Social Policy.

This book adopts a critical youth studies approach and theorizes the digital as a key feature of the everyday to analyse how ideas about youth and cyber-safety, digital inclusion and citizenship are mobilized. Despite a growing interest in the benefits and opportunities for young people online, both 'young people' and 'the digital' continue to be constructed primarily as sites of social and cultural anxiety requiring containment and control. Juxtaposing public policy, popular educational and parental framings of young people's digital practices with the insights from fieldwork conducted with young Australians aged 12-25, the book highlights the generative possibilities of attending to intergenerational tensions. In doing so, the authors show how a shift beyond the paradigm of control opens up towards a deeper understanding of the capacities that are generated in and through digital life for young and old alike. Young People in Digital Society will be of interest to scholars and students in youth studies, cultural studies, sociology, education, and media and communications.

This book explores how students in China vary in their understanding of careers upon arrival at college and how these initial differences develop into distinctive career preparation pathways. Drawing on survey data, students' self-reflections, and semi-structured interviews over the four years, the book examines students' engagement in curricular and extracurricular activities, as well as their interactions with peers, faculty, and staff, and how this affects their ability to navigate, develop, and cultivate career prospects and relevant skills. It also considers how colleges may aggravate social inequality rather than equalize among students with divergent family backgrounds through cumulative advantage framework, impacting on their conceptualization and construction of careers. Addressing a key generation in a key market, this text will interest students, scholars and practitioners in sociology, social work, education, and public policy, career counselling, student affairs, human resources, and education policy.

This book brings together cutting-edge contemporary research and discussion concerning drinking practices among young adults (individuals aged approximately 18-30 years old). Its chapters showcase an interdisciplinary range of perspectives from psychology, sociology, criminology, geography, public health and social policy. The contributors address themes including how identity becomes involved in young adult drinking practices; issues relating to the non-consumption of alcohol within friendship groups; and the role of social context, religious and ethnic orientation, gender identity, and social media use. In doing so, they highlight changing trends in alcohol consumption among young people, which have seen notably fewer young adults consuming alcohol over the last two decades. In acknowledging the complex nature of drinking styles among young adults, the contributors to this collection eschew traditional understandings of young adult drinking which can pathologise and generalise. They advocate instead for an inclusive approach, as demonstrated in the wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, cultural perspectives, methods and international settings represented in this book, in order to better understand the economic, socio-cultural and pharmacological crossroads at which we now stand. This book will appeal in particular to researchers, theorists, practitioners and policy makers working in the alcohol and drugs field, public health and health psychology, in addition to students and researchers from across the social sciences.

This book explores contemporary debates surrounding Poland's 'war children', that is the young victims, participants and survivors of the Second World War. It focuses on the period after 2001, which saw the emergence of the two main political parties that were to dictate the tone of the politics of memory for more than a decade. The book shows that 2001 marked a caesura in Poland's post-Communist history, as this was when the past took center stage in Polish political life. It argues that during this period a distinct culture of commemoration emerged in Poland - one that was not only governed by what the electorate wanted to hear and see, but also fueled by emotions.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews from across Colombia-including former child guerillas, former hostages of the guerilla organization, mothers of child soldiers, and humanitarian aid workers- this volume explores the experiences of children involved with the Colombian guerilla group the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). Going beyond the predominant humanitarian perspectives on child soldiers, Johanna Higgs delves into the specific social and cultural aspects of the Colombian conflict to give a contextualized, culturally relevant understanding of the processes of both militarization and demobilization of children, deploying the theoretical lens of "lifeworlds." In so doing, Higgs not only provides insight into children's involvement in conflict in Colombia, but presents a clear case for a move away from homogenized understandings of "child soldiers," thus far dominated by viewpoints from industrialized Western nations. Tying together perspectives from anthropology, sociology, psychology, politics, and international development, Higgs provides not only a much-needed examination of how children are militarized, soldiering in the Farc context, and demilitarization, but also a blueprint for how research can be tied to specific cultural contexts.

Drawing upon a diverse range of archival evidence, medical treatises, religious texts, public discourses, and legal documents, this book examines the rich historical context in which controversies surrounding the medical neglect of children erupted onto the American scene. It argues that several nineteenth-century developments collided to produce the first criminal prosecutions of parents who rejected medical attendance as a tenet of their religious faith. A view of children as distinct biological beings with particularized needs for physical care had engendered both the new medical practice field of pediatrics and a vigorous child welfare movement that forced legislatures and courts to reconsider public and private responsibility for ensuring children's physical well-being. At the same time, a number of healing religions had emerged to challenge the growing authority of medical doctors and the appropriate role of the state in the realm of child welfare. The rapid proliferation of the new healing churches, and the mixed outcomes of parents' criminal trials, reflected ongoing uneasiness about the increasing presence of science in American life.

This volume takes an international and multidisciplinary approach to understanding students' academic achievement. It does so by integrating educational literature with developmental psychology and family studies perspectives. Each of the nine chapters focuses on a particular country: China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, or the United States. It describes the country as a cultural context, examines the current school system and parenting in light of the school system, and provides empirical evidence from that country regarding links between parenting and students' academic achievement. The book highlights similarities and differences in education and parenting across these nine countries - all varying widely in socioeconomic and cultural factors that affect schools and families. The volume contributes to greater understanding of links between parenting and academic performance in different cultural groups. It sheds light on how school systems and parenting are embedded in larger cultural settings that have implications for students' educational experiences and academic achievement. As two of the most important contexts in which children and adolescents spend time, understanding how schools and families jointly contribute to academic achievement holds promise for advancing the international agenda of promoting quality education for all.

This book presents the method developed by Dr. Silvia Helena Koller and her students and collaborators to apply Urie Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Theory of Human Development to empirical studies with children and adolescents. Although Bronfenbrenner's theory, in different stages of development, has been widely cited by several researchers, surprisingly little has been written about the theory itself, its evolution or about the methods that should be used to test it. This book fills this gap by presenting both an overview of Bronfenbrenner's theory and a method to apply it to empirical research, the Ecological Engagement method. The book also shows how this method can be applied in practice by bringing together a series of research reports of studies carried out in different regions of Brazil and in Angola that used the Ecological Engagement method to study children and adolescent development in different contexts, such as street situation, sexual exploitation, institutional reception, family reintegration, school and emergency and disasters, among others. Ecological Engagement - Urie Bronfenbrenner's Method to Study Human Development will be a valuable tool for psychologists and other social scientists interested in child and adolescent development looking for a solid an innovative methodology that allows researchers to directly interact with their research subjects in their own social contexts in order to fully understand their problems and issues. "The methodology of Ecological Engagement, that is explained and richly empirically illustrated in this book, is a singularly significant extension of [Urie Bronfenbrenner's] bioecological model. Indeed, in my view it is a brilliant empirical instantiation of the PPCT component of the model. (...) Ecological Engagement methodology is the scientific means through which Urie's legacy can be furthered." - Excerpt from the Foreword to the International Edition by Dr. Richard M. Lerner, director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, Tufts University

This collection defines the field of maternal studies in Australia for the first time. Leading motherhood researchers explore how mothering has evolved across Australian history as well as the joys and challenges of being a mother today. The contributors cover pregnancy, birth, relationships, childcare, domestic violence, time use, work, welfare, policy and psychology, from a diverse range of maternal perspectives. Utilising a matricentric feminist framework, Australian Mothering foregrounds the experiences, emotions and perspectives of mothers to better understand how Australian motherhood has developed historically and contemporaneously. Drawing upon their combined sociological and historical expertise, Bueskens and Pascoe Leahy have carefully curated a collection that presents compelling research on past and present perspectives on maternity in Australia, which will be relevant to researchers, advocates and policy makers interested in the changing role of mothers in Australian society.

Largely as a result of social policies and cultural factors, the Nordic countries continually score high in lifestyle measures, quality of life and children's outcomes. This book brings together authors from the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) to share knowledge and understanding regarding families, children, primary education and children's leisure time activities. The empirical research and theoretical contributions provide important insights into the 'Nordic model' and explore the issues facing Nordic countries. The book reveals that while there are many similarities across the countries, differences also arise. The content of the book is more relevant now than ever, as countries look at better ways to support their populations. Nordic Families, Children and Early Childhood Education will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including Education, Sociology and Social Policy.

This book makes a unique contribution to contemporary research into masculinities, men's movements, and fathers' rights groups. It examines the role of changing masculinities in creating equality and/or reinforcing inequality by analysing diverse men's movements, their politics, and the identities they (re)construct. Jordan advances a typology for categorising men's movements ('feminist', 'postfeminist', and 'backlash' movements) and addresses debates over the construction of 'masculinity-in-crisis', arguing that 'crisis' is frequently invoked in problematic ways. These themes are further explored through original analyses of material produced by 'feminist', 'postfeminist', and 'backlash' men's groups. The main empirical contribution of the book draws on interviews with fathers' rights activists to explore the (gendered) implications of the 'new' politics of fatherhood. The nuanced examination of fathers' rights perspectives reveals multiple, complex narratives of masculinity, fatherhood, and gender politics. The cumulative effect of these is, at best, postfeminist and depoliticising, and, at worst, another vitriolic 'backlash'. The New Politics of Fatherhood expands scholarly understandings of gender, masculinities, and social movements in the under-researched UK context, and will appeal to readers with interests in these areas.

"And Yet I Remember" explores representations of ageing and old age in English drama from 1660 to the 1750s. Within these approximately ninety years, England witnessed significant developments in medicine and the advent of sentimental philosophy, which began to transform attitudes toward old age and ageing. This study discusses the enduring cultural and literary stereotyping of old(er) people in culture and drama of this period. The chapters are organised around the stereotypes that kept reappearing in cultural, medical and religious narratives on old age, namely the desiring old man (senex amans) and woman (the "lusty old widow") and the nostalgic and wise elder. Exploring many diverse storylines between 1660 and the 1750s that treat old age and present old(er) characters, the analyses in this study further show how the choice of genre, personal experiences and attitudes of the playwright, and political and cultural revolutions affected the representation of older people.

This book is about friendships in public settings today. Wilkinson examines friendships in the public settings of neighbourhoods, civil society and at work. Identifying the unique relevance which public friendships have to contemporary social problems, the chapters cover a range of topics, including work-life balance, women's 'double burden' and their leisure deficit, and contemporary neighbouring initiatives. Wilkinson shows how 'friendship time' at work provides solutions to new social problems including privacy: with the modern workplace being hyper-public and emphasizing visibility, monitoring and 24/7 availability, friendship's combination of voluntarism and trust enable a private refuge even in an open-plan office. The book also explores the way in which friendships in public settings like work and neighbourhood provide community to those in society who are more likely to be excluded from private familial intimacy. The Public Life of Friendship will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of social science disciplines with an interest in friendship and the sociology of personal life.

This book examines the meaning of happiness in Britain today, and observes that although we face challenges such as austerity, climate change and disenchantment with politics, we continue to be interested in happiness and living well. The author illustrates how happiness is a far more contested, social process than is often portrayed by economists and psychologists, and takes issue with sociologists who often regard wellbeing and the happiness industry with suspicion, whilst neglecting one of the key features of being human - the quest for a good life. Exploring themes that question what it means to be happy and live a good life in Britain today, such as the challenges young people face making their way through education and into their first jobs; work life-balance; mid-life crises; and old age, the book presents nineteen life stories that call for a far more critical and ambitious approach to happiness research that marries the radicalism of sociology, with recent advances in psychology and economics. This book will appeal to students and academics interested in wellbeing, happiness and quality of life and also those researching areas such as the life course, work-life balance, biographies, aging and youth studies.

This edited collection draws together a variety of contexts of contemporary childhoods, linking thinking from Canada with spaces in the UK and Sweden. The contributors explores the discourses that shape those childhoods and how this then impacts on the way that children come to experience their everyday lives. The aim of the book is not to reflect the entirety of childhood experience but to draw off particular expertise that shine a light into partial, yet significant areas of children's lives, with the contributions engaging with a range of voices and perspectives. As a result, the collection advocates the need for childhood studies to zoom out from a predisposition to isolate the child, which has been seen as a necessary part of conceptualizing childhood. As a result, the book focuses on a 'context' for childhoods through a consideration of both structure and agency, and through this seeks to recognise the interconnected nature of the arenas within which children live their everyday lives. A range of themes are covered, including the education system, identity within the home, suicide in communities, and younger children's 'political' engagement and sense of belonging. Contextualising Childhoods will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, law, and education.

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.

This edited volume examines child exploitation in the Global South. It introduces several case studies and interviews articulated around two features: exploitation within the family and exploitation in relation to social contexts. The research shows that both of the features are linked and, generally, they are not separate. It makes several important arguments which challenge the most common view on how children are perceived and exploited in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Additionally, it explores the social representation of exploited children as well as their general well-being.

During the "long sixties" - between 1964 and 1973 - baby boomers raised on democratic post-war ideals demanded a more egalitarian society for all. While a few became vocal leaders at universities across Canada, nearly 90% of Canada's young people went straight to work after high school. There, they brought the anti-authoritarian spirit of the youth revolt to the labour movement.
While university-based activists combined youth culture with a new brand of radicalism to form the New Left, young workers were pressing for wildcat strikes and defying their aging union leaders in a wave of renewed militancy that swept the country. In Rebel Youth, Ian Milligan looks at these converging currents, demonstrating convincingly how they were part of a single youth phenomenon. With just short of seventy interviews complementing the extensive use of archival records, this book reveals a youth current that, despite regional differences, spanned an intellectual network from Halifax to Victoria that read the same publications, consulted the same thinkers, and found inspiration in the same shared ideas.
Rebel Youth draws important connections between the stories of young workers and the youth movement in Canada, claiming a central place for labour and class in the legacy of this formative decade.

Over the centuries, drama has been an influential and imaginative medium for presenting, analysing and offering ways of resolving real or fictional battles. This volume provides readers with a timely study of inter-generational conflicts and crises as seen through the eyes of male and female British and Irish playwrights from the medieval period to the twenty-first century. The contributions suggest that at the heart of inter-generational discord lies various crises between (the) age(d) and youth or, more generally, the idea of what is "old" and "new". The interaction and co-existence of age and youth in their embodied, symbolic or conceptual forms is the topic of this volume. The collection is built around the words "age(d)"/"young", which denote both the biological age of the characters and the more conceptual potential of these terms. Ultimately, the contributors to this collection of essays analyse not only the idea of inter-generationality within selected dramatic works but also inter-generational conflicts seen in clashes of cultures, artistic visions, concepts and aesthetic idea(l)s.

What can sociology tell us about our personal lives, families and intimate relationships? This book explains how key theoretical perspectives and relevant contemporary research in the discipline can shed new light on even the most familiar areas of our everyday worlds. From friendships and pets, to political engagement and social legislation, the text shows how distinctions and connections can be drawn between our public and private lives. Each chapter explores a familiar topic that illustrates how individual relationships and lives can be shaped by social contexts, and how personal choices shape the wider social world. Using vivid case examples drawn from topical areas of debate, such as marriage rights and the role of social networking, the book is clearly laid out and easy to read. It gives useful explanations of theory and invaluable advice on how to carry out research on personal lives and relationships. This is essential reading for students of sociology interested in family, relationships and beyond. New to this Edition: - Pre-existing chapters have been fully re-written - Includes a number of new chapters on topics such as the body, home and personal life in public spaces. - Reformulated 'questions for discussion' at the end of each chapter.