First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This collection of essays on the social history of disciplinary practices in education in North America, Northern Europe, and Colonial Bengal coverage upon an understanding that schools regulate the behavior of beliefs of students, teachers, and parents by enforcing certain disciplinary social norms.

Children's work is a controversial subject both in the sciences of sociology and history. It does not accord well with the modern idea of a good childhood -- that children actually work. Children ought to spend their time playing and attending school. The historians' interest has focused on industrial child labour -- its emergence and its disappearance. But relatively few children worked in industry. Far more children were employed in agriculture and retail trade, if they did not help at home or at the neighbour's. Sometimes they received pay -- other times not -- and they often worked on the edge of the law. The articles in this book examine children's work from the mid-1800's and until the 1990's, because children's work is not a closed chapter in history. But the character and social function of the children's work have been changed over time. This anthology is the result of an inter-Nordic research project about children's work in the Nordic countries involving all the five Nordic countries.

Who hasn't heard of elderly people "in their second childhood" -- or of children who "grow old before their time"? Expressions such as these bear witness to the fact that a variety of images and expectations attach themselves to biological age. When various ages are set side by side in contrast to each other, these images and expectations become apparent. "Childhood and old Age" lies at opposite ends of life's trajectory and so are quite distinct. The child finds itself at life's starting-point, the old person at its close. And yet there are in many areas more similarities than differences. Both children and old people live an institutionalised, economically unproductive and sheltered life and, in our late modern society, are completely dependent on middle-aged adults. Both age groups are objects of commercial, medical-scientific and pedagogical interest. The aim of this anthology is to confront expectations of childhood with expectations of old age. The focus is not, then, on age as a biological phenomenon, but on preconceptions of age and on the ways in which man, at different times and in different cultures, has dealt with age. The articles view their subject from both historical and contemporary standpoints, and there is an attempt to answer questions about age in the society of the future, where biological lifespans will be challenged by gene technology and improved living conditions.

"At once cautionary and hopeful, Designing Modern Childhoods is an indispensable and incisive analysis of the special role of the built environment in both opening and foreclosing good futures for kids around the globe." -Michael Sorkin, director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at the City College of New York "From Turkish schools to New Zealand playgrounds and American summer camps, these essays offer a fresh and challenging take on the modern city from the perspective of its most overlooked residents." -Dell Upton, professor of art history, University of California, Los Angeles "This book takes the reader on a richly detailed and imaginative journey into the changing organization and meanings of childhood." -Barrie Thorne, professor of sociology, gender, and women's studies, University of California, Berkeley "This imaginative and original collection will play an important role in enhancing a growing interest in the history and sociology of childhood." -Peter Stearns, provost and professor of history, George Mason University In Designing Modern Childhoods, architectural historians, social historians, social scientists, and architects examine the history and design of places and objects such as schools, hospitals, playgrounds, houses, cell phones, snowboards, and even the McDonald's Happy Meal. Special attention is given to how children use and interpret the spaces, buildings, and objects that are part of their lives, becoming themselves creators and carriers of culture. The authors extract common threads in children's understandings of their material worlds, but they also show how the experience of modernity varies for young people across time, through space, and according to age, gender, social class, race, and culture. The foreword by Paula S. Fass and epilogue by John R. Gillis add additional depth to this comprehensive examination. Marta Gutman is an associate professor in the School of Architecture, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture at the City College of New York/CUNY. Ning de Coninck-Smith is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Sociology at the School of Education-Arhus University.