Divided into six parts, this substantive reference work charts how childhood studies has moved beyond developmental issues to focus on broader issues of children in society, as actors and agents, and as subjects of policy intervention. It is a comprehensive overview of key theoretical and empirical work in the field of childhood studies.

Based on a year-long micro-ethnography of a nursery school, this book presents a unique approach to childhood socialization by focusing directly upon the social, interactive, and communicative processes that make up the world of young children. It contains micro-sociolinguistic analyses of videotaped peer interactive episodes which are the basis of explanations of children's development and use of social concepts such as status, role, norms, and friendship. Stable features of peer culture in the nursery school are identified, and the importance of interpreting children's behavior from their own perspective is demonstrated. The author also addresses the implications of the findings for early childhood education.

A landmark publication in the field, this state-of-the-art reference work, with contributions from leading thinkers across a range of disciplines, is an essential guide to the study of children and childhood, and sets out future research agendas for the subject.