Almost a third of the 4 billion people living in urban areas today are children, according to the United Nations. By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s children will live in cities. Yet how has recent sociological work engaged with children and youth living in cities around the world? What does a focus on children and youth in an urban context mean for researchers working within a variety of sociological frameworks? How have children’s and youth’s experiences shaped and been shaped by the diverse urban scapes and contexts in which they live? Sociological Research and Urban Children and Youth brings together cutting-edge work that addresses children’s and youth’s urban living experiences as well as the social, political, and ecological realities that accompany this. Featuring contributions from Australia, Canada, the U.K., and the United States, the chapters critically engage with core analytical and conceptual issues ranging from relationality to citizenship and belonging, to power, structure, and agency. Recognizing the potential research with and about young people can have in decision making on multiple levels of policy and service provision, Sociological Research and Urban Children and Youth provides a key foundation for considering the influence of urban environments on young people, and vice versa.

At the threshold of the 'social' era (1880s-1920s) in Canada, the idea of 'child saving' emerged within the framework of building national citizenship, aimed at ensuring that children - the 'future citizens' - would grow up to be useful, self-controlled, Christian adults. Child saving work connected the conduct of individuals with issues of societal importance and attempted to install a desirable mode of power in child rearing and child saving that can best be described as 'the gardening governmentality.' Tending the Gardens of Citizenship takes a Foucauldian approach to child saving work during the beginning of the social era in Toronto and demonstrates the difference between the positions of children in citizenship politics at that time and today. Xiaobei Chen breaks new ground with her critical observation of current canonical ideas and practices centred around 'keeping kids safe.' She demonstrates that the protection of children from parental abuse and neglect is best understood as an interest that has undergone radical historical transformations, depending on the political and social projects of the day. This book marks a serious advancement in the study of Canadian social history, critical analysis of child welfare, and governmentality studies in social work.