This is an excellent introduction to the subject, wide-ranging, authoritative and accessible. The presentation of key concepts in the understanding of contemporary childhood, followed by a series of thematic explorations, makes for an effective combination of breadth and depth. I would recommend it to students in particular." - Nigel Thomas, Professor Emeritus of Childhood and Youth, UCLAN
"Too often cultural studies discourse seems cut off from wider developments in social theory. As a sociologist with a strong cultural studies sensibility, David Oswell is ideally placed to put this right. Through a series of well-judged and historically nuanced readings of cultural, social theory and critical philosophy, this book provides just the bridge between cultural studies and wider debates that we need" - Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science David Oswell has written a comprehensive introduction to cultural studies that guides the reader through the field′s central foundations and its freshest ideas. This book: Grounds the reader in the foundations of cultural studies and cultural theory: language and semiology, ideology and power, mass and popular culture. Analyzes the central problems: identity, body, economy, globalization and empire. Introduces the latest developments on materiality, agency, technology and nature. Culture and Society is an invaluable guide for students navigating the dynamic debates and intellectual challenges of cultural studies. Its breadth and unparalleled coverage of theory will also ensure that it is read by anyone interested in questions of materiality and culture.
Written with clarity and thoroughly argued, Wyness confirms his place as one of the key authors within contemporary social science writing on children and childhood. A formidable exploration of the nature of contemporary childhood in globally disparate regions.′ - Pia Christensen, Professor of Anthropology and Childhood Studies, University of Leeds, UK A multifaceted and extensive analysis of the study of children and childhood. Linking key concepts, themes and problems together, the text offers an interdisciplinary approach with its topical and timely case studies and illustrations which illuminate the latest research in the field. Key features include: A number of international case studies including children and military conflict, child migrants, children and networking sites, child trafficking, and children as consumers Questions which help you to make connections between topics and get you reflecting on your own childhood Engaging learning features including chapter aims, boxed sections, summaries and further reading suggestions
The new edition of this established core textbook continues to give an insightful, authoritative and accessible overview of competing theoretical positions on the sociological study of childhood. The book explores the ways these theories inform key themes, including education, work, identity and agency. The study of childhood has taken on an increasingly global focus in recent years, honing in on how issues of rights, protection and development shape the lives of children and those around them at political, social and institutional levels across the world. As a result, this book guides students through the theories and research on childhood in both local and global contexts. Author Michael Wyness clearly illustrates how a study of childhood can inform sociological thinking on social crises, changes and problems such as globalisation, criminality and disruption of the social order. Written for students exploring childhood from a sociological perspective, this is the essential introduction to the topic. New to this Edition: - A broadened global focus throughout every chapter, including more on the developing world. - A revised chapter on researching children and childhood. - An updated critical appraisal of children's rights, as well as new data on child protection and schooling. - The introduction of new key readings and 'Academic Insights' boxes that explore research on important topics in more detail.
Focusing on the impact of globalization on children's lives, in the United States and on the world stage, this work examines children as both creators of culture and objects of cultural concern in America, evident in the strange contemporary fear of and fascination with child abduction, child murder, and parental kidnapping.
The landmark work on the social significance of childhood. The original and vastly influential ideas of Erik H. Erikson underlie much of our understanding of human development. His insights into the interdependence of the individuals' growth and historical change, his now-famous concepts of identity, growth, and the life cycle, have changed the way we perceive ourselves and society. Widely read and cited, his works have won numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Combining the insights of clinical psychoanalysis with a new approach to cultural anthropology, Childhood and Society deals with the relationships between childhood training and cultural accomplishment, analyzing the infantile and the mature, the modern and the archaic elements in human motivation. It was hailed upon its first publication as "a rare and living combination of European and American thought in the human sciences" (Margaret Mead, The American Scholar). Translated into numerous foreign languages, it has gone on to become a classic in the study of the social significance of childhood.
In this timely study, high profile researchers contribute to the burgeoning field of the social studies of childhood with original and often surprising perspectives and approaches. With chapters on children's agency in small worlds and childhood's placement in large scale relationships, the book shows not only the variety of childhood(s), but also suggests that much is common in a generational context.
This book investigates the relationship between ideas about childhood and the actual experience of being a child, and assesses how it has changed over the span of five hundred years. Hugh Cunningham tells an engaging story of the development of ideas about childhood from the Renaissance to the present, taking in Locke, Rosseau, Wordsworth and Freud, revealing considerable differences in the way western societites have understood and valued childhood over time. His survey of parent/child relationships uncovers evidence of parental love, care and, in the frequent cases of child death, grief throughout the period, concluding that there was as much continuity as change in the actual relations of children and adults across these five centuries. For undergraduate courses in History of the Family, European Social History, History of Children and Gender History.
Children play a crucial role in today's economy. According to some estimates, children spend or influence the spending of up to $500 billion annually. Journalists, sociologists, and media reformers often present mass marketing toward children as a recent fall from grace, but the roots of children's consumerism — and the anxieties over it — date back more than a century. Throughout the twentieth century, a wide variety of groups — including advertisers, retailers, parents, social reformers, child experts, public schools, and children themselves — helped to socialize children as consumers and struggled to define the proper boundaries of the market. The essays and documents in this volume illuminate the historical circumstances and cultural conflicts that helped to produce, shape, and legitimize children's consumerism. Focusing primarily on the period from the Gilded Age through the twentieth century, this book examines how and why children and adolescents acquired new economic roles as consumers, and how these new roles both reflected and produced dynamic changes in family life and the culture of capitalism. This volume also reveals how children and adolescents have used consumer goods to define personal identities and peer relationships — sometimes in opposition to marketers' expectations and parental intentions.
