Emphasising the voices and rights of children, international expert Anne Smith examines the latest thinking on children’s learning and development. Contemporary theories and research about children and childhood are explained, using observations from children’s everyday experiences and debates about policy. A sociocultural perspective presents development as driven by a child’s learning, supported by opportunities for reciprocal social interaction across diverse cultural contexts.
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.
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies navigates our understanding of the historical, political, social and cultural dimensions of childhood. Transdisciplinary and transnational in content and scope, the Encyclopedia both reflects and enables the wide range of approaches, fields and understandings that have been brought to bear on the ever-transforming problem of the "child" over the last four decades This four-volume encyclopedia covers a wide range of themes and topics, including: Social Constructions of Childhood Children’s Rights Politics/Representations/Geographies Child-specific Research Methods Histories of Childhood/Transnational Childhoods Sociology/Anthropology of Childhood Theories and Theorists Key Concepts This interdisciplinary encyclopedia will be of interest to students and researchers in: Childhood Studies Sociology/Anthropology Psychology/Education Social Welfare Cultural Studies/Gender Studies/Disabilty Studies
This unique and timely collection examines childhood and the child character throughout Stephen King’s works, from his early novels and short stories, through film adaptations, to his most recent publications. King’s use of child characters within the framework of horror (or of horrific childhood) raises questions about adult expectations of children, childhood, the American family, child agency, and the nature of fear and terror for (or by) children. The ways in which King presents, complicates, challenges, or terrorizes children and notions of childhood provide a unique lens through which to examine American culture, including both adult and social anxieties about children and childhood across the decades of King’s works.
Outlining sociology’s distinctive contribution to childhood studies and our understanding of contemporary children and childhood, The Sociology of Children, Childhood and Generation provides a thought provoking and comprehensive account of the connections between the macro worlds of childhood and the micro worlds of children’s everyday lives. Examining children’s involvement in areas such as the labour market, family life, education, play and leisure, the book provides an effective balance between understanding childhood as a structural phenomenon, and recognising children as meaning makers actively involved in constructing, co-constructing and reconstructing their everyday lives. Through the concept of ′generagency′ Madeleine Leonard offers a model for examining and illuminating how structure and agency are activated within interdependent relationships influenced by generational positioning. This framework provides a conceptual tool for thinking about the continuities, challenges and changes that impact on how childhood is lived and experienced.
In this lively and accessible book, Colin Heywood explores the changing experiences and perceptions of childhood from the early Middle Ages to the beginning of the twentieth century. Heywood examines the different ways in which people have thought about childhood as a stage of life, the relationships of children with their families and peers, and the experiences of young people at work, in school and at the hands of various welfare institutions. The aim is to place the history of children and childhood firmly in its social and cultural context, without losing sight of the many individual experiences that have come down to us in diaries, autobiographies and oral testimonies. Heywood argues that there is a cruel paradox at the heart of childhood in the past. On the one hand, material conditions for children have generally improved in the West, however belatedly and unevenly, and they are now more valued than in the past. On the other hand, the business of preparing for adulthood has become more complicated in urban and industrial societies, as the young face a bewildering array of choices and expectations. A History of Childhood will be an essential introduction to the subject for students of history, the social sciences and cultural studies.
Concepts of childhood and the treatment of children are often used as a barometer of society's humanity, values, and priorities. Children and Childhood in Roman Italy argues that in Roman society children were, in principle and often in practice, welcome, valued and visible. There is no evidence directly from children themselves, but we can reconstruct attitudes to them, and their own experiences, from a wide variety of material - art and architecture, artefacts, funerary dedications, Roman law, literature, and public and private ritual. There are distinctively Roman aspects to the treatment of children and to children's experiences. Education at many levels was important. The commemoration of children who died young has no parallel, in earlier or later societies, before the twentieth century. This study builds on the dynamic work on the Roman family that has been developing in recent decades. Its focus on the period between the first century BCE and the early third century CE provides a context for new work being done on early Christian societies, especially in Rome.
Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.
This fully revised and updated edition of a fundamental New Zealand psychology text examines how and why children develop and how they are influenced by the people and events in their lives. Discussed are theories of development and learning, the importance of early experience, intelligence and assessment, and the family. The development of social behavior, gender roles, language, and thinking are also covered. The question of mainstreaming--the integration of children with special educational needs into regular preschools and classrooms--is also debated. There is a strong emphasis on local conditions and the New Zealand historical and social context. This new edition addresses the important issue of giving children themselves a voice, in order to better understand their development and to involve them in decisions about their lives.
Childhood looms large in our understanding of human life, as a phase through which all adults have passed. Childhood is foundational to the development of selfhood, the formation of interests, values and skills and to the lifespan as a whole. Understanding what it is like to be a child, and what differences childhood makes, are thus essential for any broader understanding of the human condition. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is an outstanding reference source for the key topics, problems and debates in this crucial and exciting field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into five parts: · Being a child · Childhood and moral status · Parents and children · Children in society · Children and the state. Questions covered include: What is a child? Is childhood a uniquely valuable state, and if so why? Can we generalize about the goods of childhood? What rights do children have, and are they different from adults’ rights? What (if anything) gives people a right to parent? What role, if any, ought biology to play in determining who has the right to parent a particular child? What kind of rights can parents legitimately exercise over their children? What roles do relationships with siblings and friends play in the shaping of childhoods? How should we think about sexuality and disability in childhood, and about racialised children? How should society manage the education of children? How are children’s lives affected by being taken into social care? The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of childhood, political philosophy and ethics as well as those in related disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, social policy, law, social work, youth work, neuroscience and anthropology.
