View the culture of childhood through a whole new lens. Identify age-based bias and expand your outlook on and understanding of early childhood as a culture. Examine various elements of childhood culture: language, belief economics, arts, and social structure to understand children's dispositions of questioning, engagement, and cooperation. Emily Plank specializes in play-based education, diversity and culture in early childhood education, and outdoor learning. In 2011, the Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children identified Emily as one of seven emerging leaders. She earned her bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University. She and her family currently reside in Lausanne, Switzerland.
This book examines how and why, in the context of International Relations, children’s subjecthood has all too often been relegated to marginal terrains and children themselves automatically associated with the need for protection in vulnerable situations: as child soldiers, refugees, and conflated with women, all typically with the accent on the Global South. Challenging us to think critically about childhood as a technology of global governance, the authors explore alternative ways of finding children and their agency in a more central position in IR, in terms of various forms of children’s activism, children and climate change, children and security, children and resilience, and in their inevitable role in governing the future. Focusing on the problems, pitfalls, promises, and prospects of addressing children and childhoods in International Relations, this book places children more squarely in the purview of political subjecthood and hence more centrally in IR.
This book brings together thirteen distinguished critics and scholars to explore children's art and its profound but rarely documented influence on the evolution of modern art. It shows that children's art and childhood have inspired major works of art, served as central metaphors for artistic spontaneity and honesty, and provided a window into the fundamental human qualities explored by modern artists. The volume complements editor Jonathan Fineberg's groundbreaking new book, The Innocent Eye (Princeton, 1997), in which he showed how many of the greatest masters of modern art collected and were directly influenced by children's drawings. Contributors here both expand on Fineberg's themes and take the study of children's art in new directions. They examine, for example, the influence of child art on such artists as Kandinsky, Klee, Larionov, and Miró; the diverse styles of children's art; the influence of Romantic ideas on perceptions of children's art; the conception of giftedness versus education in children's drawings; and the relationship between children's art and primitivism. The book offers unique glimpses into the working processes of great modern artists, presenting, for example, Dora Vallier's personal recollections of Miró and his creative process, and new documentation about the works of the Russian avant-garde. The essays draw on art theory, psychology, and the close study of individual works of art and written texts. Discovering Child Art will appeal to a wide range of readers, including art historians, psychologists, and art educators. Contributors to the book are Troels Andersen, Rudolf Arnheim, John Carlin, Marcel Franciscono, Ernst Gombrich, Christopher Green, Josef Helfenstein, Werner Hofmann, Yuri Molok, G. G. Pospelov, Richard Shiff, Dora Vallier, and Barbara Würwag.
Discovering Successful Pathways in Children's Development provides a new perspective on the study of childhood and family life. Successful development is enhanced when communities provide meaningful life pathways that children can seek out and engage. Successful pathways include both a culturally valued direction for development and competence in skills that matter for a child's subsequent success as a person as well as a student, parent, worker, or citizen. To understand successful pathways requires a mix of qualitative, quantitative, and ethnographic methods—the state of the art for research practice among developmentalists, educators, and policymakers alike. This volume includes new studies of minority and immigrant families, school achievement, culture, race and gender, poverty, identity, and experiments and interventions meant to improve family and child contexts. Discovering Successful Pathways in Children's Development will be of enormous value to everyone interested in the issues of human development, education, and social welfare, and among professionals charged with the task of improving the lives of children in our communities.
This exciting new book illustrates and analyses the complexities of children's and young people’s everyday lived experiences throughout childhood. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it provides theoretical frameworks and case studies to critically examine assumptions in the field and explore emerging perspectives. Considering different stages throughout childhood and youth, chapters cover key topics such as eating practices, gender, play, digital media and the environment. Drawing upon insights from cultural studies, sociology, social anthropology, psychology, health and education, this book focuses on four key areas: Bodies and minds Space, place and belonging Inequalities and inclusion Childhood in the past, present and future Essential reading for students on childhood and youth and education courses, Exploring Childhood and Youth is an important resource for practitioners working with children and young people, and for parents, communities and legislators who have influence over children’s and young people’s lives.
Maria Montessori (1870 1952), Italian Physician And Educationist, Born In Rome, The First Woman In Italy To Receive A Medical Degree (1894), She Founded A School For Children With Learning Disabilities (1899 1901), And Developed A System Of Education For Children Of Three To Six Based On Spontaneity Of Expression And Freedom From Restraint. The System Was Later Worked Out For Older Children, And Applied In Montessori Schools Throughout The World. She Opened The First Montessori School For Children In The Slums Of Rome In 1907.
Three-year old Emily greets her grandfather at the front door: "We're having a surprise party for your birthday! And it's a secret!" We may smile at incidents like these, but they illustrate the beginning of an important transition in children's lives--their development of a "theory of mind." Emily certainly has some sense of her grandfather's feelings, but she clearly doesn't understand much about what he knows, and surprises--like secrets, tricks, and ties all depend on understanding and manipulating what others think and know. Jean Piaget investigated children's discovery of the mind in the 1920s and concluded that they had little understanding before the age of six. But over the last twenty years, researchers have begun to challenge his methods and revise his conclusions. In The Child's Discovery of the Mind, Janet Astington surveys this lively area of research in developmental psychology. Sometime between the ages of two and five, children begin to have insights into their own mental life and those of others. They begin to understand mental representation--that there is a difference between thoughts in the mind and things in the world, between thinking about eating a cookie and eating a cookie. This breakthrough reflects their emerging capacity to infer other people's thoughts, wants, feelings, and perceptions from words and actions. They come to understand why people act the way they do and can predict how they will act in the future, so that by the age of five, they are knowing participants in social interaction. Astington highlights how crucial children's discovery of the mind is in their social and intellectual development by including a chapter on autistic children, who fail to make this breakthrough. "Mind" is a cultural construct that children discover as they acquire the language and social practices of their culture, enabling them to make sense of the world. Astington provides a valuable overview of current research and of the consequences of this discovery for intellectual and social development.
A full-color trip through the treasures of American Childhood from 1650 to today. Remember the toys you played with when you were growing up? Each of those objects has a story to tell about the history of American childhood and play. Construction toys like Lincoln Logs and Erector Set offer insight into America’s booming urban infrastructure in the early 1910s and 20s, and the important role toys played in preparing children for future careers in engineering and architecture. A stuffed toy monkey from Germany tells the story of young Jewish refugees to the United States during World War II. The board game Candyland has its origins in the dreaded polio epidemic of 1950s. Exploring Childhood and Play Through 50 Historic Treasures brings together a collection of beloved toys and games from the last two centuries to guide readers on a journey through the history of American childhood and play, 1840-2000. Through color photographs and short essays on each object, this book examines childhood against the backdrop of culture, politics, religion, technology, gender, parenting philosophies, and more. The book features ten categories of objects including board and electronic games, dolls, action figures, art toys, optical toys, animal toys, construction sets, and sports. Each essay tells the story of the individual object its historic context, and each passage builds upon one another to create a fascinating survey of how childhood and play changed over the course of two centuries.
