The Nation in Children's Literature

The Nation in Children's Literature

Author: Kit Kelen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-02-11

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1136248943

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This book explores the meaning of nation or nationalism in children’s literature and how it constructs and represents different national experiences. The contributors discuss diverse aspects of children’s literature and film from interdisciplinary and multicultural approaches, ranging from the short story and novel to science fiction and fantasy from a range of locations including Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Norway, America, Italy, Great Britain, Iceland, Africa, Japan, South Korea, India, Sweden and Greece. The emergence of modern nation-states can be seen as coinciding with the historical rise of children’s literature, while stateless or diasporic nations have frequently formulated their national consciousness and experience through children’s literature, both instructing children as future citizens and highlighting how ideas of childhood inform the discourses of nation and citizenship. Because nation and childhood are so intimately connected, it is crucial for critics and scholars to shed light on how children’s literatures have constructed and represented historically different national experiences. At the same time, given the massive political and demographic changes in the world since the nineteenth century and the formation of nation states, it is also crucial to evaluate how the national has been challenged by changing national languages through globalization, international commerce, and the rise of English. This book discusses how the idea of childhood pervades the rhetoric of nation and citizenship, and how children and childhood are represented across the globe through literature and film.


Parent Nation

Parent Nation

Author: Dana Suskind

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-04-26

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0593185617

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***INSTANT New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestseller*** World-class pediatric surgeon, social scientist, and best-selling author of Thirty Million Words Dr. Dana Suskind returns with a revelatory new look at the neuroscience of early childhood development—and how it can guide us toward a future in which every child has the opportunity to fulfill their potential. Her prescription for this more prosperous and equitable future, as clear as it is powerful, is more robust support for parents during the most critical years of their children’s development. In her poignant new book, Parent Nation, written with award-winning science writer Lydia Denworth, Dr. Suskind helps parents recognize both their collective identity and their formidable power as custodians of our next generation. Weaving together the latest science on the developing brain with heart-breaking and relatable stories of families from all walks of life, Dr. Suskind shows that the status quo—scores of parents convinced they should be able to shoulder the enormous responsibility of early childhood care and education on their own—is not only unsustainable, but deeply detrimental to the wellbeing of children, families, and society. Anyone looking for a blueprint for how to build a brighter future for our children will find one in Parent Nation. Informed by the science of foundational brain development as well as history, political science, and the lived experiences of families around the country, this book clearly outlines how society can and should help families meet the developmental needs of their children. Only then can we ensure that all children are able to enjoy the promise of their potential.


Children's Health, the Nation's Wealth

Children's Health, the Nation's Wealth

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2004-10-18

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0309166608

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Children's health has clearly improved over the past several decades. Significant and positive gains have been made in lowering rates of infant mortality and morbidity from infectious diseases and accidental causes, improved access to health care, and reduction in the effects of environmental contaminants such as lead. Yet major questions still remain about how to assess the status of children's health, what factors should be monitored, and the appropriate measurement tools that should be used. Children's Health, the Nation's Wealth: Assessing and Improving Child Health provides a detailed examination of the information about children's health that is needed to help policy makers and program providers at the federal, state, and local levels. In order to improve children's health-and, thus, the health of future generations-it is critical to have data that can be used to assess both current conditions and possible future threats to children's health. This compelling book describes what is known about the health of children and what is needed to expand the knowledge. By strategically improving the health of children, we ensure healthier future generations to come.


Strengthening Young Bodies, Building the Nation

Strengthening Young Bodies, Building the Nation

Author: Vassiliki Theodorou

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2019-07-18

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9633862795

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Stimulated by the development of childhood studies and the social history of medicine, this book lays out the historical circumstances that led to the medicalization of childhood in Greece from the end of the nineteenth century until World War Two. For this span of fifty years, the authors explore how the national question was bound up with concerns raised about the health of children. They also investigate the various connotations of child health and maternity care in the context of liberal and authoritarian governments, as well as the wider social and cultural changes that took place in this period. Drawing on a wide array of primary and secondary sources, the authors look into the role of doctors, social thinkers and civil servants in the shaping of health policy; the impact of the medical paradigm from Western Europe; and the gradual professionalization of health care in Greece. Theodorou and Karakatsani describe an increasing intervention of the state in the medical supervision of childhood, the relationship between the philanthropic organizations and the state, as well as the impact of the national rivalries and wars on efforts to improve child health.


The Nation and the Child

The Nation and the Child

Author: Yael Darr

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789027200754

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The Nation and the Child - Nation Building in Hebrew Children's Literature, 1930-1970 is the first comprehensive study to investigate the active role of children's literature in the intensive cultural project of building a Hebrew nation. Which social actors and institutions participated in creating a Hebrew children's literature? How did they envision their young readership and what new cultural roles did they prescribe for them through literary texts? How tolerant was the children's literary field to alternative or even subversive national options and how did the perceptions of the "national child" change in the transition from the pre-state Jewish settlement in Palestine to a sovereign state? This book seeks to provide answers to such questions by focusing on the literary activities of leading taste-setters and writers for children, from the most intense period of Israeli nation building - the 1930s and 1940s, the two last decades of the pre-state era, and the 1950s, the first decade following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 - through the 1960s, when the nation-building fervor gradually waned.


Children and Youth in a New Nation

Children and Youth in a New Nation

Author: James Marten

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0814796362

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In the early years of the Republic, as Americans tried to determine what it meant to be an American, they also wondered what it meant to be an American child. A defensive, even fearful, approach to childhood gave way to a more optimistic campaign to integrate young Americans into the Republican experiment. In Children and Youth in a New Nation, historians unearth the experiences of and attitudes about children and youth during the decades following the American Revolution. Beginning with the revolution itself, the contributors explore a broad range of topics, from the ways in which American children and youth participated in and learned from the revolt and its aftermaths, to developing notions of “ideal” childhoods as they were imagined by new religious denominations and competing ethnic groups, to the struggle by educators over how the society that came out of the Revolution could best be served by its educational systems. The volume concludes by foreshadowing future “child-saving” efforts by reformers committed to constructing adequate systems of public health and child welfare institutions. Rooted in the historical literature and primary sources, Children and Youth in a New Nation is a key resource in our understanding of origins of modern ideas about children and youth and the conflation of national purpose and ideas related to child development.


Civilizing the Child

Civilizing the Child

Author: Katharine S. Bullard

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2013-11-26

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0739178997

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In Civilizing the Child: Discourses of Race, Nation, and Child Welfare in America, Katherine S. Bullard analyzes the discourse of child welfare advocates who argued for the notion of a racialized ideal child. This ideal child, limited to white, often native-born children, was at the center of arguments for material support to children and education for their parents. This book illuminates important limitations in the Progressive approach to social welfare and helps to explain the current dearth of support for poor children. Civilizing the Child tracks the growing social concern with children in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The author uses seminal figures and institutions to look at the origins of the welfare state. Chapters focus on Charles Loring Brace, Jacob Riis, residents of the Hull House Settlement, and the staff of U.S. Children’s Bureau, analyzing their work to unpack the assumptions about American identity that made certain children belong and others remain outsiders. Bullard traces the ways in which child welfare advocates used racialized language and emphasized the “civilizing mission” to argue for support of white native-born children. This language focused on the future citizenship of some children as an argument for their support and protection.


Developments

Developments

Author: Erica Burman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-02-19

Total Pages: 587

ISBN-13: 1134183437

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How does developmental psychology connect with the developing world? What do cultural representations tell us about the contemporary politics of childhood? What is the political economy of childhood? This companion volume to Burman's Deconstructing Developmental Psychology helps us to explain why questions around children and childhood - their safety, their sexuality, their interests and abilities, their violence - have so preoccupied the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In this increasingly post-industrial, post-colonial and multicultural world, this book identifies analytical and practical strategies for improving how we think about and work with children. Drawing in particular on feminist and postdevelopment literatures, the book illustrates how and why reconceptualising our notions of individual and human development, including those informing models of children's rights and interests, will foster more just and equitable forms of professional practice with children and their families. The book brings together completely new, previously unpublished material alongside revised and updated papers to present a cutting-edge and integrated perspective to the field. Burman offers a key contribution to a set of urgent debates engaging theory and method, policy and practice across all the disciplines that work with, or lay claim to, children's interests. Developments presents a coherent and persuasive set of arguments about childhood, culture and professional practice so that the sustained focus across a range of disciplinary arenas (psychology, education, cultural studies, child rights, gender studies, development policy and practice, social policy) strengthens the overall argument of each chapter. It will be invaluable to teachers and students in psychology, childhood studies and education as well as researchers in gender studies. It will also be a must-read for professionals working with children and adolescents.


From A Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind

From A Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind

Author: Maris A. Vinovskis

Publisher:

Published: 2009-01-12

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13:

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In this dynamic look at the current state of character education, Alan Lockwood assesses its strengths and weaknesses and finds fault with leading advocates for failing to respond to sound critiques of their work. Lockwood argues that contemporary character education can be significantly improved by using key principles from established theories and research on developmental psychology. He offers numerous examples to support his recommendations while inviting character education theorists and practitioners to generate their own implications from his presentation. This book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in improving the quality of values-based education for children and adolescents.


Beasts of No Nation

Beasts of No Nation

Author: Uzodinma Iweala

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 0061844543

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“Remarkable. . . . Iweala never wavers from a gripping, pulsing narrative voice. . . . He captures the horror of ethnic violence in all its brutality and the vulnerability of youth in all its innocence.” —Entertainment Weekly (A) The harrowing, utterly original debut novel by Uzodinma Iweala about the life of a child soldier in a war-torn African country As civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his father’s own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander. While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started—a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family, still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality continues to spin further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Uzodinma Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals, and violence that mark Agu’s new community. Electrifying and engrossing, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary writer.