Understanding childhood

Understanding childhood
Author: Mary Jane Kehily
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2013
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1447305809

Nationally and globally, childhood has become a crucial topic of sociopolitical debates and policy initiatives. Understanding Childhood offers a fresh look at how childhood has changed in recent years. It reveals how children's needs and experiences have achieved a new visibility in wider social and political discourse. Despite the privileges afforded to children in the West, the typical childhood experience there is no longer seen as an ideal model for other parts of the globe. Recent reports and policy concerns suggest that growing up in the West may be marked by the commercialization of childhood, which can lead to unhappiness, poor health, loss of innocence, and a general lack of well-being. The contributors here introduce readers to the cross-disciplinary field of childhood studies and offer an exciting and unique exploration of childhood as a concept, in the process engaging with a range of contemporary issues that shape our ideas of childhood both as an ideal and as a lived experience. Exploring childhood from a variety of research perspectives and traditions, Understanding Childhood also serves as a powerful introduction to careers in childhood service.

Beyond the Century of the Child

Beyond the Century of the Child
Author: Willem Koops
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2012-10-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0812208234

In 1900, Ellen Key wrote the international bestseller The Century of the Child. In this enormously influential book, she proposed that the world's children should be the central work of society during the twentieth century. Although she never thought that her "century of the child" would become a reality, in fact it had much more resonance than she could have imagined. The idea of the child as a product of a protective and coddling society has given rise to major theories and arguments since Key's time. For the past half century, the study of the child has been dominated by two towering figures, the psychologist Jean Piaget and the historian Philippe Ariès. Interest in the subject has been driven in large measure by Ariès's argument that adults failed even to have a concept of childhood before the thirteenth century, and that from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth there was an increasing "childishness" in the representations of children and an increasing separation between the adult world and that of the child. Piaget proposed that children's logic and modes of thinking are entirely different from those of adults. In the twentieth century this distance between the spheres of children and adults made possible the distinctive study of child development and also specific legislation to protect children from exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Recent students of childhood have challenged the ideas those titans promoted; they ask whether the distancing process has gone too far and has begun to reverse itself. In a series of essays, Beyond the Century of the Child considers the history of childhood from the Middle Ages to modern times, from America and Europe to China and Japan, bringing together leading psychologists and historians to question whether we unnecessarily infantilized children and unwittingly created a detrimental wall between the worlds of children and adults. Together these scholars address the question whether, a hundred years after Ellen Key wrote her international sensation, the century of the child has in fact come to an end.

The 'Poor Child'

The 'Poor Child'
Author: Lucy Hopkins
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2015-07-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317807251

Why are development discourses of the ‘poor child’ in need of radical revision? What are the theoretical and methodological challenges and possibilities for ethical understandings of childhoods and poverty? The ‘poor child’ at the centre of development activity is often measured against and reformed towards an idealised and globalised child subject. This book examines why such normative discourses of childhood are in need of radical revision and explores how development research and practice can work to ‘unsettle’ the global child. It engages the cultural politics of childhood – a politics of equality, identity and representation – as a methodological and theoretical orientation to rethink the relationships between education, development, and poverty in children’s lives. This book brings multiple disciplinary perspectives, including cultural studies, sociology, and film studies, into conversation with development studies and development education in order to provide new ways of approaching and conceptualising the ‘poor child’. The researchers draw on a range of methodological frames – such as poststructuralist discourse analysis, arts based research, ethnographic studies and textual analysis – to unpack the hidden assumptions about children within development discourses. Chapters in this book reveal the diverse ways in which the notion of childhood is understood and enacted in a range of national settings, including Kenya, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom. They explore the complex constitution of children’s lives through cultural, policy, and educational practices. The volume’s focus on children’s experiences and voices shows how children themselves are challenging the representation and material conditions of their lives. The ‘Poor Child’ will be of particular interest to postgraduate students and scholars working in the fields of childhood studies, international and comparative education, and development studies.

The Child and the World

The Child and the World
Author: Jana Tabak
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2020
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0820356395

However unthinkable child-soldiers may be within a generalized conception of childhood, they are not imaginary figures; rather, they are a constant in almost every armed conflict around the world. The participation of children in wars may question the idea of childhood as a "once-upon-a-time story with a happy and predictable ending," disrupting the (natural) idea of a protected and innocent childhood and also eliciting fear, uncertainty, revulsion, horror, and sorrow. Using the perspectives of both childhood studies and critical approaches to international relations, Jana Tabak explores the constructions of child-soldiers as "children at risk" and, at the same time, risky children. More specifically, The Child and the World aims both to problematize the boundaries that articulate child-soldiers as necessarily deviant and pathological in relation to "normal" children and to show how these specific limits participate in the (re)production and promotion of a particular version of the international political order. In this sense, the focus of this work is not on investigating child-soldiers' lives and experiences per se but on their presumed threatening feature as they depart from the protected territory of childhood, disquieting everyday international life.

Your Kids, Their Lives

Your Kids, Their Lives
Author: Malinda Jo Muzi
Publisher: Your Kids, Their Lives
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2006-10
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9780977696901

Over the past decade prominent fundamentalist psychologists and ministers have advised parents to return to authoritarian discipline techniques of parenting that include hitting and spanking. These practices have been challenged in Your Kids, Their Lives: A Parent's Guide to Raising Happy, Competent, Caring Children, by Malinda Jo Muzi. This author proposes that most of the information parents are getting about parenting is inaccurate or silly, and often downright harmful. In relying on the work of the most distinguished researchers in child development over the past 40 years, she directs parents toward techniques that have proven to be most advantageous to parents and children. This "how-to" book helps parents build a solid foundation of trust and respect between themselves and their children. It gives them the information they need to raise contented children who are creative and productive, and concerned about the welfare of others. A special feature of the book includes parenting experiences from the lives of prominent people, including Bill Clinton, Carly Simon, Douglas MacArthur, and Stephen Spielberg.

Childhood, Youth, and Social Work in Transformation

Childhood, Youth, and Social Work in Transformation
Author: Lynn M. Nybell
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2009-01-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0231518528

Social workers today not only face competing claims concerning the rights and needs of children and youth, but they also confront contradictions between policy and practice. Social workers are expected to fight for the best interests of the child, even though financial support for children's welfare and education grows scarce. They are asked to save "children at risk," while, at the same time, they are urged to protect communities from "risky children"; and they are encouraged to "leave no child behind," while also implementing "zero tolerance" policies to keep educational environments free from troubled youth. A cutting-edge text that deals directly with the confusion and complexity of modern child welfare, Childhood, Youth, and Social Work in Transformation features contributions from a truly interdisciplinary group of practitioners, scholars, and activists. Examining the theoretical, political, and practical aspects of working with youth today, this volume breaks free from existing modes of thought and strategies of practice and prompts readers to critically reflect on accepted approaches and new possibilities of action. Contributors analyze how economic, political, and cultural changes over the last several decades have reshaped the experiences and representations of children and youth in the United States. They examine conceptions of troubled children and youth in contemporary policies and programs and assess why certain discourses about troubling youth are so compelling to professionals, policymakers, and the public. In conclusion, these skilled professionals explore the reinvention of social work policy and practice, including the need to forge relationships that respect the experiences, rights, and personhood of children and youth.

Valuable and Vulnerable

Valuable and Vulnerable
Author: Julie Faith Parker
Publisher: Society of Biblical Lit
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1930675860

Just as women in the Bible have been overlooked for much of interpretative history, children in the Bible have fascinating and compelling stories that scholars have largely ignored. This groundbreaking book focuses on children in the Hebrew Bible. The author argues that the biblical writers recognized children as different from adults and used these ideas to shape their stories. She provides conceptual and historical frameworks for understanding children and childhood, and examines Hebrew terms related to children and youth. The book introduces a new methodology of childist interpretation and applies it to the Elisha cycle (2 Kings 2-8), which contains forty-nine child characters. Combining literary insights with social-scientific evidence, the author demonstrates that children play critical roles in the world of the text as well as the culture that produced it.

Asthma and Rhinitis

Asthma and Rhinitis
Author: William W. Busse
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 1021
Release: 2008-04-30
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0470694815

The second edition of this highly acclaimed text has been extensively revised and greatly expanded to reflect the considerable advances made in our understanding of the mechanisms of asthma and rhinitis. Containing the contributions of 242 experts of international standing, presented in 133 chapters, Asthma and Rhinitis provides an up-to-date, authoritative reference for both the clinician and scientist. The global approach given in this book mirrors the universal approach to the understanding of allergic disease. The editors have carried out a thorough and radical revision of the content by adding 6 new sections and 44 new chapters. Most of this expansion is due to greatly increased coverage of the clinical aspects of asthma, with new sections on childhood asthma and on drug treatment (each drug class has its own chapter). Also, the expansion of research into the genetic basis of asthma has necessitated a whole new section on Genetics, comprising some six chapters. There are also new chapters on adult-onset asthma and the relationship of asthma to sinusitis. A new section on Asthma in Special Circumstances includes chapters on asthma in pregnancy, asthma and surgery, asthma in the elderly and asthma in the context of critical care. In bringing the Second Edition fully up to date, the book has inevitably increased in size, and is now presented in two volumes. The second edition of Asthma and Rhinitis will continue the tradition of its predecessor of providing an up-to-the-minute reference for all those involved in the management of, and research into, asthma and rhinitis.

Children of Refugees

Children of Refugees
Author: Aida Alayarian
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2018-05-08
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0429911882

There is a wide gap between the psychological needs of the children of refugees and the services provided. Refugees' home countries, cultures, and social make-up are widely diversified, and their needs cannot be readily consolidated. This diversity of interest and need goes unacknowledged by the service-providers who may treat them as a single, homogenous group. Some refugees' needs are exaggerated, while others are ignored. This approach often ignores the justifiable and legitimate interest of refugees' psychological wellbeing. Many children of refugees may struggle with questions of race, ethnicity, language barriers, and other socio-political and economic issues that can influence their mental health and psychological wellbeing. Preoccupations of the child's emotions with those issues therefore have effects on child personality formations. Apart from having an overview of the relevant processes involved in therapeutic work and possible challenges therein, it is also important for the therapist to have an overview of the child's situation in the past and any current issues, which this book provides.

Understanding 8-9-year-olds

Understanding 8-9-year-olds
Author: Biddy Youell
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2008
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1843106736

Contains information to help parents understand and interact with their eight to nine year old child. Includes information on the role of family, play, literature, worries and reward and punishment.