Synopses & Reviews
Children's work is on the increase in all parts of the world, including the affluent countries of Europe and North America, and is closely linked with the processes of globalization. It can take on widely differing forms and can harm children, but also benefit them. This book's approach is distinctive: it endeavors to understand working children, and their ways of living and acting, from their own perspective. It is interested in the children's own experiences and hopes, especially their attempts to speak out in public and to fight together against exploitation and discrimination. It shows that children frequently see and evaluate their work differently from adults, and that measures directed against children's work are not always in the interests of the children. It argues for a new, subject-oriented approach in dealing with children's work, which takes account of socio-cultural contexts, both in theory and practice.
Synopsis
This book shows how children's work can take on widely differing forms; and how it can both harm and benefit children. Differing in approach from most other work in the field, it endeavours to understand working children from their own perspective.
About the Author
Manfred Liebel is Professor of Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Working children's movements in Africa, Latin America, and Asia
2. Children's work from the perspective of social research: an international stock-taking
3. The working child has a will of its own: subject oriented and participative research on children's work in Latin America
4. Childhood and worn in non-Western cultures: the fruits of ethnological and anthropological research
5. Working children in Europe - loss or new perspectives of childhood?
6. Working children and adolescents in the USA - juggling school and work
7. Work and play in the lives of children: reflections on an unfortunate separation and possible connections
8. The economic exploitation of children: towards a subject-oriented praxis
9. How working children resist exploitation and strive to share decisions about their work: experiences and examples from various continents and periods
10. Ways to self-determined children's work? The significance and problems of educationally conceived work projects
11. Thoughts on a subject-orinted theory of working children
Bibliography
Index