Synopses & Reviews
Fertility rates have fallen dramatically around the world. In some
countries, there are no longer enough children being born to replace
adult populations. The disappearance of children is a matter of concern
matched only by fears that childhood is becoming too structured or not
structured enough, too short or too long, or just simply too different
from the idealized childhoods of the past.
The End of Children? brings together scholars who draw on
their expertise in multiple disciplines - sociology,
demography, history, anthropology, family studies, social work, and
education - to provide a more balanced, less alarmist
perspective on the meanings and implications of these issues. Contrary
to predictions of the end of children and the end of childhood, their
investigations of developments in Canada and the United States, and to
a lesser extent elsewhere in the world, show that fertility rates and
ideas about children and childhood are not uniform but rather vary
around the globe based on factors such as time, culture, class, income,
and age.
These timely explorations of how changing ideas about the child are
reshaping when and why people have children and how they choose to
raise them opens a new dialogue on the production and place of children
in modern society.
Nathanael Lauster is an assistant professor of
sociology at the University of British Columbia. Graham
Allan is professor emeritus of sociology at Keele University
in the United Kingdom.
Contributors: Graham Allan, Anita Ilta Garey, Mona
Gleason, Edward Kruk, Nathanael Lauster, Megan Lemmon, Todd F. Martin,
Adena B.K. Miller, Jay Teachman, Nicholas W. Townsend, Rebecca L.
Upton, James M. White, Mira Whyman, and Jing Zhao.
Review
"The place of children and how we regard them, whether through government policies, educational practices, or personal choices, is a pressing social issue, taken up with sensitivity in this volume.
The End of Children? successfully combines the expertise of scholars from different fields and is unique in its twinning of declining fertility rates and varying conceptions of childhood. It makes an important contribution to the scholarship on children, across a number of disciplines and geographic boundaries."
- Cynthia Comacchio, Professor of History, Wilfrid Laurier University
Synopsis
Concerns about declining fertility rates are matched only by fears
that childhood is being destroyed by modern parenting practices. This
multidisciplinary volume offers a more balanced, less alarmist
perspective on the meanings and implications of these issues. Contrary
to predictions about the end of children and the end of childhood,
these investigations of developments in Canada and the United States,
and to a lesser extent elsewhere in the world, show that fertility
rates and ideas about children and childhood are not uniform but rather
vary around the globe based on factors such as time, culture, class,
income, and age.
Table of Contents
Introduction /
Nathanael Lauster and Graham Allan1 Fertility Change in North America, 1950-2000 /
Mira Whyman, Megan Lemmon, and Jay Teachman
2 Changing Children and Changing Cultures: Immigration
as a Source of Fertility and the Assumptions of Assimilation /
Nathanael Lauster, Todd F. Martin, and James M. White
3 Using Infertility, Useful Fertility: Cultural
Imperatives on the Value of Children in the United States / RebeccaL. Upton
4 The Performance of Motherhood and Fertility Decline: A
Stage Props Approach / Nathanael Lauster
5 Parenthood, Immortality, and the End of Childhood /
Nicholas W. Townsend
6 Leaving Home: An Example of the Disappearance of
Childhood and Its End as a Predictable Set of Uniform Experiences /
Adena B.K. Miller
7 The Disappearance of Parents from Children's
Lives: The Cumulative Effects of Child Care, Child Custody, and Child
Welfare Policies in Canada / Edward Kruk
8 Navigating the Pedagogy of Failure: Medicine,
Education, and the Disabled Child in English Canada, 1900-45 / MonaGleason
9 Pathologizing Childhood / Anita IltaGarey
Conclusion: From Children to Child: Ending in China / Jing Zhao,Nathanael Lauster, and Graham Allan
List of Contributors
Index