Synopses & Reviews
This book is the last of four which form part of the Open University course, U212,
Childhood. Together they provide an undergraduate-level introduction to the interdisciplinary field of childhood and youth studies, and a framework for analysing contemporary policy and practice in, for instance, education, health and social work.
Childhood is now a global issue, forcing a reconsideration of conventional approaches to study. Childhood is also a very personal issue for each and every one of us – scholars, policy-makers, parents and children.
The books encourage the reader’s active involvement, especially through the use of activities. They include children’s and parents’ voices as well as academic discussion of childhood in diverse societies and points in history. Selected short readings accompany the chapters to present additional perspectives.
Changing Childhoods: local and global looks at the obstacles that many children face which make childhood both a local experience and a global concern. Topics include the effects of poverty and other adversities, including violence, on children’s health and well-being. Different approaches to intervening in children’s lives are discussed, with particular attention to their rights, especially to participation and the ways they can become engaged with social issues, including issues surrounding their status as children.
The other titles in the series are:
1 Understanding Childhood: an interdisciplinary approach
2 Childhoods in Context
3 Children’s Cultural Worlds
‘Changing Childhoods offers a vivid, up-to-date survey of the state of the world’s children at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Children are presented in all the complexity of their contradictory social roles: as innocent victims and as bullies; as soldiers and as survivors of famines, wars and forced migrations; as high-achieving school children and as oppositional "street kids". A wonderful resource for students, teachers, child activists, and scholars alike.’
Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes, University of California at Berkeley, USA
‘The book gives significant emphasis to the contextual nature of childhood risk and to children’s courage, resilience and coping. By revealing the startling complexities of childhood adversity and some of the personal, family, community and institutional responses, the volume provides students with a very comprehensive and rich source of learning in this important new field of research and intervention.’
Dr Jo Boyden, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, England
‘The challenge for governments and agencies concerned with the effects of poverty, ill-health and violence on children is how to make a real difference to their lives. Changing Childhoods addresses comprehensively the complexity and multidisciplinary nature of this challenge. The authors draw on a rich tapestry of academic, historical and case-study resources, including about interventions to improve children’s rights and well-being. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the health or social development of children.’
Professor Anthony Costello, Institute of Child Health, University College London, England
Review
"
Childrens and Young Peoples Cultural Worlds is a gem. It is timely and highly engaging with broad coverage including the role of new electronic media in the lives of children in youth across a number of contexts. The contributors are among the best researchers in childhood studies and their chapters are beautifully written and full of important insights. This is an excellent book for classroom use at the undergraduate and graduate level and one that every serious scholar of childhood studies will turn to time and time again for its rich substantive and theoretical knowledge."
Review
"Bragg and Kehily¹s collection is a definitive, comprehensive text, written by a group of leading scholars: it will be of value to anyone seeking an authoritative, up-to-the-minute introduction to the field."
Review
"
Local Childhoods, Global Issues is a fascinating and accessible book that recognises children's resilience, competency and agency and the importance of child welfare to global and national politics."
Review
“This is an indispensable book for anyone interested in contemporary international childhoods. Beautifully presented and clearly written, it offers a compelling and realistic portrait of childrens lives and the many challenges they face across the globe.”
Synopsis
Childhood is a brand new series of textbooks, co-published with The Open University which represents a coherent and integrated treatment of a wide range of topics and approaches, which will have a relevance to courses in childhood studies; sociology; psychology; anthropology and cultural studies as well as education and social policy.
The fourth volume, Changing Childhoods: Local and Global considers the status of children and society, and the significance of children's rights. Topics include the effects of poverty, ill-health and violence on children's well-being. Finally, the book illustrates the ways in which children and young people become engaged with social issues, including issues surrounding their status as children.
Illustrated throughout with both cross-cultural and historical examples, this text is ideal for a wide range of courses.
Features includes:
- An interactive text
- Carefully-selected case studies and readings from the USA, Bangladesh and South Africa
- Attractive layout and colour design throughout
- A high level of illustration
- Clear and 'student-friendly' style
- Used by the OU for its own teaching
Synopsis
Growing up in an increasingly media-saturated, commercial, and globalized world, children and young people in contemporary society encounter and must creatively adapt to a range of cultural phenomena. Offering a critical introduction to childhood in the digital age, Children and Young People’s Cultural Worlds challenges common concepts and concerns about childhood innocence held by many adults. It examines the diversity of childhood experiences and relationships—the distinctiveness of children’s worlds—and explores topics such as the consequences of age and the experience of living in different cultural contexts. Utilizing contributions from scholars in a variety of different fields, it is interdisciplinary and international in scope. Including resources for teachers and students such as learning outcomes, activities, and additional readings and commentary, this well-written and beautifully presented book will be a valuable resource to anyone interested in new perspectives on childhood in the digital age.
Synopsis
Although the current plight of children in many parts of the world can leave us with a grim outlook on the future, there are still many positive indicators of a better future for all.
Local Childhoods, Global Issues is an interdisciplinary textbook that examines children’s lives across the world, exploring the great differences—and similarities—between childhood experiences across different cultural contexts.
The contributors consider the problems caused by poverty, social inequality, ill health, and violence, but they emphasize that these are challenges for children everywhere—not just those in the poorer countries of the world. They look at how children use their own resources and coping strategies and the sense of agency that results, arguing that in fact very few children are passive victims helplessly awaiting rescue. The contributors prominently feature interviews that highlight the direct perspectives of children themselves.
About the Author
Heather Montgomery is a lecturer in Childhood Studies at The Open University. She is an anthropologist who has conducted fieldwork in Thailand among young prostitutes and is the author of
Modern Babylon? Prostituting Children in Thailand (Berghahn, 2001). She has held post-doctoral positions in the USA, Norway and Oxford and is the author of several articles on children’s rights, child abuse and the anthropology of childhood. Other publications include ‘Imposing rights? A Case study of child prostitution in Thailand’ in
Culture and Rights (edited by Cowan, Dembour and Wilson, Cambridge University Press, 2001) and ‘Abandonment and child prostitution in a Thai slum community’ in
Abandoned Children (edited by Panter-Brick and Smith, Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Rachel Burr is a lecturer in Childhood Studies at The Open University. She has worked as a social worker and trainer in England, Ireland and Vietnam. Between 1996 and 1998 she lived in Vietnam where she did child-focused research for a doctorate in anthropology. Her research interests are in child-focused human rights, the role of child-focused international aid agencies, and children of the streets and orphanages in Vietnam (she is currently investigating the effect of HIV/AIDS on the lives of those children). She has taught anthropology in the US. Her recent publications include ‘Global and local approaches to children’s rights in Vietnam’, Childhood, 9 (1), and ‘Ethics of doing anthropological fieldwork’, Anthropology Matters, 3. She is currently working on a book on children and their rights in Vietnam, to be published by Rutgers University Press in 2004.
Martin Woodhead is a senior lecturer in the Centre for Childhood, Development and learning at The Open University. He has contributed to courses in child development and education, and has carried out research in child development, early education, sociology of childhood, child labour and children’s rights. He has been a Fulbright scholar in the USA and a consultant to international organizations including the Council of Europe, save the Children and OECD. He is co-editor of the journal Children & Society. His publications include In Search of the Rainbow: Pathways to Quality in Large-scale Programmes for Young Disadvantage Children (Bernard van Leer Foundation, 1996), and the three-volume series Child Development in Families, Schools and Society (Routledge in association with The Open University, 1998, edited by Faulkner and Littleton). Martin chaired the course team for the Open University course U212 Childhood, for which this book is a core text.
Table of Contents
Series prefaceContributorsIntroduction Sara Bragg and Mary Jane Kehily Chapter 1: Childhood, culture and innocence Sara Bragg, Mary Jane Kehily and Heather Montgomery Chapter 2: Play Tara Woodyer Chapter 3: Children's friendships Anoop Nayak Chapter 4: Youth cultures Lesley Gallacher and Mary Jane Kehily Chapter 5: New media and participatory cultures James Ash Chapter 6: Researching children's lives offline and online Martyn Hammersley AcknowledgementsIndex