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When the first edition of this seminal work appeared in 1990, the sociology of childhood was only just beginning to emerge as a distinct sub-discipline. Drawing together strands of existing sociological writing about childhood and shaping them into a new paradigm, the original edition of this Routledge Classic offered a potent blend of ideas that informed, even inspired, many empirical studies of children's lives because it provided a unique lens through which to think about childhood. Featuring a collection of articles which summarised the developments in the study of childhood across the social sciences, including history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, feminist and developmental studies, scholars and professionals from developed and developing countries world-wide shared their knowledge of having worked and of working with children. Now with a new introduction from the editors to contextualise it into the 21st century, this truly ground-breaking text which helped establish childhood studies as a distinctive field of enquiry is being republished.
List of contents
1. A new paradigm for the sociology of childhood? Provenance, promise and problems 2. Constructions and reconstructions of British childhood - an interpretive survey, 1800 to the present 3. Psychology and the cultural construction of children's needs 4. A voice for children in statistical and social accounting - a plea for children's right to be heard 5.It's a small world - Disneyland, the family and the multiple representations of American childhood 6. negotiating childhood - changing constructions of age for Norwegian children 7. Street children - deconstructing a construct 8. Who are you kidding? children, power and the struggle against sexual abuse 9. Childhood and the policy makers - a comparative perspective on the globalization of childhood 10. Re-presenting childhood - time and transition in the study of childhood,
About the author
Allison James is Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth at the University of Sheffield, UK.
Alan Prout is Professor of Sociology and Childhood Studies at the University of Leeds, UK.
