The book provides an advanced, accessible text for childhood studies, which is suitable and challenging for those coming from practice, different parts of the world and from a range of disciplines. Key ideas within childhood studies are introduced, from agency to intersectionality to children’s rights. Addressing children and young people under the age of 18, the book combines concepts from seminal texts with challenging, critical views and alternatives, to stimulate readers to develop their own analysis and apply the results to their own interests. It reveals how childhood studies draws on a rich and diverse range of perspectives from child development, educational studies, history, human rights, media studies, philosophy, public health, race and ethnicity studies, to social anthropology. The book has 7 chapters:
Introduction: Childhood Studies, A Welcoming Field
Foundations of Childhood Studies
Childhood Studies Meets Other Disciplines
Childhood Studies Meets Children's Rights Studies
Intersectional Perspectives on Childhood Childhood Studies in Practice
Conclusion: Using Childhood Studies Concepts to Further Emancipatory Praxis
The substantive chapters 2-6 have commentaries from international experts based in Australia (Amanda Third), Brazil (Irene Rizzini), the UK (Erica Burman), the USA (Sarada Balagopalan) and Zimbabwe (Tendai Charity Nhenga). The book has a range of pedagogical features including guiding questions and challenge tasks, quotes from students and other experts, and a glossary of terms.
This companion website includes videos from authors, students and those working in practice and policy, interactive tasks and other resources. Teaching and learning activities and resources are accessible by chapter. The video library offers further resources for engaging with the material from the books. A selected glossary is also available; when glossary terms first appear in the activities they will be bolded.
Reviewing Aims
As an example of one of our questioning activities, here is one within the book:
In keeping with this international growth this book has four central aims
1. To provide an ‘advanced-level’ text on critical childhood studies which explores contradictions, false dichotomies, and ‘old’ theory in a new light.
2. To make transparent authors’ and contributors’ positionalities.
3. To support decolonization and social justice in childhood studies.
4. To ask readers to consider their relationship to theory and practice.
We are aware that you will have different reasons for engaging with this text. For example, you may be a student, a policy maker, a lecturer, a practitioner, a service manager or a combination of some/all of these things. (Tisdall, et al, 2023, p.2)
What are your aims for engaging with this book?
Critical Childhood Studies: Global Perspectives Launch Event and Panel Discussion
Childhood Studies is an ever-growing field, with very practical implications intersecting with theoretical considerations. In the below video, the book authors discuss the latest and future developments, with leading childhood studies scholars Sarada Balagopalan (Rutgers University-Camden), Irene Rizzini (PUC-Rio and International Centre for Research and Policy on Childhood), Spyros Spyrou (European University Cyprus) and Michael Wyness (Warwick University).
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