Childhoods Real and Imagined: Volume 1: An Introduction to Critical Realism and Childhood Studies

ISBN-13: 9780415680981 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 224 str.

Priscilla Alderson

Opis

This book is unusually rewarding in that its author has pulled off the rare trick of providing deep philosophical and theoretical underpinnings to a comprehensive reconsideration of childhood. Priscilla Alderson deploys Bhaskar's 'dialectical critical realism' to excellent effect, illuminating not only our understanding of the presence, and absence, of children in our lives and discourses, but also the field of childhood studies. It is rare that such an integrated text is accomplished and I look forward to the planned second volume. This is a work that should facilitate a rethinking of childhood for the new century. Graham Scrambler, Professor of Medical Sociology at University College London. Childhoods Real and Imagined explores and charts the relation of dialectical critical realist concepts to many of the aspects of childhood. By demonstrating their relevance and value to each other, Alderson presents an introductory guide to applied critical realism for researchers, lecturers and students involved in the study of childhood.Each chapter summarises key themes from several academic disciplines and policy areas, combining adults' and children's reported views and experiences and filtering them through a critical realist analysis. The first four chapters deal with the more personal aspects of childhood, while the second half of the book widens the scope to include the impact of political decisions on children. Each chapter demonstrates how children are an integral part of the whole of society and are often especially affected by policies and events. Through developing the dialectical critical realist analysis of childhood and youth Childhoods Real and Imagined will be of great interest to critical realists and childhood researchers and policy advisers.

Spis treści

Part 1: Background  1.Introduction  2.Trends in research about children, childhood and youth  Part 2  Experiencing and Imagining Childhoods  3.Real bodies: material relations with nature  4.Space: interpersonal relations  5.Time: social relations and structures  6.Inner being: alienation and flourishing  7.Conclusions: The relevance of DCR to childhood studies.

O autorze

Priscilla Alderson is Professor Emerita of Childhood Studies at the Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, London. She teaches on an international MA in the Sociology of Childhood and Children’s Rights and her work on children’s competence, wisdom and rights has been widely published.