The purpose of this book is to promote a thoughtful engagement with key issues and theories that inform our understanding of childhood. Readers will enjoy, and be provoked by, a sophisticated analysis of the role and function of childhood in twenty-first century Britain, which can be used as a springboard for further enquiry and exploration.

Two intertwined themes permeate the text:

- Children's sense of self and adults' temporal and cultural fabrications of childhood, and the articulation of these with policy and provision for young children.

- Young children and...