Understanding Childhood: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Wiley & OU Childhood)

By: Woodhead, Martin

Childhood is a brand new series, co-published with the Open University which represents a coherent and integrated treatment to a wide range of topics and approaches, which will have a relevance to courses in childhood studies; sociology; psychology; anthropology and cultural studies. The first volume, Understanding Childhood, an interdisciplinary approach asks 'What is a child?' and introduces a range of perspectives within childhood and youth studies. Topics in this book include the history of beliefs about childhood, the growth of scientific approaches to studying children, the significance of gender, debates around children's rights and how far children are seen as innocent or knowing. As well as introducing broad academic frameworks for studying childhood, the book addresses issues of complexity, diversity and change in children's experiences, from the earliest years through to adulthood. 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

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470846925
• ISBN13: 9780470846926
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 0.7" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

Good resource

It is a useful and well written book. It is somewhat redundant, but it helps to catch information one must have missed before.

Understanding childhood

This book is a new project between John Wiley and the Open Unigersity based on the course on "Childhood" at that unimersity. This is the first book in a series of four dealing with childhood and youth in a modern perspective, but with a strong historical background. The editors and the contributors are all affiliated with the Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning at the Open University and they have accomplished a great task with this book. It was a real pleasure to read this book with its colorful illustrations and also the many questions asked in an educational and instructive way with further resourse material. You really feel like taken the actual course at Open University and many questions to be answered throughout the reading The book has six extensive chapters on: what is a child ?, childhood in time and place, the child in development, children and rights, gendered childhoods and innocence and experience. You will find topics and information on how childhood was looked upon throughout history and how science on child development started and where we stand today. There is a wealth of information from recent international research with a pleasant lay-out. Each chapter was clear and in a straightforward language and this book can be warmly recommended to professionals working with children, in fact even every adult with children can learn a lot from this book.Professor Joav Merrick, MDDirector, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Medical director, Division for Mental Retardation, Box 1260, IL-91012 Jerusalem, Israel...