Global Childhoods

Issues and Debates
A critical exploration of the constructions of childhood across the social sciences. It questions common global Northern conceptions of childhood and children by providing a wider lens through which to challenge inherent Eurocentrism.

"An exciting and engagingly written book. The case studies are intriguing and the discussion of previous theories impeccable."
- Dr. Heather Montgomery, The Open University

"What is a child? Kate Cregan and Denise Cuthbert begin this path-breaking and compelling work with a deceptively simple question. From this seemingly straightforward formulation, they unravel, interrogate and engage with some of the most pressing issues related to children in the early 21st century. This book is an absolute must for scholars in all the fields of childhood studies."
- Professor Joy Damousi, University of Melbourne

Global Childhoods draws on the authors’ interdisciplinary backgrounds and original research in the fields of embodiment, theorisations of childhood, children′s policy, child placement and adoption, and family formation. The book critically demonstrates how following from the modern construction of childhood which emerged unevenly from the late eighteenth century,  the twentieth century saw the emergence of the conception of the normative global child, a figure finally enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The book offers a wide-ranging critical analysis of approaches to children and childhood across the social sciences. Through stimulating case studies which include the experiences of child soldiers, orphans, forced child migrants, and children and biomedicine, Cregan and Cuthbert critically test the notion of the ‘global child’ against the lived experiences of children around the globe.

Kate Cregan and Denise Cuthbert draw on and contributes to debates on children and the idea of the child in a wide range of disciplines: sociology, anthropology, education, children′s studies, cultural studies, history, psychology, law and development studies. In its historical coverage of the rise of the concepts of the child and the global child, its critical engagement with the theorisation of childhood, and its detailed case studies, the book is essential reading for the study of children and childhood.

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