Childhood and society : growing up in an age of uncertainty / Nick Lee.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

* What happens to childhood when the nature of adulthood becomes uncertain?
* What impact is globalization having on adult-child relationships?
* How are we to study 'growing up' today?

Traditionally, children and adults have been treated as different kinds of person, with adults seen as complete, stable and self-controlling, and children seen as incomplete, changeable and in need of control. This ground-breaking book argues that in the early twenty-first century, 'growing up' can no longer be understood as a movement toward personal completion and stability. Careers, intimate relationships, even identities, are increasingly provisional, bringing into question the division between the mature and the immature and thereby differences between adults and children.

Childhood and Society charts the emergence of the conceptual and institutional divisions between adult 'human beings' and child 'human becomings' over the course of the modern era. It then examines the contemporary economic and ideological trends that are eroding the foundations of these divisions. The consequences of this age of uncertainty are examined through an assessment of sociological theories of childhood and through a survey of children's varied positions in a globalizing and highly mediated social world. In all, this accessible text provides a clear, up-to-date and original insight into the sociological study of childhood for undergraduates and researchers alike. It also develops a new set of conceptual tools for studying 'growing up'.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Series editor's foreword (p. ix)
• Preface and acknowledgements (p. xiii)
• Introduction: childhood and human variation (p. 1)
• Part 1 Human beings and human becomings (p. 5)
• 1 What do you want to be when you grow up? (p. 7)
• Introduction: journey's end? (p. 7)
• Standard adulthood: deviant childhood (p. 8)
• Flexible adults in an age of uncertainty (p. 10)
• Conclusion: adulthood, authority and the age of uncertainty (p. 19)
• 2 Defining the dependent child (p. 21)
• Dependencies: necessary and accidental (p. 22)
• Modernity and 'garden cultures' (p. 25)
• The preservation of children (p. 27)
• Child concern: from reasons of state to the interests of the child (p. 31)
• Globalization and dependency (p. 33)
• Conclusion: dependency and ambiguity (p. 34)
• 3 Beings in their own right? The recognition and mis-recognition of children (p. 36)
• What is the 'dominant framework'? (p. 38)
• Challenging the dominant framework (p. 43)
• Recognizing children (p. 46)
• Conclusion: outstanding questions (p. 54)
• Part 2 Ambiguities of childhood (p. 55)
• 4 Children out of place: ambiguity and social order (p. 57)
• Developing nations, structural adjustment and street children (p. 59)
• Social capital and community (p. 63)
• Conclusion: children bearing the burden of uncertainty (p. 68)
• 5 Children in their place: home, school and media (p. 70)
• Ambiguity in the family home (p. 72)
• Ambiguity at school (p. 77)
• Conclusion (p. 85)
• 6 New places for children: voice, rights and decision-making (p. 87)
• Who knows best? (p. 88)
• The promise of a 'global place' for children (p. 91)
• Child witnesses in adult courts (p. 96)
• Conclusion (p. 100)
• Part 3 Human becomings and social research (p. 103)
• 7 Childhood and extension: the multiplication of becoming (p. 105)
• The critique of central control (p. 106)
• Derrida and incompleteness (p. 108)
• Assemblages and multiple becomings (p. 113)
• Becomings, change and speed (p. 117)
• Conclusion (p. 119)
• 8 Towards an immature sociology (p. 121)
• Adulthood, confidence and truth regimes (p. 122)
• Elements of an immature sociology (p. 128)
• Conclusion (p. 134)
• 9 Conclusion: growing up and slowing down (p. 136)
• Summary and review (p. 137)
• Growing up: adulthood, childhood and speed (p. 140)
• Becoming to an end (p. 142)
• References (p. 144)
• Index (p. 149)

Author notes provided by Syndetics