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 representation: how they are represented, the sense they make of such representations and their own representational activity.
Whose Childhood Is It? intends to turn readers away from our collective tendency to simplify the experiences of young children and replace this with a fuller, more complex, and more realistic understanding of the social dynamic that constitutes childhood today.
This book takes a user-friendly approach, with key questions and reflection boxes throughout as well as chapter summaries and suggested further reading. It will provide a rich resource for students of Early Childhood Studies, and for Early Years professionals and those training to be Early Years practitioners.
Contents
List of Contributors
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Introduction
Part 1: Policy and Childhood
Introduction
Chapter 1: Give Sure Start a Fair Start
Sue Norman
Chapter 2: "How well am I doing on my outcomes?"
Helen Butcher Jane Andrews
Chapter 3: Earlier and Earlier to School?
Christine Screech
Chapter 4: Integrating professional roles in early years around children's lives and learning
Jane Tarr
Part 2: Representation and Childhood
Introduction
Chapter 5: Children and Screens
Mandy Lee and Richard Eke
Chapter 6: Learning who can talk about what in early years settings
John Lee and Richard Eke
Chapter 7: Children Representing Experience
Richard Eke and John Lee
Chapter 8: Where do I fit in? Children's Spaces and Places
Alison Bailey and Stephen Barnes
