NEWSLETTER

Society for the History of Children and Youth

Childhood Studies

Ed. Note: Historians have much to offer the interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary approaches that shape recently established childhood studies programs.  We are pleased to include in this special issue on teaching articles about three unique childhood studies programs, at York University, University of Sheffield, and Rutgers University, Camden.

Hearing the Authentic Voice of the Child: Children Studies at York University
Stephen Gennaro, York University

It has been a very exciting first term at York University.  In September 2007, York University welcomed the first class of students into its new Children’s Studies Program.  The Children’s Studies program is an interdisciplinary four-year Honours BA degree program.  The program is housed inside the Division of Humanities and Faculty of Arts, but allows students to take a variety of courses that deal with children or childhood from any of the departments or faculties inside the university.  Located inside the Humanities and not the Social Sciences, the Children’s Studies Program at York takes a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to studying children and childhood.  This approach places equal importance on philosophy, literature, history, and cultural studies (core subjects of the humanities) rather than privileging the quantitative approach of the social sciences, and the medical and psychological discourses about children that have dominated how we talk about children over the course of the twentieth century.  The Children’s Studies Program at York tries to provide a holistic approach to the study of children and childhood by examining not only adult constructions of childhood (throughout different historical moments and across different geographic spaces) but also by placing a significant emphasis on the actual lived experiences of children. 

The research on children and childhood at York University places the emphasis on viewing the child as the subject of study instead of the object to be studied.  In doing so, children themselves are not only considered to be authoritative sources on children’s culture but are also included and valued in our academic efforts to develop an increased knowledge of children and childhood.  It is because of this “childist” (child-centered) approach that the Children’s Studies Program at York University incorporates a practicum component into all of its core courses.  The practicum allows students the opportunity for ethnographic research at the same time as it provides them access to the real lives of children.  For example, in the first year “World of Childhood” course, students spend 1 hour a week participating in a literacy program with a neighboring primary public school where they are paired up with a “reading buddy.”  In the second year “Introduction to Children’s Studies” course students spend 1 hour a week participating in a school yard program called “Play in Peace” where they partake in recess games with the children at the neighboring school at the same time as they introduce conflict mediation techniques encouraging the students to use dialogue to resolve school yard issues with their peers.  At the present moment we are in the final stages of completing a fourth year course entitled “International Childhoods” that would send students overseas to Kenya to partake in a two-week practicum with the International NGO, Free the Children.

The accumulation of both a theoretical degree in Children’s Studies, in addition to the practicum experiences working with children make graduates from The Children’s Studies Program highly desirable in both the public and private sectors.  Careers that deal with children and advocacy, counselling, education, health and wellness, international development, law, librarianship, media, parenting, publishing, recreation, social work, and much more are possible career paths after completing the Program.  

Additional information about Children's Studies at York University can be found at http://www.yorku.ca/human/csp/

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Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth, University of Sheffield, UK
Allison James, University of Sheffield

The Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth (CSCY) was established in 2002 as an interdisciplinary research centre that is committed to contributing to the improvement of children’s and young people’s lives through its research and dissemination activities. It is also actively involved in gaining a greater understanding of the lives of children and young people that can both contribute to theory and to its application in policy and practice.

The Centre is committed to interdisciplinary research and, currently, its membership comprises academic staff, researchers and postgraduates drawn from the following disciplines: sociology, social policy, social work, education, geography, health, dentistry, nursing, architecture, landscape, English, journalism, law, psychology and human communication sciences.

Staff at the Centre carry out research across a wide range of topics, with projects funded by the major research councils, charitable foundations as well as government departments. Recent projects include an ESRC funded study of children’s experiences of hospital space; a Joseph Rowntree funded study of the influence of religious beliefs on parenting practices; research into refugee children funded under the ESRC Identities programme; an EPSRC project that aims to involve children in school design; a project that explored young children’s use of media and new technologies funded by the BBC and the Esmee Fairburn Foundation; and two studies exploring children, family and food funded as part of the Leverhulme Programme, Changing Families, Changing Food.

Members of the Centre have strong research links with a range of international childhood networks and research centres. This includes ongoing research initiatives with the Norwegian Centre for Childhood Research (NOSEB); the South-East European Research Centre (SEERC); the International Childhood and Youth Research Network (ICYnet) and the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN). The Centre also has a Partnership Board, comprised of representatives from local and national children’s organisations and services who help identify research areas and needs as well as providing an important avenue for the wider dissemination of the Centre’s research.

Although CSCY does not run undergraduate and postgraduate programmes – these are located in University Departments , as described below - it is nonetheless rapidly establishing itself as a leading Centre for post-graduate research. Since 2002 the Centre has hosted a range of one-day seminars designed to meet the needs of postgraduate research students working with children and young people that were open to students both at Sheffield and elsewhere. In July 2007 CSCY held its first Postgraduate Summer School, which attracted students from the USA and Scandinavia as well as across the UK. Also in 2007 CSCY launched Childhoods Today, a new e-journal published from the Centre and supported by the World Universities Network. The aim of the journal is to publish high quality empirical and theoretical work by up-and-coming researchers in the field of childhood studies and to provide a reference for others working in this and related fields. The journal has received endorsement for its contribution to the field of childhood research from Childhood International:

The Board of Childwatch International recognizes the journal Childhoods Today as an excellent model to promote the development of young scholars and commits itself to encouraging submissions from its international network of child research institutions.

With its regular seminar series and conferences – the next is to be held July 8-10 2008 on the theme Re-presenting Childhood and Youth - CSCY therefore provides a stimulating research environment for our own as well as external research students. On a regular basis CSCY welcomes visiting students from other countries so that they can both benefit from and contribute to our research environment. All staff at the Centre offer PhD student research supervision from within their various disciplinary areas and, in addition, some staff direct and teach on the following two MA programmes:

The long-established MA in Early Childhood Education is located in the School of Education and is designed for early childhood educators who work with and for young children in a range of settings. Education is broadly defined and, for example, includes family learning. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to draw and reflect on their own experiences as they learn to critically explore issues in early childhood education. This is run as a distance learning MA that can be taken on a part-time basis and includes residential schools and ongoing tutorial support. Students take modules in Early Childhood Education, History and Policy ; Development, Learning and Curriculum ; Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood Education and Research Methods and Methodology in Early Childhood Education and also do a dissertation on a topic chosen to meet their own interests

The MA in International Childhood Studies is being offered for the first time in 2008. It is located in the Department of Sociological Studies and is designed for students interested in the social study of childhood. It explores the growing complexity of issues surrounding children and childhood in an international context and includes modules on: Critical Perspectives on Childhood, Researching Children, Children and Families, Children and the Law, Representations of Childhood and Child Health. Students also do a dissertation on a topic that interests them. This MA provides an excellent foundation for those wishing to carry on to do a PhD in childhood and youth and, in addition, is suitable for practitioners and NGO workers who are involved in working with children and young people across the globe.

Additional information about the Centre can be found at http://www.cscy.group.shef.ac.uk/

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The Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University Camden
Lynne Vallone, Rutgers-Camden

The Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey puts the issues, concepts and debates that surround the study of children and childhoods at the center of its research and teaching missions.  Through a multidisciplinary approach, the Department of Childhood Studies aims both to theorize and historicize the figure of the Child and to situate the study of children and childhoods within contemporary cultural and global contexts.  The Department opened its doors in September 2007, offering interdisciplinary degrees at the B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. levels (http://childhood.camden.rutgers.edu).

Currently, the Rutgers University Department of Childhood Studies is the first Ph.D. program in Childhood Studies in the United States.  Full-time faculty members in the Department of Childhood Studies include Dr. Daniel Hart, Distinguished Professor (Psychology) and Chair; Dr. Daniel T. Cook, Associate Professor (Sociology); and Dr. Lynne Vallone, Professor (English). 

Rutgers-Camden is a small and attractive urban campus expanding to accommodate the growth of Southern New Jersey and is located just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.  The diverse and vibrant urban location offers a productive setting for the study of children and childhoods today.

The Department of Childhood Studies is enhanced by the proximity and mutual projects it undertakes with the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, also housed at Rutgers-Camden  (http://children.camden.rutgers.edu).  The Center promotes the understanding, enrichment, and recognition of the significance of the experiences of children through outreach programs that assist children in New Jersey in areas such as health, literacy, and social development and through sponsoring symposia, lecture series, and workshops.  The expertise of the Childhood Studies faculty is complemented by the Associates in the Center for Children and Childhood Studies who have appointments in a wide range of departments and schools around the University, including, among others, Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Criminology, English, Public Policy, Religion, Philosophy, History, and Law.  Students in the Department of Childhood Studies are encouraged to engage in research projects offered through the Center.

Active teacher/scholars, the full-time faculty in the Department of Childhood Studies represents a wide range of interdisciplinary interests.  Daniel Hart's research focuses on personality and development in children and adolescents.  He also serves as the Director of the Center for Children and Childhood Studies.  Daniel T. Cook works primarily on 20th-century and contemporary children's consumer culture and Lynne Vallone's research centers on socio-historical studies of children's literature and the literature and cultural histories of girlhood.  More detailed information about each faculty member can be found on the Department of Childhood Studies website.

Certainly, graduate students form the core of any post-baccalaureate program and the intellectual atmosphere of the Department of Childhood Studies has been enriched by its inaugural class of fourteen doctoral students (part-time study is available).  The students bring a wealth of accomplishments from a variety of backgrounds including law, early childhood education, literature, educational administration, library science, and psychology, among other disciplines and fields.  The students bring their diverse preparation and training to bear on the common enterprise of the study of children and childhoods in historical and contemporary cultural and global contexts.

The curriculum in the Department is multidisciplinary in scope and purpose and provides students with a strong background in both humanistic and social science perspectives on children and their representations.   This approach will prepare students for careers in many areas including academics, public policy, social services, youth programming, and education.  Courses available to graduate students extend from the two-semester Proseminar in Childhood Studies to a variety of methods courses (statistical, interpretative, literary), to in-depth study of specific areas such as Children and Childhood in Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Child Growth and Development, The Visual and Material Cultures of Childhood, Issues in Social Policy, The History of Childhood, Growing Up in Africa, Children's Literature, and Children and the Justice System, among many others.

 The intellectual life of the Department's faculty and graduate students is enhanced by the on-going Research Seminar in Childhood Studies which meets three or four times each semester to discuss topics of interest in the study of children and childhoods from a variety of perspectives.  Recent talks have considered the development of spatial awareness in the infant brain, the effects of transnational migration on the emotional lives of Ghanian families, and the responses of teen readers in dialogue with Mark Twain's character Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers, Camden is developing many plans for the future growth and continued success of Childhood Studies.  In spring 2009 semester, for example, the Department will host a major conference on children and war.  In addition, we are interested in developing possible research collaborations and potential exchanges between our Department and other programs in Childhood Studies.  To that end, we will welcome two visiting European scholars at different stages in their careers in the spring 2008 semester.  Most importantly, the Department expects to continue to expand over the next several years through the recruitment of additional faculty with full-time appointments in Childhood Studies.  

Students interested in graduate study in Childhood Studies at Rutgers University are encouraged to visit our website and to contact members of the Department (Daniel Hart, hart@rutgers.edu, Daniel T. Cook, dtcook@camden.rutgers.edu and Lynne Vallone vallone@rutgers.edu); for specific questions about guidance through the application process, please direct inquiries to Daniel Hart, Chair (who can also be reached by telephone at 856-225-6741 or 856-225-6438).