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This module takes a cross-cultural, transnational and trans-historical look at children and childhood and covers the whole period of what we today might consider childhood, from early years to late adolescence. It examines how actual children and images or ideas about them influence one another in complex ways. It explores empirical research that upsets assumptions about childhood based on our own historically-situated and culturally-constituted ideologies.听

Teaching delivery:鈥疘t will be taught with 10 weekly lectures and 10 weekly seminars.鈥�听

Indicative Topics:鈥� Overall themes include 鈥淐hildren as Vulnerable,鈥� 鈥淐hildren as the Future,鈥� and 鈥淐hildren as Innocent.鈥� Within these broad themes, we will look at empirical research on children鈥檚 experiences regarding play and art, displacement, designations of 鈥渄angerous鈥� children, issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, sickness and disability, media, and environmental activism. Based on module content in 2023/24, subject to possible changes. 鈥�听

Module Aims:鈥�听

• to introduce students to key debates and concepts in childhood studies in anthropology, history and sociology;听听
• to take a cross-cultural, transnational and trans-historical look at children and childhood;听
• to consider the subjecthood of children from the perspectives of race, gender, sexuality and disability;听
• to consider the role of material and media artefacts in children鈥檚 worlds and representations of them;听听
• to explore empirical research that upsets students鈥� pre-existing assumptions about childhood;听
• to consider the complex relationship between dominant ideologies of childhood, as imagined and represented by adults, and children鈥檚 daily lives and lived experiences;听
• to examine sites where scholars have studied children鈥檚 experiences - in families, or separated from them, at work and at play, online and offline.听

At the end of the module a student will be able to:听

• Describe and explain historical, anthropological and sociological approaches to the study of childhood around the world;听
• Compare and assess the value of different disciplinary perspectives to child-related debates;听
• Discuss the importance of various contextual factors 鈥� social, historical, political, material, and technology-related 鈥� that are necessary for understanding children鈥檚 worlds and experiences;听
• Employ these perspectives to contemporary policy and societal issues to produce a child-centered artefact;听
• Appraise the success of their artefact in communicating a social issue to a child audience and defend their chosen approach听鈥�听

Recommended readings:鈥�

• Lancy, David F. 2008. The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings. 1 edition. Cambridge鈥�; New York: Cambridge University Press.听
• Barker, Meghanne. 2019. 鈥楧ancing Dolls: Animating Childhood in a Contemporary Kazakhstani Institution鈥�. Anthropological Quarterly 92 (2): 311鈥�43. .听
• Bernstein, Robin. 2011. Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights. New York: NYU Press.听

Additional costs:听None. We visit the Foundling Museum, but this is free.