Growing Up in a Changing Society

The final reader in the Child Development in Social Context series shows how the study of child development is inevitably bound up in more ephemeral cultural ideas about the nature and needs of children and in the educational practices that rise from these ideas. Some readings point to the dangers which can arise from the meeting of science and cultural values, using for illustration studies of the role of psychological theory in reinforcing social attitudes to child care inside and outside the family. Other readings look at children's initiation into that relatively recent cultural invention, the school, and the relationship with their learning at home. There are studies of their social development in classroom and playground, with particular emphasis on ethnic relationships.

Table of Contents:
Part One Concepts of childhood, concepts of parenthood; Chapter 1 Revolution in parenthood, Robert A. Levine, Merry I. White; Chapter 2 The American child and other cultural inventions, William Kessen; Chapter 3 Psychology and the cultural construction of ‘children's needs’, Martin Woodhead; Part two Frameworks for child care; Chapter 4 Working mothers and the care of young children, Barbara Tizard; Chapter 5 Infant day care: maligned or malignant?, K. Alison Clarke-Stewart; Chapter 6 The role of social networks in the care of young children, Malcolm Hill; Chapter 7 Coping with family transitions: winners, losers and survivors, E. Mavis Hetherington; Part three Expectations in early education; Chapter 8 The relationship of temperament to adjustment in British infant schools, Helen Altman Klein, Jeanne H. Ballantine; Chapter 9 The ability of young children to rank themselves for academic ability, Tony Crocker, Rosemary Cheeseman; Chapter 10 Early admission: early labelling, Colin Rogers; Chapter 11 Transactional models of early education effectiveness: what is the message for policy?, Martin Woodhead; Part four Pupil perspectives on classrooms and playgrounds; Chapter 12 Teachers: a child's eye view, Jacqueline Goodnow, Ailsa Burns; Chapter 13 Playground games and playtime: the children's view, Peter Blatchford, Rosemary Creeser, Ann Mooney; Chapter 14 Friends and fights, Bronwyn Davies; Part five Gender, ‘race’ and the experience of schooling; Chapter 15 Sex roles in the primary classroom, Paul Croll, Diana Moses; Chapter 16 Demolishing ‘The House that Jack Built’: anti-sexist initiatives in the primary school, Christine Skelton; Chapter 17 Pupils, ‘race’ and education in primary schools, Peter Woods, Elizabeth Grugeon; Chapter 18 Children's grasp of controversial issues, Geoffrey Short;