Kids in Context is a comprehensive overview of the new and rapidly growing field of sociology of children and childhoods. It includes explication of theories and empirical evidence about children's social worlds, from their day-to-day experiences in their homes, neighborhoods and schools to the impact on their lives of political, economic, and social trends at the global level. Alternative perceptions of children and childhood and the implications of children's subordinate social status will be examined. In keeping with the authors' view of children as active participants in society rather than simply as passive recipients of adult care and control, each chapter contains data gathered directly from children, and examples of children's contributions to their families, communities and societies are noted. In a pair of chapters on family life, the authors examine the mutual effects of kids and parents on each other as well as the implications of changing family structures and modes of child rearing. Other chapters are devoted to the dynamics of children's group life and the creation and dissemination of children's culture, both locally and globally. Variations in childhoods resulting from inequalities of race and ethnicity, social class and gender are compared, with special attention to groups of children who have been marginalized or treated mainly as 'social problems.' The final chapter contains an assessment of alternative strategies for enhancing children's status and well-being.
About the Author: Sarane Spence Boocock is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University where she taught in the Department of Sociology and the Graduate School of Education. Formerly, she was a research scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, taught at Yale University, University of Southern California, and Johns Hopkins University, and was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Japan and a Visiting Professor and Fromer Memorial Lecturer at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author or co-author of books, book chapters, and articles in scholarly journals on the sociology of education, simulation games as learning devices, historical and sociological trends in family structure and family life, cross-cultural comparisons of childrearing, and the long-term effects of early childhood care and education programs. Her research has been supported by grants from the Carnegie Corporation, ESSO Educational Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Spencer Foundation, Packard Foundation, and the U.S. Office of Education. She is currently engaged in a cross-national project on the educational experiences of minority children in Japan and the United States. Kimberly Ann Scott is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education and Allied Human Services at Hofstra University, where she also holds an appointment in the Department of Foundations, Leadership, and Policy Studies. In 2003-2004, she was a Fellow at the Rutgers Center for Children and Childhood Studies. A sociologist of education and childhoods, her research interests include race, class, gender, and sociopolitical climate as intersecting features informing the academic and social developments of children in general and African-American girls in particular. Her publications include papers on children's friendships and play patterns, Latina and African-American girls' school experiences and achievements, African-American girls' access to computers and patterns of interactions in virtual space, rap music as a reflection of societal violence against Black children, and multicultural education and teaching about race relations. Her research has been funded by a Hofstra University Presidential Grant, and by the JP Morgan Chase Foundation, the Community Based Association for the Prevention of Pregnancy, and the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls. Her current project is a longitudinal multi-method study examining how girls develop socially and academically in a school district that has been taken over by the state due to its failure to meet minimal state standards.