Category Archives: Events

Events, Other opportunities, Training/Education

Project & Upcoming Conference – Childhood Studies in the Global South

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Exploring Childhood Studies in the Global South

The ‘Exploring Childhood Studies in the Global South’ project seeks to bring together researchers exploring childhood and children’s lives in diverse contexts in the Global South to engage in theory development using the various empirical studies that have been produced on Southern childhoods as a starting point for dialogue and action.

The central questions of this project are:  

  1. How, if at all, do theoretical concepts relating to childhood research in the North transfer to various social, cultural and political contexts in the Global South?
  2. What are the key theoretical priorities for child-focused researchers working in diverse contexts in the Global South and why?/What theoretical concepts do childhood researchers focusing on Southern childhoods find most useful and why?
  3. How can these theoretical priorities identified by child-focused researchers working on Southern childhoods be better reflected in dominant discourses within the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies?
  4. What challenges exist which may prevent the incorporation of theories developed by academics focusing on Southern childhoods into more dominant discourses relating to childhood studies?

These questions will be addressed through two initiatives in particular:

  1. The organisation of a three-day workshop in January 2016 for childhood academics and researchers with various levels of experience working within diverse Southern contexts including those based within institutions in the South.

    Dates: 19-21 January 2016
    Venue: The University of Sheffield
    Note Deadline for Registration: 20th December 2015

  2. The development of a website which will host the following:
    • The Southern Childhoods Network which is a virtual network of childhood scholars, policy-makers and practitioners which seeks to facilitate dialogue, action and collaboration.
    • An online database of childhood researchers and academics focusing on the Global South.
    • A database of open access articles in English, French and Spanish with a particular focus on childhood and children’s lives in the Global South.
    • Webinars facilitated by key academics in the area of global childhood studies.

      Please visit our website http://www.southernchildhoods.org/

The project is managed by Dr. Afua Twum-Danso Imoh at the University of Sheffield, hosted by the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth and funded by the British Academy Rising Star Scheme.

Events

Lecture: Children without borders at Ryerson University

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Children without borders: Child mobilities and transnational duties of care
A public lecture by Dr. Karen Wells

November 25, 6-7:30
Ryerson University (Toronto)
Kerr Hall East 323

Dr. Karen Wells is Assistant Dean Geography, Environment and Development Studies and Senior Lecturer in International Development and Childhood Studies at the University of London, Among many publications, Dr. Wells is the author of Childhood in a Global Perspective (2009).
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/geds/our-staff/full-time-academic-staff/wells
This talk will be followed by a reception in the Early Childhood Studies graduate lounge, which is directly across from the Learning and Teaching Office, Kerr Hall West, Ryerson University (KHW373)
Calls for Papers: Conferences, Events

CFP: Children’s History Society Inaugural Conference

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Horrible Histories? Children’s Lives in Historical Contexts

16 and 17 June 2016
King’s College London

It is now over forty years since the bold declaration of psychohistorian Lloyd deMause that ‘The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken’. Stirred by such claims, scholars have subsequently tested the ‘nightmare thesis’ for both the pre-modern and modern eras, locating children’s agency in unexpected places and stressing the contingencies of context, gender, ethnicity, age, class, caste and sexuality. Narratives of historic and contemporary institutional abuse, however, together with insights concerning the legacies of forced child migration, children’s labours and other challenging aspects of childhood experience, suggest that sorrow rather than joy characterises much scholarship on children and childhood. Should this be so?

In another context, since 1993 the phenomenally successful Horrible Histories books, stage plays and television series have helped introduce countless thousands of children around the world to the past. As their titles indicate, Horrible Histories also examine difficult and sometimes grisly historical episodes. Progressive narratives are at work here too, reinforced by children’s museum exhibits emphasising an emergence from the ‘dark ages’ of childhood in the twentieth century.

‘Horrible Histories? Children’s Lives in Historical Contexts’ is the launch conference marking the inauguration of the new UK-based Children’s History Society. Offering a forum for historical reflections from established and upcoming historians of children, childhood and youth, we also anticipate that this will be a platform for school-age scholars to reflect on the ways they respond to the history. This two-day conference invites paper proposals on the following themes:

  • Dealing with difficult history and heritage
  • Children’s histories and the longue durée
  • The ‘West and the rest’ in children’s history
  • Definitions of subjecthood and status
  • Pain and resilience
  • Archival approaches for retrieving children’s agency
  • The things of childhood
  • Play as protest, recreation and the ‘work’ of childhood
  • Children’s histories in museums, online and in the media
  • The histories of children’s places and places for children
  • Future trajectories for researching children’s histories

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, together with a two-page CV, to both simon.sleight@kcl.ac.uk and M.C.H.Martin@greenwich.ac.uk by 1 December 2015. Applicants will be notified of the outcome in January. Panel submissions featuring three papers of 15-20 minutes apiece are also encouraged, particularly for panels showcasing in concert transnational and/or long chronological perspectives. Note that our definition of children is flexible, reflecting the multiple constructions through time of childhood as a social category.

The conference will be free to attend, courtesy of the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies and the Department of History, both at King’s College London. Further details will follow regarding accommodation options, conference-related activities and Society administration. If you would like to become involved in the running of the Children’s History Society, please email simon.sleight@kcl.ac.uk and M.C.H.Martin@gre.ac.uk to express your interest by the 1 December deadline.

You can follow the progress of the Children’s History Society on Twitter and Facebook:

https://twitter.com/histchild and https://www.facebook.com/histchild/

 

Warm regards,

Dr Simon Sleight (King’s College London) and Dr Mary Clare Martin (University of Greenwich).

Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London // Centre for the Study of Play and Recreation, University of Greenwich

Events, New Books

Book Launch

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The Politics of Childhoods Real and Imagined: Practical application of critical realism and childhood studies by Priscilla Alderson

(Routledge, 246pp, Pb: 978-1-138-94889-1 | £26.99  eBook: 978-1-315-66938-0)

This new book relates critical realism to childhood studies in order to research transformative change over time. It summarises key themes across academic disciplines and policy areas, ranging from climate change and social justice between generations, to neoliberalism and reform of public services, to imagining social reform that benefits all age groups. Each chapter considers how children and young people are largely excluded from political and economic global debates, although they are one third of people in the world and are often especially affected by policies and events.

The book is written for everyone who is researching, studying or teaching about childhood, those who care for and work with children and young people, as well as those interested in critical realism.

All are welcome to the book launch: Tuesday 8 December 5.30-7.30

Institute of Education, University College London
(RSVP: ssruadmin@ioe.ac.uk)

Events, Training/Education

Open Day – MSc in Childhood Studies – Univ. of Edinburgh

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Want to know more about the MSc in Childhood Studies, at the University of Edinburgh? There is an Open Day on November 18th 2015 especially for potential Postgraduate Students, where you (or those you work with) can learn more about opportunities at the University as well as about Childhood Studies in particular. For more information on the day, see http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/open-day Continue reading Open Day – MSc in Childhood Studies – Univ. of Edinburgh →

Events

Deadline approaching for upcoming seminar: Feminism and the politics of childhood: Friends or foes?

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The deadline is approaching to register an expression of interest to attend the upcoming seminarFeminism and the politics of childhood: Friends or foes? as a non-presenting participant.

If you wish to participate in the workshop as a non-presenter, please send an expression of interest of no more than 250 words outlining relevant academic and/or community-based experience by30th September 2015 to r.rosen@ioe.ac.uk (Subject line: PARTICIPANT Feminism and Childhood).

Participation in the seminar:

The seminar will be held on the 16th and 17th November 2015 at IOE UCL, London, and will bring together community-based and academic scholars and activists to unpack the intersections and perceived antagonisms between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood, focusing on the ways that these fields attend to those positioned as women and as children.

The seminar is arranged to foster dialogue and participation amongst a small group of participants who work on seminar themes from within different paradigms, varying disciplines, and diverse contexts. Speakers will have 5 minutes to present their pre-circulated paper, with the bulk of the time set aside for discussion amongst both presenting and non-presenting participants.

We therefore ask that all selected participants commit to:

  • Pre-read all working papers (approximately 4,000 words each) and come prepared to discuss these papers.
  • Attend the entire 1½ day seminar (afternoon 16th Novemberand full day 17th November 2015).

Further information:

Key questions the seminar will address are:

  • How do we ensure the well-being of children and women, particularly in contexts where their interests may (appear to) be in conflict?
  • How might a conversation between feminism and the politics of childhood speak to these tensions?
  • What are the implications of theorising women and children together?

Confirmed papers:

  • Leena Alanen (University of Jyväskylä)

Feminist Studies – Childhood Studies: Towards a post-constructionist reconciliation

  • Priscilla Alderson (UCL Institute of Education)

‘Women and children first’?

  • Erica Burman (Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester)

A necessary struggle-in-relation?

  • Claire Houghton (The University of Edinburgh)

Domestic abuse and devolution: Power to all the people?

  • Berry Mayall  (UCL Institute of Education)

Women’s ideas about childhood, England 1900-1920

  • Erica Meiners (2015 Soros Justice Fellow, Northeastern Illinois University)

Defending Women: Child saving in the US carceral state

  • Geetanjali Misra (CREA, New Delhi)

Sexuality, gender, and the rights of girls and women in South and Southeast Asia

  • Ann Phoenix  (UCL Institute of Education)

“I have never called her mum”: Mothers and children defined and divided by children’s ‘best interests’

  • Geraldine Pratt (University of British Columbia)

Children and their migrant mothers: Rhetoric and politics in global neoliberalism

  • Rachel Rosen  (UCL Institute of Education)
    Jan Newberry (University of Lethbridge)

Love, labour and appropriation: Reconceptualising social reproduction with women and children in the frame

  • Rachel Thomson (University of Sussex)
    Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck College)

Pushing the envelope: Thinking through childhood and maternal studies

  • Ohad Zehavi (Tel Aviv University)

Becoming-woman, becoming-child, becoming-minoritarian

For more information, see https://feminismandchildhood.wordpress.com/

Supported by:

UCL Grand Challenges

Events

The Age of Criminal Responsibility

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Centre for Evidence & Criminal Justice Studies (University of Northumbria)
Sydney Institute of Criminology (University of Sydney)

Wednesday 23 September 2015, 4th Floor Corporate Hub and Harvard Lecture Theatre, School of Law, Northumbria University 11.00-18.00

On Wednesday 23rd September the Centre for Evidence & Criminal Justice Studies (University of Northumbria) and the Sydney Institute of Criminology (University of Sydney) will co-host a 1 day conference on ‘The Age of Criminal Responsibility’ at Northumbria University in Newcastle. The aim of this conference is to encourage debate and discussion on the current age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales which is set at 10 years. This conference will provide a forum for exploring the latest research and developments in understanding the challenges facing young people in conflict with the law. Continue reading The Age of Criminal Responsibility →