What is biological about boys now? What is to be respected when “boys will be boys”? For the Fall 2016 issue of Boyhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Berghahn Journals), we are inviting original contributions on the science, politics, history and representation of biology in childhood studies, specifically as these relate to boys (womb through adolescence) and to notions of “male development” more generally. Brief (2,500-3,500 words) and more extended (6,500 max.) contributions will be considered.

We are interested in research reviews and updates as well as original contributions that speak to the cultural history, politics and sociology of boyness as represented within and beyond the life sciences. Individual articles will be published as part of an “Interdisciplinary Roundtable” so as to highlight points of divergence or convergence within and across disciplines. Manuscripts will have to be written for a general scholarly audience, but may be informed by the following vantage points (among others):

• interdisciplinary studies
• the cultural/social/biological anthropology of the child
• the history of ideas, the history of the life and medical sciences and of the pedagogical sciences
• the sociology of science
• evolutionary psychology, including evolutionary developmental psychology
• developmental psychology more broadly
• gender/sexuality/queer/LGBTIA studies
• the neurosciences

Background: Anticipating much of “sex role” and “sex difference” research, conceptual and empirical questions of boys’ nature very much interested self-proclaimed “boyologists” from the mid-nineteenth through mid-twentieth century. Anatomy and physiology have remained intricate, controversial and for some career-making dimensions of reference and argument in approaching, and explaining, gender. If after “women’s studies” the consolidation of “men’s studies” has entailed sympathetic attempts to problematize the politics of the sexes with what were ubiquitously advertised as anti-essentialist theories of gender, a more recent “male studies” school has advocated a neo-naturalist return to “male psychology”. Much of sex difference research manages to remain at a polite distance of this standoff. Yet the many “boy crisis” discussions of the past 15 years often ask directly whether boys’ inner natures or drives are at risk of being vandalized by “feminization” or rather harassed by some “boy code” or “guy code”. Claims of innateness, in short, are at the heart of the (productive) sense of schism that informs the imagining of any boyhood studies, indeed gender studies in its broadest scope.

Boyhood Studies’ (as Girlhood Studies’) eponymous gesture to distinguish boys from girls is tentative, cautious, problematic, though rarely “sous rature”. It inherently invites empirical questions related to boys’ and boyish genders/sexes/sexualities, but also asks for ways of reading culturally ubiquitous answers and often tendentious research. Many research areas have importantly pivoted around the same questions, both within gender studies and the fields of sex research and education.

Diffracted across so many disputes and fields, where does the perennial question of biology leave “the boys”? We write “perennial” but what does history tell us? What does it mean to pose biological questions about masculinity and its “development” today? How “sexed”, or “gendered”, or “sexualized”, are today’s contours of “human” development? What kind of cultural work is (still) being accomplished in more or less culture-free notions of “male development”? What about boys’ natures in the global South? How fair, or unfair, are sex difference researchers in their Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion sections? What, finally, is simply true or simply not true about boys, biologically speaking, and how is this relevant to whom?

First draft due: May 1, 2016

Later submissions may be considered if proposals are received before this time.

• Final accepted draft due: August 1, 2016
• Publication: Volume 9, Issue 2, Fall 2016
• SUBMIT full manuscripts, and any preliminary queries, to boyhoodstudies@gmail.com
• Guest Editor(s) vacancy: queries to boyhoodstudies@gmail.com
• Style guide: http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/bhs/boyhood-studies_style_guide.pdf
• About Boyhood Studies: http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/boyhood-studies
• About the publisher: http://journals.berghahnbooks.com

We are currently seeking submissions for Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Volume 22, Researching Kids and Teens: Methodological Issues, Strategies, and Innovations.  Problems and pitfalls often accompany researching children and youth, given sociologists’ increasingly limited access to populations deemed vulnerable.  In addition, navigation through Institutional Review Board requirements and gaining trust from key organizational and educational gatekeepers can be difficult.  As a result, researchers must come up with creative ways to negotiate processes of research approval, institutional support, site entry, and direct interaction with children.

There is a dearth of publications regarding the sociology of researching children and adolescents.  This volume will address concerns of research access, methodological procedure, and project completion.  We invite chapters utilizing alternative methods such as the study of children’s material culture, digital research/mining, and representational analysis (film, television, literature, etc.).  While all approaches are welcome, we are particularly interested in theoretical and ethical considerations, and research that includes archival processes and qualitative strategies including interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and other innovative methodologies with children and youth.

Manuscripts should use APA citation style; in addition, we welcome the use of endnotes for informative commentary given the topic of the volume.  Proposed manuscripts should not exceed 9,000 words including endnotes, bibliography, charts/tables, and appendices.  Submissions must be previously unpublished works.  Please see the following author guidelines for additional information: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/ebookseries/author_guidelines.htm

All proposed chapters will be given full consideration, and submission implies a commitment to publish in this volume if your work is selected for inclusion.

Submissions from early career as well as established researchers are welcome.

Submission deadline is April 15, 2016.

Please send completed manuscripts via attachment, preferably in MS Word format, to:
researchingkids@gmail.com

All questions regarding this volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth should be directed to the editors at:
researchingkids@gmail.com

Volume 22 will be guest edited by Ingrid E. Castro (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts), Melissa Swauger (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), and Brent Harger (Gettysburg College).  The guest editors are co-founding members of the Committee on Research and Ethics for the American Sociological Association’s Section on Children and Youth.