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Assistant Professor Position – Quantitative focus

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The Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University invites applications in the area of research in children, childhood and youth for a probationary (tenure track) appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor, effective July 1, 2016. The position is subject to budgetary approval.

The Department of Child and Youth Studies offers undergraduate programs (BA Pass or Honours, BA with Major, BA/BEd) that provide a broadly based interdisciplinary approach that considers theoretical and applied approaches to children and youth within the multiple contexts of culture, the economy, the law, family, school, peer group, and community. With roots in psychology, sociology, anthropology, criminology, education and cultural studies, the academic focus provides an integration of approaches through which a comprehensive understanding of children and youth can evolve. In addition, the CHYS Graduate Program (MA, PhD) offers a unique multidisciplinary approach to the study of children and youth, providing a theoretical foundation and the application of social science research methods.

Qualifications

A completed Ph.D. in Anthropology, Community Health, Criminology, Human Geography, Political Science, Sociology or a
related discipline is preferred. Evidence of high quality research in the area of child and youth studies with a strong quantitative focus, as well as high quality teaching is required. The successful candidate will be expected to teach methodology and statistics at undergraduate and graduate levels with a focus on advanced covariance structure modeling including longitudinal analyses.

In addition to undergraduate teaching and supervision, the successful candidate will be expected to support the Graduate program in Child and Youth Studies, and continue a successful program of research within the department’s diverse multi- and transdisciplinary ethos.

Notes

Applications will be reviewed on January 31, 2016 until the position is filled. Applicants should submit a letter of application (indicating the file number stated above), curriculum vitae, selected reprints/preprints of publications, evidence of successful, high quality teaching, and arrange for three letters of reference to be sent to:

Dr. Dawn Zinga, Chair
Department of Child and Youth Studies
Brock University
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1

Email: dzinga@brocku.ca
Fax: (905) 641-2509

Applications may be submitted via email to carolpenner@brocku.ca; each document to be attached as a separate file.

Brock University is an equal opportunity employer committed to inclusive, barrier-free recruitment and selection processes and work environment. We will accommodate the needs of the applicants under the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) throughout all stages of the recruitment and selection process, per the University’s Accommodation for Employees with Disabilities Policy (http://www.brocku.ca/webfm_send/6557). Please advise the Human Resources Department to ensure that your accessibility needs are accommodated throughout this process. Information received relating to accommodation measures will be addressed confidentially.

This ad is also available at http://www.brocku.ca/hr/careers/position_detail.php?id=1751
More information on Brock University can be found on the University’s website www.brocku.ca.

Calls for Papers: Publishing

CFP – Boys’ Biologies: An Interdisciplinary Roundtable

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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.

Publications

Ethnographies of Austerity (article on child displacement in Italy)

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The latest special issue of History and Anthropology is now available online and might be of interest to some list members. This special issue is entitled “Ethnographies of Austerity: Temporality, Crisis and Affect in Southern Europe“, and the guest editors are Daniel M. Knight and Charles Stewart.

Dr Stavroula Pipyrou’s article looks at the memory and silences of child displacement in 1950s Italy, part of a wider project on youth relocation at times of natural disaster.

All articles in the special issue are open access until the end of February, the Introduction will be permanently remain so. Please feel free to circulate or post elsewhere. The issue can be viewed here: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ghan20/27/1

Calls for Papers: Publishing

Call for Papers:  Sociological Studies of Children and Youth

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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.

Other opportunities

Call for Nominations: 2016 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize

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Deadline for Submission: 15 March 2016

The Jacobs Foundation is seeking nominations for the 2016 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. The prize awards outstanding scientific contributions of individuals from all scholarly disciplines aiming at improving the development and living conditions of children and youth or contributing to one of the Jacobs Foundation’s thematic priorities. This includes, but is not limited to, educational sciences, psychology, economics, sociology, family studies, media studies, political sciences, linguistics, neurosciences, and medical sciences.

The prize is endowed with 1 Mio. Swiss Francs, of which 900’000 Swiss Francs are for use in a research project and 100’000 Swiss Francs are for related costs, such as travel, networking, and dissemination. The prize has a global scope. It addresses scholars who have achieved major breakthroughs in understanding child and youth development and have the potential to advance the field by actively conducting research.Self-nominations cannot be accepted.

An international jury will choose the laureate from the pool of nominated candidates. The following individuals currently form the jury:

  • Professor Jürgen Baumert, Max Planck Institute for Human Development Berlin, Germany
  • Professor Dorret I. Boomsma, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • Professor Jere R. Behrman, University of Pennsylvania, USA
  • Professor Francesco C. Billari, Oxford University, UK
  • Professor Uta Frith, University College London, UK
  • Professor Kathleen Kiernan, University of York, UK
  • Professor Terrie E. Moffitt, Duke University and King’s College London, USA and UK

All documents pertaining to the nomination should be submitted online by 15 March 2016. To begin the online submission process, please visit http://jacobsfoundation.org/kjj-research-prize.

Detailed information can be found at Jacobs Foundation Research Prize.

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact the responsible program manager Gelgia Fetz (gelgia.fetz@jacobsfoundation.org).

Calls for Papers: Conferences

CFP – Adolescence, Youth and Gender: Building Knowledge for Change

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CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
 
8-9 September 2016, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford
 
‘Adolescence’ has risen high on the global agenda, with a particular focus on girls. Researchers, policymakers and practitioners are increasingly interested in the second decade of life as a newly recognised ‘window of opportunity’ to reduce poverty and inequality and to prevent the transmission of poverty across generations.
 
Over the past few decades, the early years of childhood have been highlighted as a critical period for intervention, resulting in impressive achievements – a dramatic reduction in child mortality and the expansion of primary schooling. More recently, the international development community has extended its focus to ‘adolescence’ as a way to sustain and build upon these gains, funding numerous campaigns and programme initiatives, aimed particularly at the empowerment of adolescent girls, in low- and middle-income countries. Funnelling efforts to improve the life-chances of girls, it is argued, will result in greater individual and national prosperity and will promote gender equality, since it is during the second decade of childhood that gender differences widen, particularly for the poorest children. Decisions about education, work, marriage and fertility have critical impacts on long-term outcomes for girls, boys and families.
 
This two-day international conference, organised by Young Lives (www.younglives.org.uk), will promote dialogue and critical reflection on the latest evidence, current paradigms, concepts and approaches to adolescence, youth and gender in international development and consider the implications for policy and programming.
 
Conference questions
The conference will address key questions relating to adolescence, youth and gender in global contexts, for example:
·         When and how do gender inequalities emerge and manifest themselves during the first two decades of life, and what are the later consequences for both young men and women?
·         What is the interplay between gender norms, political-economic structures and individual behaviours?
·         How does gender relate to poverty and to other intersecting inequalities in adolescence and youth (age, ethnicity/race/caste, class, location, sexuality, disability, etc.)?
·         What does ‘empowerment’ look like for young people in different contexts, and is empowerment a solution to exclusion and discrimination?
·         ‘What works’ to reduce gender inequality, and how does reducing gender inequality in the first two decades of life have long-term effects over the life course?
 
The full Call for Papers and further information is available on the Young Lives website (http://www.younglives.org.uk/news/news/call-for-papers-adolescence-youth-and-gender)
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 February 2016.
Calls for Papers: Conferences

MESA 2016 CFP: Egyptian Childhood and Children

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We are seeking papers that interrogate questions relating to the experience of childhoods and/or ​being a child in Egypt in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Specific topics are flexible, but could include colonialism, nationalism, socialism, child protection, children’s rights, revolution, modernity, education, or globalization.

Please send abstracts to: hmorrison@uwlax.edu and dianachiara3@gmail.com by January 25.