Childhood With Bourdieu

This book breaks new ground in its theorizing of childhood within sociological concepts. Over the course of nine chapters, authors give detailed accounts of the lives of children in a range of societies, including England, sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Ireland, France, Andhra Pradesh and Finland. They describe their studies in the light of Bourdieu's key concepts - field, habitus and capital - to consider the social status of childhood, the tensions between schooling and work in the lives of children, children's relations with adults, and the pressures on childhood resulting from globalization and from the professional discourse of those adults who aim to help them. The authors are all established researchers who are committed to improving the social status and well-being of childhood, in social, economic and political worlds that too often fail to accord children respect for their human rights.

Leena Alanen is Professor Emerita in Early Childhood at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
 
Liz Brooker is Reader in Early Childhood at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.
 
Berry Mayall is Professor of Childhood Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.

1. Introduction; Leena Alanen, Liz Brooker and Berry Mayall

2. Intergenerational Relations: Embodiment over Time; Berry Mayall

3. Cultural Capital in the Preschool Years: Can the State 'Compensate' for the Family?; Liz Brooker

4. Between Young Children and Adults: Practical Logic in Families' Lives; Pascale Garnier

5. Early Childhood Education as a Social Field: Everyday Struggles and Practices of Dominance; Mari Vuorisalo and Leena Alanen

6. 'A Fish in Water?' Social Lives and Local Connections: the Case of Young People who Travel Outside their Local Areas to Secondary School; Abigail Knight

7. Childhood in Africa between Local Powers and Global Hierarchies; Geraldine André and Mathieu Hilgers

8. "Those who are good to us, we call them friends": Social Support and Social Networks for Children Growing up in Poverty in Rural Andhra Pradesh, India; Virginia Morrow and Uma Vennam

9. Struggling to Support: Genesis of the Practice of Using Support Persons in the Finnish Child Welfare Field; Johanna Moilanen, Johanna Kiili and Leena Alanen

10. Decision-making Processes in Review Meetings for Children in Care: a Bourdieusian Analysis; Karen Winter