Socialising Children

Drawing on children's narratives about their everyday life this book explores how children understand the process of socialization as an embodied, biographical experience at home, at school and in the neighbourhood. Through close analysis of what children have to say, the book shows how children actively learn from and contribute to the mundane practices and interactions of everyday social life. Through these experiences they get to know about social norms, rules and values and also develop their sense of self and identity. Working from this child-centred perspective and drawing on recent theoretical ideas about personal life and the individual, the book demonstrates the valuable contribution that childhood studies can make to long-standing sociological debates about processes of social reproduction and social change.

Allison James is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth at the University of Sheffield, UK and is also Professor II at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research in Trondheim, Norway. As one of the pioneers of the new social studies of childhood she has carried out extensive empirical and theoretical research into children's culture. Her previous publications include Constructing Childhood (with A. L. James), European Childhoods (with A. L. James) and Children, Food and Identity in Everyday Life (with A. Khørholt and V. Tingstad).

1. Personal Lives
2. Key Concepts, New Understandings?
3. Family Lives
4. Interacting Lives
5. Embodied, Emotional Lives
6. Institutional Lives
7. Biographical Lives
8. Afterword: Towards a Child Centred Perspective on Socialization