This paper argues that current child and childhood research is problematical in as much as there is a discrepancy between theory and research practice. Although in theory, children are conceptualised as active agents in the social world, the type of research that children are typically involved in implies that children are competent, knowledgeable…

Considers homework as an issue in the effort to define children's role as active participants in their lives. Notes the tension created as children attempt to find a place for themselves in their families and schools, the debates about children's rights, and the prescriptive approach of public policy toward homework. (JPB)

Compares responses to the issue of children caring for ill or disabled family members in the 1990s to resistance encountered in the implementation of child labor and education reforms toward the end of the nineteenth century. Discusses parallel ways in which the quality of childhood became problematized without sufficient recognition of the…

Reflects on idea of representing children politically and socially or culturally, drawing on themes emerging from the United Kingdom's ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Children 5-16 Programme, a research initiative focusing on children as social actors. Explores children as research subjects, documentation of "children's…

Examines children's participation in public life in relation to the tension between control and self-realization found in late modernity. Argues that social tension is created through the conflict between recognition of children as persons in their own right and public policy marked by intensification of control of children creating a view of…

Critically reviews the question of childhood in the context of simultaneous globalization and atomization of social life. Discusses childhood in relation to children as consumers, children as interpreters, and children as actors. Suggests that these ideas help explain some of the tensions and disruptions that characterize the lives of some…