Tracing the contribution of childhood studies: Maintaining momentum while navigating tensions

Abstract

Over recent decades, the evolving field of childhood studies has contributed significantly to the theorisation of childhood and to research seeking to understand children’s lives and experiences in different contexts. This article traces some of the key theoretical developments within childhood studies by means of a scoping study of peer-reviewed, scholarly journals and books published between 2010 and 2018. The aim of the review was to explore the theoretical and empirical contributions of childhood studies beyond its early foundational tenets. A number of emerging tensions were identified and these are explored in this article.

The state of journals on children and childhood studies: Insights and challenges from a citation analysis

“…In the spirit of having a "continued re-balance in childhood studies" (Tisdall and Punch, 2012: 188; See also Canosa and Graham, 2020), this work has discussed gatekeeping practices in the knowledge base of childhood studies by examining journal influence. Journal influence and transfer of knowledge can be difficult to examine because knowledge itself is in large part very abstract.…”

“…With these considerations, this work is an invitation to those who consider themselves scholars of childhood studies to provoke further thoughts and engage in alternative pathways from here. All these are hoped to advance childhood scholarship (Alanen et al, 2018;Moody and Darbellay, 2019) and to keep "maintaining momentum" (Canosa and Graham, 2020).…”

“…Contemporary scholars on childhood no longer subscribe to clear-cut categories presupposed to be distinct and fixed such as the child-adult divide and instead, children are understood as ambiguous subjects, constructed and reconstructed through time (See Honig, 2009;James et al, 1998;Mayall, 2000;Nieuwenhuys, 2013;Robinson, 2008). In their analysis of how childhood studies evolved over time, Canosa and Graham (2020) observed "gray-zones" in what qualifies as childhood studies. With such perpetual developments, childhood studies as a discipline can be seen as "territory of knowledge" cultivated by its "scientific tribe" or scholars who advance the developments in this discipline (Becher and Trowler, 2001).…”

‘Producing’ childhood: The making of childhood and children in theatre

“…In recent years scholars have been exploring the implications of Deleuze and Guattari’s ontologies of becoming (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) as a critique of the 1980s perspective emphasising children as ‘beings’ (Huuki, 2019; Mayes 2016). The biosocial dualism and constructivism of the 1980s approach have similarly been critiqued (Canosa and Graham, 2019; Hammersley, 2017; Lee and Motzkau, 2011; Ryan, 2011). These are welcome developments but earlier conceptual categories are still predominant in Childhood Studies guiding fields or sites of inquiry (Alderson, 2016).…”

Book review: Noam Peleg, The child’s right to development

“…‘The Child’s Right to Development’ makes a significant contribution not only to legal studies and international human rights law but to conceptual advancements in the field of childhood studies (Canosa and Graham, 2020), taking up the call from other scholars for more meaningful cross-disciplinary conversations between the law and childhood studies (Freeman, 2012). Peleg builds on key principles of childhood studies such as agency, participation, recognition and intersectionality to argue that there is no right way for a child to develop.…”