In Contested Childhood, Holloway, an educational and developmental psychologist, examines the Japanese preschool and identifies the cultural models that guide Japanese child-rearing as being contentious and fragmented. She looks at the societal, religious and economic factors that shape various preschool programs and shows how culture influences child-rearing beliefs and practices.

Drawing on work from within the developing field of childhood studies, this text examines theoretical and policy driven understandings of the current position of children in society. Through an analysis of policy reforms and professional initiatives within educational child care and legal contexts, the author examines different, potentially competing viewpoints of childrens social position. Chapters are devoted to a number of related themes, including child policy and moral ambiguity, the limits to child protection, the individualization of schooling and childhood and citizenship.

The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a surge in the publication and popularity of autobiographical writings about childhood. Linking literary and cultural studies, Contesting Childhood draws on a varied selection of works from a diverse range of authorsùfrom first-time to experienced writers. Kate Douglas explores Australian accounts of the Stolen Generation, contemporary American and British narratives of abuse, the bestselling memoirs of Andrea Ashworth, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Drewe, Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Pelzer, and Lorna Sage, among many others. Drawing on trauma and memory studies and theories of authorship and readership, Contesting Childhood offers commentary on the triumphs, trials, and tribulations that have shaped this genre. Douglas examines the content of the narratives and the limits of their representations, as well as some of the ways in which autobiographies of youth have become politically important and influential. This study enables readers to discover how stories configure childhood within cultural memory and the public sphere.

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This open access book explores specific migration, governance, and identity processes currently involving children and ideas of childhood. Migrancy as a social space allows majority populations to question the capabilities of migrants, and is a space in which an increasing number of children are growing up. In this space, families, nation-states, civil society, as well as children themselves are central actors engaged in contesting the meaning of childhood. Childhood is a field of conceptual, moral and political contestation, where the ‘battles’ may range from minor tensions and everyday negotiations of symbolic or practical importance involving a limited number of people, to open conflicts involving violence and law enforcement. The chapters demonstrate the importance of how we understand phenomena involving children: when children are trafficked, seeking refuge, taken into custody, active in gangs or in youth organisations, and struggling with identity work. This book examines countries representing very different engagements and policies regarding migrancy and children. As a result, readers are presented with a comprehensive volume ideal for both the classroom and for policy-makers and practitioners. The chapters are written by experts in social anthropology, human geography, political science, sociology, and psychology.

Demonstrating the contested and differentiated nature of childhood embodiment, this book responds to media discourses that stigmatize 'unruly' youthful bodies, by combining the critical analysis of imagined and disciplined youthful bodies with a focus on young people's lived and performed, embodied subjectivities.