This book explores the dominant constructions of childhood as perceived by children and adults in contemporary Indian society. It unveils the everyday lived experiences of children within family life to explain the meaning of childhood and the position of children as social groups. Based on detailed qualitative study, this volume discusses the themes and issues that impact dominant constructions of childhood. It establishes childhood as a structurally constructed category and sheds light on how key social differences influence the diverse experiences of childhood. The book critically examines how children, as social actors, contribute to the structural space of childhood through the recognition of their own experiences, voices, and ways of interpretations. Further, it also compares and analyses childhoods of today with those of the past generations. Engagingly written and nuanced, the book will be of great interest to teachers and students of education, childhood studies, elementary education, sociology of education and social psychology. It will also be useful for teachers of teacher training institutions, policymakers, educationalists, education professionals, parents and researchers working with children and childhood studies.

This book highlights the significance of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding children and childhoods in the Indian context. While it is recognised that multiple kinds of childhoods exist in India, policy and practice approaches to working with children are still based on a singular model of the ideal child rooted in certain Western traditions. The book challenges readers to go beyond the acknowledgement of differences to evolving alternate models to this conception of children and childhoods. Bringing together well-known scholars from history, politics, sociology, child development, paediatrics and education, the volume represents four major themes: the history and politics of childhoods; deconstructing childhoods by analysing their representations in art, mythology and culture in India; selected facets of childhoods as constructed through education and schooling; and understanding issues related to law, policy and practice, as they pertain to children and childhoods. This important book will be useful to scholars and researchers of education, especially those working in the domains of child development, sociology of education, educational psychology, public policy and South Asian studies.

Education and Constructions of Childhood considers the social construction of childhood through the institutions of education and schooling. Grounded in a strong conceptual, theoretical framework, this accessible text will guide the reader through this evolving area. Reflective exercises, chapter summaries and useful websites will encourage and support student learning and the application of new concepts. Education and Constructions of Childhood is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students on Education Studies and related courses.

This book provides a critical examination of the discourses that underpin the regulation of children’s access to certain knowledge – understood as ‘difficult knowledge’ – and highlights the way this regulation contributes to the construction of childhood, to children’s vulnerability, to broader social relationships (including adult-child relations of power), and to the constitution of the ‘good’ future citizen in developed countries. Through this analysis, the author critically engages with the relationships between childhood, innocence, moral panic, censorship and notions of citizenship. She argues that the regulation of children’s access to particular knowledge largely stems from the social construction of childhood innocenceand the socio-cultural-political values that constitute and define childhood. This book explores how and why the strict regulation of children’s knowledge, often in the name of protectionor in the child’s best interest, can ironically, increase children’s prejudice around difference, increase their vulnerability to exploitation and abuse, impact on their health and well being, and undermine their competence as children, as well as their abilities to become competent adolescents and adults.

This edited volume advances the conceptual framework of the 'everyday urban' to unpack the ways in which processes of modernity in India shape young subjects and, in so doing, centers the analytical categories of childhood and youth. In rejecting simplistic binaries of agency, and teleological logics of development and modernity, the authors focus on the complex pathways of negotiation and conflict that mark the lives of young people across various historical and contemporary contexts in urban India. Chapters are organized across two key themes: Shaping Modern Subjects and Being Modern Subjects, while spanning multiple disciplines including anthropology, history, sociology, disability studies, and psychology. Together, the contributions aim to advance the field of childhood and youth studies in South Asia and beyond.

This text provides a critical analysis of the social construction of childhood and children's agency. Through an interdisciplinary synthesis combining social theory, social policy and the empirical findings of social science research, it bridges the current gap between theory and practice, offering an incisive theoretical account of childhood that is grounded in substantive areas of children's lives such as health, education, crime and the family. This furthers understanding of the impact of policy on children's everyday lives and social experiences.

Is the bicycle, like the loudspeaker, a medium of communication in India? Do Indian children need trade unions as much as they need schools? What would you do with a mobile phone if all your friends were playing tag in the rain or watching Indian Idol? Children and Media in India illuminates the experiences, practices and contexts in which children and young people in diverse locations across India encounter, make, or make meaning from media in the course of their everyday lives. From textbooks, television, film and comics to mobile phones and digital games, this book examines the media available to different socioeconomic groups of children in India and their articulation with everyday cultures and routines. An authoritative overview of theories and discussions about childhood, agency, social class, caste and gender in India is followed by an analysis of films and television representations of childhood informed by qualitative interview data collected between 2005 and 2015 in urban, small-town and rural contexts with children aged nine to 17. The analysis uncovers and challenges widely held assumptions about the relationships among factors including sociocultural location, media content and technologies, and children’s labour and agency. The analysis casts doubt on undifferentiated claims about how new technologies ‘affect’, ‘endanger’ and/or ‘empower’, pointing instead to the importance of social class – and caste – in mediating relationships among children, young people and the poor. The analysis of children’s narratives of daily work, education, caring and leisure supports the conclusion that, although unrecognised and underrepresented, subaltern children’s agency and resourceful conservation makes a significant contribution to economic, interpretive and social reproduction in India.