ABSTRACT
The final reader in the Child Development in Social Context series shows how the study of child development is inevitably bound up in more ephemeral cultural ideas about the nature and needs of children and in the educational practices that rise from these ideas. Some readings point to the dangers which can arise from the meeting of science and cultural values, using for illustration studies of the role of psychological theory in reinforcing social attitudes to child care inside and outside the family. Other readings look at children's initiation into that relatively recent cultural invention, the school, and the relationship with their learning at home. There are studies of their social development in classroom and playground, with particular emphasis on ethnic relationships.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |53 pages
Concepts of childhood, concepts of parenthood
part |84 pages
Frameworks for child care
part |57 pages
Expectations in early education
part |68 pages
Pupil perspectives on classrooms and playgrounds
part |86 pages
Gender, ‘race’ and the experience of schooling