ABSTRACT
Over the last fifty years a powerful global convergence of ideas and practices regarding childrearing and parenting has emerged. This consensus, supported by a vast array of childrearing media and informed by expert advice, highlights the desirability of child-centered forms of parenting, in which parents focus on the developmental needs of the child, respect the child as an individual, and provide children with ample opportunities to exercise choice in order to develop a sense of individual agency (Bloch et al. 2003; Popkewitz 2000, 2003; Rose 1989; Canella 1997). In the United States, especially, such child-centered ideals and practices are widely valued, and have effectively come to constitute a key trend in the ways American parents raise their children (Penn with Zalesne 2007).
