An Introduction to Childhood: Anthropological Perspectives on Childrens Lives

In An Introduction to Childhood, Heather Montgomery examines the role children have played within anthropology, how they have been studied by anthropologists and how they have been portrayed and analyzed in ethnographic monographs over the last one hundred and fifty years.
Using a wide range of evidence from a variety of very different societies, this book challenges the idea that there is any one correct way to raise children, or that parents across the globe have the same goals in raising their children, or the same attitudes towards them. Drawing on the rich history of anthropological literature, Montgomery uses key topics to illustrate important issues in the anthropological study of children and childhood. This volume provides a fresh investigation into the diversity of beliefs about childhood as well as the variety of children′s daily lives, looking at issues such as how parents elsewhere raise their children, what they understand as abusive, how children become adults and what both adults and children see as their respective roles and responsibilities.

Spis treści:
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
1. Childhood within Anthropology.
Introduction.
Children: The First Primitives.
Culture and Personality.
Cross–Cultural Studies of Child–Rearing.
Children in British Anthropology.
The Gendered Child.
Child–Centered Anthropology.
Conclusion.
2. What is a Child?.
Introduction.
Childhood as a Modern Idea: The Influence of Philippe Ariès.
Conceptualizations of Childhood.
Children as Incompetent or Subordinate.
Children as Equals.
Children as a Means of Forming Families and Giving StatusChildren as an Economic Investment.
Unwanted and Nonhuman Children.
Conclusion.
3. The Beginning of Childhood.
Introduction.
Fetuses.
Spirit Children.
Reincarnation.
Anomalies.
Conclusion.
4. Family, Friends, and Peers.
Introduction.
The Role of Parents.
Adoption and Fosterage.
Children outside the Family.
Siblings.
Friends and Peer Groups.
Conclusion.
5. Talking, Playing, and Working.
Introduction.
Learning Language.
Children and Play.
Work or Play?.
Conclusion.
6. Discipline, Punishment, and Abuse.
Introduction.
Discipline and Punishment in the Western Tradition.
Physical Punishment.
Alternatives to Physical Punishment.
Who Can Punish Children?.
Child Abuse.
Conclusion.
7. Children and Sexuality.
Introduction.
Anthropology, Sexuality, and Childhood.
Children and Sex: The Influence of Freud.
Incest and Abuse.
Ethnographies of Children and Sexuality.
Child Prostitution.
Conclusion.
8. Adolescence and Initiation.
Introduction.
What is Adolescence?.
Adolescence and Globalization.
Initiation.
Initiation: A Psychological Approach.
Initiation and Education.
Initiation and Gender.
Initiation: The End of Childhood?.
Conclusion.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.
Index

Nota biograficzna:
Heather Montgomery is a Senior Lecturer in Childhood Studies at The Open University. She has written on children and sexuality, tourism, children’s rights and on the role of children in anthropology. Her publications include Modern Babylon? Prostituting Children in Thailand (2001), Understanding Childhood: An Interdisciplinary Approach (2003, with Martin Woodhead), and Changing Childhoods: Global and Local (2003, with Martin Woodhead and Rachel Burr).

Okładka tylna:
In An Introduction to Childhood, Heather Montgomery examines the role children have played within anthropology, how they have been studied by anthropologists and how they have been portrayed and analyzed in ethnographic monographs over the last one hundred and fifty years.
Using a wide range of evidence from a variety of very different societies, this book challenges the idea that there is any one correct way to raise children, or that parents across the globe have the same goals in raising their children, or the same attitudes towards them. Drawing on the rich history of anthropological literature, Montgomery uses key topics to illustrate important issues in the anthropological study of children and childhood. This volume provides a fresh investigation into the diversity of beliefs about childhood as well as the variety of children′s daily lives, looking at issues such as how parents elsewhere raise their children, what they understand as abusive, how children become adults and what both adults and children see as their respective roles and responsibilities.