Childhoods Real and Imagined

Priscilla Alderson is Professor Emerita of Childhood Studies at the Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, London. She teaches on an international MA in the Sociology of Childhood and Children’s Rights and her work on children’s competence, wisdom and rights has been widely published.

• Part 1: Background 1.Introduction 2.Trends in research about children, childhood and youth Part 2 Experiencing and Imagining Childhoods 3.Real bodies: material relations with nature 4.Space: interpersonal relations 5.Time: social relations and structures 6.Inner being: alienation and flourishing 7.Conclusions: The relevance of DCR to childhood studies.

"Childhoods Real and Imagined is a compelling and engagingly written account of how and why the real experiences and capabilities of children are so often marginalized and ignored in academic scholarship and public policy. Alderson documents the myriad ways adults cloud inquiry by projecting their value orientations and biases on children in pursuit of their theoretical and policy goals. The effect of these practices is prioritization of adult interests over children’s. Childhoods, Real and Imagined deconstructs theoretical fallacies and empirical overgeneralizations, while offering readers an alternative, realist framework for studying and embracing children as they are and become." Majia Holmer Nadesan, Professor, Arizona State University"This first instalment in a two-volume project from Priscilla Alderson sets itself the task of exploring the impact of dialectical critical realism (DCR) upon the relatively new field of childhood studies. One of a group of researchers who have contributed to, and witnessed, the emergence of childhood studies as a field in its own right since the early 1990s, the work of Alderson (and colleague Nigel Thomas) is commonly encountered in the core readings of the new Masters of Childhood Studies courses that have proliferated in the last five to eight years."Brad Shipway, Southern Cross University, Australia