HELEN AINSLIE heads her own Dance School in Reading, UKJENNY BAVIDGE Senior Lecturer in English, University of Greenwich, UKJONATHAN BIGNELL Professor of Television and Film, University of Reading, UKERICA BURMAN Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, UKELEANOR CONLIN CASELLA Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Manchester, UK NEIL COCKS Lecturer in English, American and Children's Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Reading, UKSIMON FLYNN Independent Scholar, UKDANIEL MONK Senior Lecturer in Law, Birkbeck College, University of London, UKHANNAH SMITH Lecturer in Special Educational Needs, University of Exeter, UKSARAH SPOONER Independent Scholar, UKSUE WALSH Lecturer in English, American and Children's Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Reading, UK

• Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on the Contributors Introduction: Voice, Agency, and the Child; K.Lesnik-Oberstein Gender and Childhood in Neoliberal Times: Contemporary Tropes of the Boychild in Psychological Culture; E.Burman Playthings: Archaeology and the Material Ambiguities of Childhood; E.C.Casella Homophobic Bullying: A Queer Tale of Childhood Politics; D.Monk Reading the 'Happy Child': Normative Discourse in Wellbeing Education; H.Smith Perspectives and Community: Constructions of Autism and Childhood; H.Ainslie Bothering About Words: Children's Literature and Ideas of Simplicity and Instruction; S.Spooner The Child and Irony; S.Walsh Fort/ Da: A Reading of Picturing Innocence by Anne Higonnet; N.Cocks Television for Children: Problems of National Specificity and Globalisation; J.Bignell Out with Romany: Simulating the Natural in BBC Radio's Children's Hour 1932-1943; S.Flynn Vital Victims: Senses of Children in the Urban J.Bavidge Selected Bibliography Index

'A timely volume that demonstrates the strength of multidisciplinary studies and takes childhood seriously.' - Maria Nikolajeva, Professor of Education, University of Cambridge, UK