In this book Chris Jenks looks at what the ways in which we construct our image of childhood can tell us about ourselves. After a general discussion of the social construction of childhood, the book is structured around three examples of the way the image of the child is played out in society:
- the history of childhood from medieval times through the enlightenment 'discovery' of childhood to the present
- the mythology and reality of child abuse and society's response to it
- the 'death' of childhood in cases such as the James Bulger murder in which the child itself becomes the perpetrator of evil.
Part of the highly successful Key Ideas series, this book gives students a concise, provocative insight into some of the controlling concepts of our culture.
Biography
Chris Jenks is Professor of Sociology and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Brunei University. His previous books include: Rationality, Education and the Social Organization of Knowledge (Routledge 1976), Worlds Apart - Readings for a Sociology of Education [with J. Beck, N. Keddie and M. Young} (Collier-Macmillan 1977); Towards a Sociology of Education [with J. Beck, N. Keddie and M. Young} (Transaction 1977); The Sociology of Childhood (Batsford 1982); Culture (Routledge 1993, 2005); Cultural Reproduction (Routledge 1993); Visual Culture (Routledge 1995); Childhood (Routledge 1996); Theorizing Childhood [with A. James and A. Prout} (Polity 1998); Core Sociological Dichotomies (Sage 1998); Images of Community: Durkheim, Social Systems and the Sociology of Art [with J.A. Smith] (Ashgate 2000); Aspects of Urban Culture (Academia Sinica 2001); Culture: Critical Concepts — 4 Volumes (Routledge 2002); Transgression (Routledge 2003); Urban Culture — 4 Volumes (Routledge 2004); Subculture: Fragmentation of the Social (Sage 2004); and Qualitative Complexity [with J.A. Smith] (Routledge 2005). He is interested in sociological theory, post-structuralism and heterology, childhood, cultural theory, visual and urban culture, and extremes of behaviour
