Reinventing Childhood After World War II

by Fass, Paula S.; Grossberg, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780812243673
• ISBN10: 0812243676
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-10-19
• Publisher: Univ of Pennsylvania Pr

Summary

In the western world, the modern view of childhood as a space protected from broader adult society first became a dominant social vision during the nineteenth century. Many of the West's sharpest portrayals of children in literature and the arts emerged at that time in both Europe and the United States, and continue to organize our perceptions and sensibilities to this day. But that childhood is now being re-created. Many social and political developments since the end of the Second World War have fundamentally altered the lives children lead and are now beginning to transform conceptions of childhood. Reinventing Childhood After World War IIbrings together seven prominent historians of modern childhood to identify precisely what has changed in children's lives and why. Topics range from youth culture to children's rights; from changing definitions of age to nontraditional families; from parenting styles to how American experiences compare with those of the rest of the western world. Taken together, the essays argue that children's experiences have changed in such dramatic and important ways since 1945 that parents, other adults, and girls and boys themselves have had to reinvent almost every aspect of childhood. Reinventing Childhood After World War IIpresents a striking interpretation of the nature and status of childhood that will be essential to students and scholars of childhood, as well as policy makers, educators, parents, and all those concerned with the lives of children in the world today.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
The Child-Centered Family? New Rules in Postwar America	p. 1
Liberation and Caretaking: Fighting over Children's Rights in Postwar America	p. 19
The Changing Face of Children's Culture	p. 38
Ten Is the New Fourteen: Age Compression and "Real" Childhood	p. 51
Whose Child? Parenting and Custody in the Postwar Period	p. 68
Children, the State, and the American Dream	p. 84
Children and the Swedish Welfare State: From Different to Similar	p. 110
Notes	p. 139
List of Contributors	p. 169
Index	p. 171
Acknowledgments	p. 181
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