Course Content
Is ‘child labour’ always exploitative? Can modern schooling be harmful as well as helpful? Are there universals in cognitive development that override cultural traditions of childrearing? This course examines childhood in historical and social context, exploring the implications, for human development, of radically different understandings of child-care, child competencies and education.
The aim of this multidisciplinary course is threefold. Firstly, to explore and understand the implications of seeing childhood as a cultural construct; secondly, to investigate how different notions of childhood make a difference to actual children’s development; and thirdly, to explore the modern understanding of ‘child rights’ and its influence – both positive and negative – on children’s lives.
Through a variety of social-scientific materials (anthropology, psychology, history, sociology), the course will examine alternative understandings of childhood that can be found across space and time. What difference do these different understandings make to processes of cognitive development? Are there any universals of human development or parenting that can be discerned amidst this cultural diversity? What are the political and social implications for children’s everyday lives of particular ways of seeing and treating children? In addition to the course readings, students will view and analyse films, and will visit London’s Museum of Childhood.
Topics covered include:
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Infancy and parenting
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Play across space and time
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Children’s labour and economic worth
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Education and inequality
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Child soldiers and ‘street children’
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Childhood in the city.
Course Outcomes
At the end of this course, students should be able to:
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Describe and account for some of the historical and contemporary variety in ideas of childhood existing in human societies
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Apply a variety of theoretical and comparative perspectives to material drawn from the ethnographic and historical record on children’s lives
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Critically evaluate the notion of childhood enshrined in conventions on, and campaigns about, ‘child rights’
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Think critically and creatively about issues related to childhood and children that they might encounter in the broader scholarly literature, in the mass media, or in their daily lives.
World-class LSE teaching
With a vibrant research culture, the LSE Department of International Relations is one of the oldest and largest in the world, and remains a leading world centre for the development of the subject. Its reputation for international excellence was recognised in the most recent National Research Assessment Exercise when the International Relations and Government Departments, received one of the highest rankings.
On this three week intensive programme, you will engage with and learn from full-time lecturers from the LSE.
Texts*
H. Montgomery, 2008, Introduction to Childhood: Anthropological Perspectives on Children’s Lives, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell;
N. Scheper-Hughes and C. Sargent (eds), 1998, Small Wars: The Cultural Politics of Childhood, Berkeley: University of California Press;
D.F. Lancy, 2014 (Second Edition), The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings, Cambridge University Press.
*A more detailed reading list will be supplied prior to the start of the programme
**Course content, faculty and dates may be subject to change without prior notice