Children, Young People and Families - Research

Written by an international list of contributors, this book presents highly nuanced accounts of children and childhoods across global political time. The analysis demonstrates how international relations is quite deeply invested in a particular rendering of childhood as, primarily, a time of innocence, vulnerability and incapacity.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Guangdong, China, this book explores the various tactics queer people employ to have children and to form queer or ‘rainbow’ families. It unpacks people’s experiences of cultivating, or losing, kinship relations through their negotiation with biological relatives, cultural conventions and state legislations.

Drawing on the multinational qualitative study ‘Children’s Understandings of Well-being’ (CUWB), this book offers practical insights into conducting fieldwork across diverse contexts. Featuring experts from 13 countries, the book provides valuable perspectives for researchers across a wide range of academic settings.

This book explores the relationships between parents and the social workers making judgements about children involved in child protection cases. It is a powerful tool for students, practitioners and researchers to evaluate future policy and practice models, aiming for the best possible outcomes for families.

Bringing concepts from critical transitional justice and critical peacebuilding into dialogue with education, this book examines the challenges faced by youth in the post-conflict settings of Bougainville and Solomon Islands, illustrating the vital importance of education in post-conflict recovery.

This book introduces the concept of 'doing society' by exploring how Finnish youth engage in political action beyond traditional forms. Combining empirical research and theoretical innovation, it offers a holistic view of youth participation, redefining political action to include non-conventional and non-verbal expressions.

This book explores Chinese young men’s views of manhood and develops a new concept of ‘elastic masculinity’ which can be stretched and forged differently in response to personal relationships and local realities.

Alice Bradbury discusses how the meritocracy myth reinforces educational inequalities and analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience might challenge how we classify and label children as we rebuild a post-pandemic schooling system.

Drawing on empirical research, this book provides an innovative exploration of youth and work, showing how youth identities are connected with the dynamics of labour and value in contemporary capitalism.

This timely study explores the experiences of fathers who take on equal or primary care responsibilities for young children.

Offering academic insight and practical recommendations, this will be key reading for researchers, policymakers, practitioners and students interested in contemporary families.

This book examines a participatory approach in child protection practices in Norway and the United States. It explores ways of empowering children; shows how they can be encouraged to express their own opinions and explores tools for child protection workers to negotiate complex boundaries around the inclusion of children in decision-making.

Drawing on accounts of unaccompanied migrant young people becoming adult, this book offers a political economy analysis of wellbeing in the context of migration and demonstrates the urgent need for policy reform.