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This course will examine childhood as a culturally and historically specific category and examine contemporary transformations in childhood both globally and in the U.S. We will study both the experiences of children and the construction of the category of childhood through school, work, consumer culture and daily life. We will examine how race, gender and class influence the experiences of children and shape our understandings of childhood itself. Although we will focus on the diversity of children¿s experiences in the contemporary U.S., we will also draw on comparisons with Japan, Brazil and South Africa to understand links between domestic and international transformations in childhood. We will study both how children act as active agents of cultural production and how adults and institutions or socialization shape the lives of young people and the construction of childhood. In order to foreground the experiences of children, we will read both ethnographies of childhood and read, watch and listen to the cultural productions of children themselves.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS ANTH Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-30-2006
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459