The Political Life Of Children

A groundbreaking study of the impact of current events on the lives and minds of children from the Pulitzer Prize-winning child psychiatrist. Most parents teach their children the lessons and skills they need to function in the world while trying to shield them from the harsher realities of life. But long before children are considered ready to face the complications of the real world, they are learning truths and perspectives most adults imagine are beyond them. Child psychiatrist and author of The Spiritual Life of Children, Robert Coles traveled the globe for more than a decade, from Northern Ireland to Nicaragua, South Africa to Southeast Asia, across the United States and beyond, conducting in-depth interviews with children about their cultures, ideologies, national pride, and political knowledge. He learned that the greater challenges, traumas, conflicts, and issues of the world around them find their way into children’s impressionable minds and play a crucial role in their development. Robert Coles’ unique and groundbreaking research sheds much-needed light on the psychology of childhood, revolutionizing both professional and personal understanding of humans’ formative years. “Robert Coles is to the stories that children have to tell what Homer was to the tale of the Trojan War.” —The New York Times Book Review

Based on a study of 12,000 elementary school children in eight large and medium-sized American cities, this book presents the first large-scale study of political attitude formation in children. The authors view political development from the perspective of a general theory of socialization, and compare the influences of social class, intelligence, teacher attitude, and religious membership on the growth of political attitudes. The book outlines the way in which the child's political awareness evolvesfrom identification with authority figures such as father, policeman, the president, to a grasp of more abstract political concepts and the rudiments of political participation. Illuminating a topic of great theoretical concern and practical educational importance, the book is a significant contribution to the fields of political sociology, child development and educational psychology, and an important reference work for all concerned with the processes of socialization and of attitude formation in general. The Development of Political Attitudes in Children was based on a major survey, the first of its kind, begun at the University of Chicago in 1960 to as certain information about the induction of children into the political life of the United States, to describe the nature of socialization into citizenship roles, and to examine pre-adult political learning and behavior in terms of other implications for the stability of the political system.

A rarely discussed aspect of children's literature--the politics behind a book's creation--has been thoroughly explored in this intelligent, enlightening, and fascinating account.

The conventional wisdom according to which children’s lives should be safe from adult concerns tends to situate them categorically outside the political. Thus understood, children become political agents when they reach maturity and eligibility to formal participation. Alternatively, political skills and competences may be seen to develop gradually through political socialization. Both views are challenged in recent scholarship on youthful politics beyond the formal, adult-centered political world. This book considers politics as it appears and unfolds in children and young people’s everyday lives. The collection problematizes several key concepts in the research field and introduces a relational reading of youthful political agency based on social, spatial and political theorization. The chapters engage with youthful realities in Sri Lanka, Palestine, Sweden, New Zealand, the US and the UK, revealing a variety of ways in which children and youth are important political actors in their own right. The book also includes an extensive literary review on the study of children and young people’s politics in the past decade. This book was originally published as a special issue of Space and Polity.

Both conservative and liberal Baby Boomers have romanticized the 1950s as an age of innocence--of pickup ball games and Howdy Doody, when mom stayed home and the economy boomed. These nostalgic narratives obscure many other histories of postwar childhood, one of which has more in common with the war years and the sixties, when children were mobilized and politicized by the U.S. government, private corporations, and individual adults to fight the Cold War both at home and abroad. Children battled communism in its various guises on television, the movies, and comic books; they practiced safety drills, joined civil preparedness groups, and helped to build and stock bomb shelters in the backyard. Children collected coins for UNICEF, exchanged art with other children around the world, prepared for nuclear war through the Boy and Girl Scouts, raised funds for Radio Free Europe, sent clothing to refugee children, and donated books to restock the diminished library shelves of war-torn Europe. Rather than rationing and saving, American children were encouraged to spend and consume in order to maintain the engine of American prosperity. In these capacities, American children functioned as ambassadors, cultural diplomats, and representatives of the United States. Victoria M. Grieve examines this politicized childhood at the peak of the Cold War, and the many ways children and ideas about childhood were pressed into political service. Little Cold Warriors combines approaches from childhood studies and diplomatic history to understand the cultural Cold War through the activities and experiences of young Americans.

If a hungry little traveler shows up at your house, you might want to give him a cookie. If you give him a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk. He'll want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn't have a milk mustache, and then he'll ask for a pair of scissors to give himself a trim.... The consequences of giving a cookie to this energetic mouse run the young host ragged, but young readers will come away smiling at the antics that tumble like dominoes through the pages of this delightful picture book.

Based on a study of 12,000 elementary school children in eight large and medium-sized American cities, this book presents the first large-scale study of political attitude formation in children. The authors view political development from the perspective of a general theory of socialization, and compare the influences of social class, intelligence, teacher attitude, and religious membership on the growth of political attitudes. The book outlines the way in which the child's political awareness evolvesfrom identification with authority figures such as father, policeman, the president, to a grasp of more abstract political concepts and the rudiments of political participation. Illuminating a topic of great theoretical concern and practical educational importance, the book is a significant contribution to the fields of political sociology, child development and educational psychology, and an important reference work for all concerned with the processes of socialization and of attitude formation in general. The Development of Political Attitudes in Children was based on a major survey, the first of its kind, begun at the University of Chicago in 1960 to as certain information about the induction of children into the political life of the United States, to describe the nature of socialization into citizenship roles, and to examine pre-adult political learning and behavior in terms of other implications for the stability of the political system.

The purpose of this book is to help researchers and professionals understand the possibilities for protecting children in violent political conflicts. This is the first book to be published on this important, complex and painful topic. Most other publications have concentrated on the effects of political violence on children and adults, but have little or nothing to say on prevention from the point of view of the social sciences. This book represents the beginnings of a new field of inquiry and policy. The book includes: research on the effects of exposure to political violence on children; reports by police and military experts of their experiences in protecting the public and children while keeping order; observations from people in human rights and childrens rights organizations on issues of attempting to report to and observe both sides in a conflict; and work by legal researchers on international law relating to the protection of children in political conflicts.