Learning from the Children

"The greatest strength of the volume lies in the diverse mix of perspectives represented by the authors. These come from a range of disciplines, including anthropology and sociology. Many have practical experience of the issues discussed through backgrounds in community and NGO work, and through roles including as policy officers and development consultants. Often both consultants and academics, the authors deliver unique testimonies and insights based on their personal and direct involvement in the cases they discuss." · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"This volume is an important contribution to the literature on children, their life worlds and child-parent interaction in multicultural settings. It is not entirely new that children have agency. The merit of the authors of this volume is that they are starting to address which strategies children may use both to strengthen and utilize this agency, and not the least point at limitations of agency." · Harald Beyer Broch, University of Oslo

"Overall this is a strong volume with a coherent narrative and some very rich ethnography. I enjoyed reading it-all the contributors write well and have focused on the themes of the book. The links made between academic and practitioner work were very well done and the personal voices of the authors come through strongly. This is often an extremely hard task to pull off without becoming self-indulgent but in this case it worked very well." · Heather Montgomery, The Open University, UK

Children and youth, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, are experiencing lifestyle choices their parents never imagined and contributing to the transformation of ideals, traditions, education and adult-child power dynamics. As a result of the advances in technology and media as well as the effects of globalization, the transmission of social and cultural practices from parents to children is changing. Based on a number of qualitative studies, this book offers insights into the lives of children and youth in Britain, Japan, Spain, Israel/Palestine, and Pakistan. Attention is focused on the child’s perspective within the social-power dynamics involved in adult-child relations, which reveals the dilemmas of policy, planning and parenting in a changing world.

Jacqueline Waldren (1937-2021) was Research Associate, Lecturer and Tutor in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and International Gender Studies and a member of Linacre College, University of Oxford. Her research on Europe included identity, gender, migration, tourism and lifestyle changes. Her publications include Insiders and Outsiders (1996), Tourists and Tourism (co-ed., 1997), Anthropological Perspectives on Local Development (co-ed., 2004) and many articles. She was Director of DAMARC, Deia Archaeological and Anthropological Museum and Research Centre in Mallorca, Spain.

Ignacy-Marek Kaminski is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Mejiro University, Tokyo; Associate Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at Goteborg University; and Visiting Senior Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford University. He has done fieldwork among the Ainu, Inuit, Roma and Ryukyuans; his research focuses on transitive identity, conflict resolution and leadership. His works are published in twelve languages.