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<\/a>The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, co-edited by Xiaobei Chen,\u00a0Rebecca Raby,\u00a0and Patrizia Albanese, was published this winter by Canadian Scholars\u2019 Press.<\/p><\/div>\n
She further notes that while some adults express concerns that young people are disengaging from formal politics, \u201cin other arenas, we can see young people engaging directly with political questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book examines several examples of youth confronting issues that are important to them, from young people creating gay-straight alliances at their schools, to racialized youth in Toronto engaging in citizenship as a practice, to the topic of Raby\u2019s own chapter, co-authored with Associate Professor Shauna Pomerantz, on dress code protests between 2000 and 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially in 2014 and 2015, there was a growing concern about how dress codes and their enforcement largely police and shame girls around sexuality,\u201d Raby says. \u201cThe students quoted about the protests in the Canadian press articulated clear, feminist politics about gendered inequalities in how dress codes are presented and enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n
The backlash against young people using their voices is also explored in the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdults sometimes conceptualize young people in ways that discount their views and participation, framing them as incompetent, immature and na\u00efve,\u201d says Raby. \u201cBut many researchers are challenging this way of thinking about children and youth, noting the value of listening to young people\u2019s views, highlighting their competencies and reminding us that they have a right to say in decision-making about them, outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book also highlights the value of conducting research with, rather than on, children.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe collection emphasizes what it means to think about children\u2019s rights, the importance of attending to the lived experience of diverse children, including children with disabilities, and how young people are attempting to change the world around them for the better,\u201d says Raby.<\/p>\n
In addition to looking at youth citizenship and social justice, The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada <\/em>also includes chapters on a range of topics, from ethnography and creative visual methods in research with children, to representations of race and gender in children\u2019s books, to how young people engage with consumer culture, to settler colonialism and Indigenous children in Canada.<\/p>\nSeveral researchers and graduate students from Brock\u2019s Department of Child and Youth Studies and the MA in Social Justice and Equity Studies, have work featured in the book, alongside scholars from across the country who hope to expand this under-represented field of research in Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sociology of childhood has grown into a robust field elsewhere, most notably in England, Scandinavia and Australia, but in Canada the scope of research into the sociology of childhood has been much more scarce, with a focus on the family, youth subcultures or youth at risk,\u201d says Raby.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally speaking, there is less focus on children\u2019s rights in Canada, perhaps because we are so influenced by the U.S. \u2014 the only nation that still has not signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new volume will help draw attention to the growth in research and scholarship in the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brock University professor Rebecca Raby is not surprised that young people across the U.S. are carrying out demonstrations to protest gun violence and remember the victims of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":50098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6833,1,4,5,38],"tags":[45,274,3783,1532],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50099,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50096\/revisions\/50099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}