Childhood and youth studies

This book presents new empirical research about in-home child care in Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, three countries where governments are pursuing new ways to support the recruitment of in-home childcare workers through funding, regulation and migration.

Using Sweden as a case study, this book combines theories of family practices, care and childhood studies with the personal perspectives of nannies, au pairs, parents and children to provide new understandings of what constitutes care in nanny families.

Harry Hendrick shows how broader social changes, including neoliberalism, feminism, the collapse of the social-democratic ideal, and the 'new behaviourism', have led to the rise of the anxious and narcissistic parent, In this provocative history of parenting.

Following 5 years of systemic research exploring the efficacy and impact of Sure Start Local Programmes, this book pulls together, in a single volume, the results of the extensive National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS). 

Important reforms are taking place in children's services in the UK, with a move towards greater integration. In England, Scotland and Sweden, early childhood education and care, childcare for older children, and schools are now the responsibility of education departments. This book is the first to examine this major shift in policy.

The book shows how children are affected by conflict, explores why they respond to conflict in different ways, and provides clear, practical guidance on the best ways to ameliorate the effects.

Child welfare, state welfare and parenting issues are high on the UK policy agenda; this timely book examines recent policy developments, parental perspectives about parenting and child-rearing and parental rights to 'welfare state support'.

This book examines how pathologising ideas of failing, chaotic and dysfunctional families create a powerful consensus that Britain is in the grip of a ‘parent crisis’ and are used to justify increasingly punitive state policies.

An examination of the early work of the innovative Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children Ethics and Law Committee. It will help anyone involved in other cohort studies to understand how ethical policies evolve.

This in-depth study explores the motivations for 'planned' teenage pregnancy in England. The findings have important implications for the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy and the increasing political agenda on young people and health.

A free pdf version of this report is available online at www.jrf.org.uk

Using the UK government’s play strategy for England (2008-10) as a case study, this is the first book to look in detail at children’s play within public policy. It is an essential tool for practitioners and campaigners around the world.

How to respond to the needs of working parents has become a pressing social policy issue in contemporary Western Europe. This book highlights the politicising of parenthood in the Scandinavian welfare states - focusing on the relationship between parents and the state, and the ongoing renegotiations between the public and the private.