The Ecology of Childhood How Our Changing World Threatens Children’s Rights / Barbara Bennett Woodhouse.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Woodhouse, Barbara Bennett.

Series:

Families, Law, and Society

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (305 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press 2020.

Summary:

This book uses the ecological model of child development together with ethnographic and comparative studies of two small villages, in Italy and the United States, as its framework for examining the well-being of children in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Global forces, far from being distant and abstract, are revealed as wreaking havoc in children's environments even in economically advanced countries. Falling birth rates, deteriorating labor conditions, fraying safety nets, rising rates of child poverty, and a surge in racism and populism in Europe and the United States are explored in the petri dish of the village. Globalization's discontents-unrestrained capitalism and technological change, rising inequality, mass migration, and the juggernaut of climate change-are rapidly destabilizing and degrading the social and physical environments necessary to our collective survival and well-being. This crisis demands a radical restructuring of our macrosystemic value systems. Woodhouse proposes an ecogenerist theory that asks whether our policies and politics foster environments in which children and families can flourish. It proposes, as a benchmark, the family-supportive human-rights principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The book closes by highlighting ways in which individuals can engage at the local and regional levels in creating more just and sustainable worlds that are truly fit for children.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Figures

Preface

Part 1 Comparative Ecologies

1 How a Comparative Study of Childhood Became a Story of Global Crisis

2 Tools for Studying Childhood

Part 2 Microsystems and Mesosystems

3 A Tale of Two Villages

4 The Magic of Mesosystems, Seedbeds of Solidarity

Part 3 Exosystems and Macrosystems

5 Falling Birth Rates and Rural Depopulation

6 The Role of Family- Supportive Policies in the Decision to Have Children

7 Children of the Great American Recession

8 The Great Recession Crosses the Atlantic

9 Globalization: The Elephant in the Playroom

Part 4 Transforming the Ecology of Childhood

10 The Role of Children’s Rights

11 How the CRC Affects Actual Children’s Lives

12 Building Small Worlds in Urban Spaces

13 Charting the Way to a World Fit for Children

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-8147-8465-8

OCLC:

1257324267