Ennew, Judith

Judith Ennew’s (1944–2013) involvement in childhood studies covers nearly four decades. Her work encompasses a number of topics, often [Page 721]considering different perspectives, and has been particularly influential in the field of children’s human rights and in methodology of research ‘with children’ rather than research ‘about’ or ‘on’ children. Born in the United Kingdom, Judith Ennew trained as a teacher before moving on to postgraduate studies in social anthropology. Her doctoral work at Cambridge University was an ethnographic research project on the impact of the oil industry in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, published in 1980. She subsequently moved on to child research and children’s rights.

She pioneered notions taken for granted in childhood studies today, such as childhood being a social construction and a legally ...