Summary
Contents
This book has already proved itself as a course adoption leader in Childhood Studies. All of the strengths of the First Edition have been retained. The book is comprehensive and judged with the needs of students in mind. It is a model of clarity and precision and has been acknowledged as such in reviews and course feedback. The new edition thoroughly revises old entries and adds new ones. The book is the most accessible, relevant student introduction to this expanding, interdisciplinary field. It is an indispensable teaching text and an ideal prompt for researchers.
Representation
Representation
The linguistic or figurative process by which ideas are given significance and meaning in society.
The process of representing childhood is core to understanding the different ways in which children are understood in different societies and also, therefore, to the different everyday lives that they experience. Representations, according to Hall (1997), are key to meaning making, forming a systematic set of ideas that contribute to the ongoing social construction of reality. And because sets of representations are therefore always located in particular cultures or historical moments (or otherwise how else would they be meaningful?) we have to think about them as part of what Foucault (1972) terms a discourse. That is to say, taken together, a set of representations becomes a way of thinking or talking ...
