Sage Publications The Sociology of Children, Childhood and Generation

Outlining sociology’s distinctive contribution to childhood studies and our understanding of contemporary children and childhood,  The Sociology of Children, Childhood and Generation provides a thought provoking and comprehensive account of the connections between the macro worlds of childhood and the micro worlds of children’s everyday lives. Examining children’s involvement in areas such as the labour market, family life, education, play and leisure, the book provides an effective balance between understanding childhood as a structural phenomenon, and recognising children as meaning makers actively involved in constructing, co-constructing and reconstructing their everyday lives. Through the concept of ′generagency′ Madeleine Leonard offers a model for examining and illuminating how structure and agency are activated within interdependent relationships influenced by generational positioning. This framework provides a conceptual tool for thinking about the continuities, challenges and changes that impact on how childhood is lived and experienced. Review Leonard’s The Sociology of Children, Childhood and Generation offers a thorough and up to date critical review of current debates in the sociology of childhood. Both those new to the field and more seasoned scholars will find much useful insight and food for thought in this book. Leonard’s introduction of generagency (and its subdivisions, inter- and intra-generagency) provides a useful and productive conceptual tool for theorizing the interdependent relationship between generation and agency. The book makes a clear contribution to the sociology of childhood and to Childhood Studies at large. -- Spyros Spyrou Published On: 2015-07-23 This is a lucid overview as well as an outstanding synthesis of the field of childhood sociology. Also, the book offers an original contribution to theorizing children’s agency. -- Leena Alanen Published On: 2015-08-03 This book contributes to a more comprehensive framework for bridging childhood as a structural component of society and children as active agents. Indeed, agency is best viewed as relational and not as a possession of individuals. But how to conceptualize this is far from easy. In clearly written and coherently ordered chapters, Madeleine Leonard brings an informed state of the art to the reader’s knowledge. Going through studies of children’s everyday lives in the family, at work, in educational systems and during leisure time, she shows the ambiguity of the concept of agency, which has especially important consequences in the implementation of children’s rights. The author also uncovers critical issues in the new sociology of childhood, like the limited micro-level changes that constitute most of the empirical proof of children’s agency. Her call for more accurate conceptualizations going past an over-romanticized notion of childhood is relevantly answered by her own original developments, giving perspective to her former research. The focus on children’s active influence in generational relationships help move beyond what is too often conceived of as dichomoties (adult/child, structure/agency). The concept of generagency illuminates agency as part of children’s relationships with adults among them.  This book addresses a large audience of readers and authors interested by unresolved tensions in theorising and understanding children and childhood. -- Professor Daniel Stoecklin Published On: 2015-08-06 Madeleine Leonard’s excellent book highlights the most important issues and concepts in the debates of sociology of childhood in a clear and concise way, and without renouncing to portray their nuances. The book describes and explains the distinction and the connections between social structures and children’s agency; it presents  the controversial attempts to account for both the restrictions and the promotion of children’s participation opportunities  in relationships within the most important s