In Scandinavia, Britain, the United States, and now Canada, the emerging field of “children’s and childhood studies” has been gathering a critical mass: indeed, the birth of the Association for Research in Young People’ Texts and Cultures is evidence of the growth of such multidisciplinary and sometimes interdisciplinary research about children, childhood, and children’s culture. This “round table” panel will analyze how and why these fields of study are being produced and constructed at this juncture. In this First Annual Meeting of ARYPTC, we want to explore where such studies have come from, where they stand today, and where they might be going. What are “Child Studies,” “Children’s Studies,” “Childhood Studies,” and “Children’s Cultural Studies”? What tensions are there between each of these terms and the fields and constituencies they represent? Are there unbridgeable rifts between scientific and social science developmental approaches to childhood and social constructionist approaches?
How do both scientific and social constructionist approaches determine legislation about and social work with children and youth? What are the implications, limitations, and potentials of adults studying children and youth, the culture made purportedly for them, and the culture made by them? Are these fields of study analogous to “Women’s Studies” or “Gay and Lesbian Studies,” or are there important differences? What methodological constraints are implicit in such studies? What role might children and youth themselves play in such studies? How might new insights about children, childhood, and children’s culture generated by these fields of studies transform other fields of study?
NOTE: Because we want as many people as possible to participate in a discussion of these foundational issues, we are experimenting with a different panel format for this topic. Several papers, hopefully from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, will be accepted on this topic. However, these papers will be due on May 1, 2008, at which time they will be posted on the YPTC Website so that interested participants can read them in advance. Then, in this session at Congress, accepted presenters will briefly summarize their conclusions orally, leaving most of the session for a moderated discussion by all participants. Please send completed papers (10 pages maximum) or proposals (700 words maximum) by e-mail or disk, in Microsoft Word or RTF format, along with a completed copy of the ACCUTE Proposal Submission Information Sheet (http://www.accute.ca/Conference.htm), plus a 100-word abstract, and 50 word biographical statement, by 15 November, 2007, to: m.reimer@uwinnipeg.ca.
Mavis Reimer
Department of English
University of Winnipeg
515 Portage Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 CANADA
Phone (204) 786-9185
FAX (204) 774-4134
http://crytc.uwinnipeg.ca
Accepted proposals for this session must be submitted as completed papers no later than 1 May 2008.