This exciting new book provides a novel interdisciplinary introduction to Childhood and Youth Studies and Psychology. Its accessible approach illuminates holistic understandings of children and young people's lives by drawing from multiple disciplines and theoretical frameworks and wide-ranging research examples, including case studies from around the world, featuring children and young people's perspectives throughout.

Weaving insights from education and cultural studies, social anthropology, and sociology with social, cultural, and developmental psychology, it covers children and young people's experiences and development from infancy to young adulthood (0 23 years) and their rights. Chapters explore key contemporary topics such as the following:

Digital childhood and youth
Children's embodied experiences
The social and cultural origins of selves
Diverse families
Race and ethnicity
Global childhoods
Models for understanding health and disability
Children's rights and agency
Gender in childhood and youth
An essential reading for students on childhood and youth, psychology, and education courses, An Introduction to Childhood and Youth Studies and Psychology is also a valuable introductory resource for practitioners working with children and young people and for parents and policy makers with an interest in how we understand children and young people's lives today.


Introduction: Understanding children and young people's lives

Mimi Tatlow-Golden and Victoria Cooper

Chapter 1 What is Childhood and Youth Studies?

Heather Montgomery

Chapter 2 The psychology of childhood and youth

Mimi Tatlow-Golden

Chapter 3 Children's bodies

Victoria Cooper and Vicky Preece

Chapter 4 Making sense of the self

Mimi Tatlow-Golden

Chapter 5 Diverse Families

Michael Boampong

Chapter 6 Young people's mental health

Victoria Cooper

Chapter 7 Education, schools, and learning

Amber Fensham-Smith

Chapter 8 Models of disability and their effects on children's lives

Kieron Sheehy, Budiyanto, Sri Widayati, and Khofidotur Rofiah

Chapter 9 Race(ism) and ethnicity

Anthony Gunter

Chapter 10 Global childhoods

Afua Twum-Danso Imoh and Heather Montgomery

Chapter 11 Gender in childhood and youth

Naomi Holford

Chapter 12 Digital childhood and youth: life with screens

Lucy Caton and Mel Green

Chapter 13 Adolescents, teenagers, and youth: A time of change

Victoria Cooper, Mimi Tatlow-Golden, and Heather Montgomery

Chapter 14 Transitions to adulthood

Anthony Gunter and Naomi Holford