Different Childhoods

Lindsay O´Dell is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at the Open University, UK. Her research interests focus on children, young people and families who are in some way ‘different’, including neurological difference, working children, young carers and language brokers.Charlotte Brownlow is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology and Counselling at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Her research interests focus on understandings of diversity and difference and the impacts that these have on the crafting of individual identities, particularly for individuals identifying as being on the autism spectrum.Hanna Bertilsdotter-Rosqvist is an Associate Professor in Sociology. She holds a position as Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Work, Umeå University, Sweden. Her research interests include autism politics and identity constructions among adults with autism. Other areas of interest are homonormativity, representations of bisexuality and intersecting notions of age, space and sexuality.

‘A timely, creatively imagined and wide-ranging collection that not only demonstrates the exclusionary consequences of narrow, normative models of development but also how their transgression and transformation remains an urgent political project that goes beyond mere inclusion to the emancipation of all.’ Erica Burman, Professor of Education, University of Manchester‘Different Childhoods presents fresh thinking on the implications of the entrenched developmental thinking that, particularly in the affluent Minority World, constructs a narrow range of particular childhoods as normative and all others as ‘non-normative’ transgressions. Taking an intersectional perspective, it offers rich, persuasive analyses that of how age comes to be mobilised in policy decisions and the popular imagination in attempts to exclude unaccompanied minors seeking refuge. This book extends understanding of childhood as diverse and situated in particular geographical and social contexts. In doing so it exemplifies the range of childhoods and children excluded from developmental thinking and the importance of recognising the local, contingent and partial nature of analyses that naturalise normative notions of development. In the best possible way, this collection of essays themselves constitute a transgressive text that deserves to be widely read. Together they show why theory matters for everyday policies and practices dealing with children and childhood.’, Ann Phoenix, Professor at the Institute of Education, University College London

• Chapter 1: Introducing normative and different childhoods, developmental trajectory and transgression, Lindsay O’Dell, Charlotte Brownlow, & Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist Part 1 – Deconstructing ‘developmental tasks’ Chapter 2: Exploring leisure, hobbies and special interests: The constructive role of special interests for children with ASD, Georgena Ryder & Charlotte Brownlow Chapter 3: Beyond boy and girl: Gender variance in childhood and adolescence, Katherine Johnson Chapter 4: Becoming a popular girl: Exploring constructions of friendships in teen magazines, Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist & Charlotte Brownlow Part 2 – Locating development Chapter 5: ‘The failed child of the failing mother’: Situating the development of child eating practices and the scrutiny of maternal foodwork, Maxine Woolhouse Chapter 6: Family relationships and troubled masculinities: The experience of young men in contact with social care services, Martin Robb, Brid Featherstone, Sandy Ruxton, & Michael Ward Chapter 7: Beyond vulnerability: Working with children who have experienced domestic violence, Jane Callaghan, Joanne Alexander, & Lisa Fellin Part 3 – The limits of childhood Chapter 8: Independent migrant children, humanitarian work and statecraft: Mapping the connections in South Africa, Stanford Mahati & Ingrid Palmary Chapter 9: Working children, Lindsay O’Dell, Sarah Crafter, Guida de Abreu, & Tony Cline Chapter 10: Parricides, school shootings and child soldiers: Constructing criminological phenomena in the context of children who kill, Amanda Holt Chapter 11: Conclusion: Theorising transgressive developmental trajectories and understanding children seen as ‘different’, Lindsay O’Dell, Charlotte Brownlow, & Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist