Manfred Liebel is Professor of Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin. His main area is international and intercultural research on childhood and youth. He is staff-member of the TU-Centre for Global Education and International Cooperation and consultant of working children and youth movements in Latin America and Africa.

Manfred Liebel's new book gives the reader an excellent overview of the plight of children who are working in several continents and it places this important issue in both its theoretical and political contexts.

• Introduction1. Working children's movements in Africa, Latin America, and Asia2. Children's work from the perspective of social research: an international stock-taking3. The working child has a will of its own: subject oriented and participative research on children's work in Latin America4. Childhood and worn in non-Western cultures: the fruits of ethnological and anthropological research5. Working children in Europe - loss or new perspectives of childhood?6. Working children and adolescents in the USA - juggling school and work7. Work and play in the lives of children: reflections on an unfortunate separation and possible connections8. The economic exploitation of children: towards a subject-oriented praxis9. How working children resist exploitation and strive to share decisions about their work: experiences and examples from various continents and periods10. Ways to self-determined children's work? The significance and problems of educationally conceived work projects11. Thoughts on a subject-orinted theory of working children