Different Childhoods

‘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