Thinking About Children and Youth

Abstract

Childhood and youth are imagined in different ways. The chapters in this handbook make this their central focus, addressing the challenge of recognizing that the concepts we use make the objects of our research. They explore how conceptual frameworks constitute what we research. From a sociocultural perspectiveSociocultural perspective, childhood and youth (as well as adulthood) are fluid categories that are given definition and meaning by their social, cultural, political, institutional, locational, governmental, and economic contexts. As many of the chapters of this handbook illustrate, the experience of being a child or young person differs across time and place. From a developmental pers..