Childhood studies

Childhood Studies or Children's Studies (CS) is a multi-disciplinary field that utilizes all areas of study to understand childhoods as experienced by children today. CS draws on scholarship in the social sciences (specifically anthropology, economics, history, and sociology), the humanities (especially literature, religion, philosophy, and the fine arts), and the behavioral sciences (with an emphasis on psychology).

The interdisciplinary field of Children's Studies was founded at Brooklyn College of The City University of New York in Fall 1991. Its aim was to promote a unified approach to the study of children and youth across the disciplines in the arts, humanities, natural and social sciences, medicine, and law. This new concept of "Children's Studies" with its emphasis on an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach of study to the generational cohort of children from 0 – 18 years of age was introduced and coined in contradistinction to the Child Study Movement initiated by Stanley Hall at the turn of the 20th century with its focus on child psychology and development. After 1991, other academic institutions established Children's Studies programs. In subsequent years, the concept of Childhood Studies emerged alongside the field of Children's Studies. Today we find both Children's Studies and Childhood Studies programs at numerous academic institutions worldwide. Whereas childhood studies claims as its major focus "to understand childhood," the field of children's studies made from its beginnings the ontological claim that children must be viewed in their fullness as human beings, as a generational and social class in all their civil, political, social, economic and cultural dimensions. In this wider and encompassing context, the study of "childhood" is viewed as a subfield of Children's Studies. It is also important to note that from its beginnings, the human rights of children represented a major framework for the new and interdisciplinary field of Children's Studies. The Children's Studies Center for Research, Policy and Public Service was established at Brooklyn Ccollge in 1997. In 2011, the title of the Children's Studies Program at Brooklyn College was officially changed to "Children and Youth Studies."

Earlier in 1991, Brooklyn College was also the academic institution which initiated the establishment of the "Sociology of Children" as a new field and Section within the American Sociological Association. During the same time, European colleagues in sociology established the "Sociology of Childhood." In subsequent years, they started the field of Childhood Studies. These developments in the United States and in Europe help account for the conceptual confusion which now appears to exist between Children's Studies and Childhood Studies.

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