The Ecology of Childhood: How Our Changing World Threatens Children's Rights

by Barbara Bennett Woodhouse

Overview

2021 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine

How globalization is undermining sustainable social environments for children

This book uses the ecological model of child development together with ethnographic and comparative studies of two small villages, in Italy and the United States, as its framework for examining the well-being of children in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Global forces, far from being distant and abstract, are revealed as wreaking havoc in children’s environments even in economically advanced countries. Falling birth rates, deteriorating labor conditions, fraying safety nets, rising rates of child poverty, and a surge in racism and populism in Europe and the United States are explored in the petri dish of the village. Globalism’s discontents—unrestrained capitalism and technological change, rising inequality, mass migration, and the juggernaut of climate change—are rapidly destabilizing and degrading the social and physical environments necessary to our collective survival and well-being. This crisis demands a radical restructuring of our macrosystemic value systems. Woodhouse proposes an ecogenerist theory that asks whether our policies and politics foster environments in which children and families can flourish. It proposes, as a benchmark, the family-supportive human-rights principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The book closes by highlighting ways in which individuals can engage at the local and regional levels in creating more just and sustainable worlds that are truly fit for children.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814794845
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	01/21/2020
Series:	Families, Law, and Society , #9
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	701,804
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse is L. Q. C. Lamar Professor of Law at Emory University and director of the Emory Child Rights Project. She is the author of The Ecology of Childhood: How Our Changing World Threatens Children;s Rights (NYU Press, 2020) and Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate (Princeton University Press, 2008).

Table of Contents

List of Figures ix

Preface xi

Part 1 Comparative Ecologies

1 How a Comparative Study of Childhood Became a Story of Global Crisis 3

2 Tools for Studying Childhood 14

Part 2 Microsystems and Mesosystems

3 A Tale of Two Villages 41

4 The Magic of Mesosystems, Seedbeds of Solidarity 74

Part 3 Exosystems and Macrosystems

5 Falling Birth Rates and Rural Depopulation 97

6 The Role of Family-Supportive Policies in the Decision to Have Children 112

7 Children of the Great American Recession 131

8 The Great Recession Crosses the Atlantic 151

9 Globalization: The Elephant in the Playroom 171

Part 4 Transforming the Ecology of Childhood

10 The Role of Children's Rights 207

11 How the CRC Affects Actual Children's Lives 225

12 Building Small Worlds in Urban Spaces 260

13 Charting the Way to a World Fit for Children 283

Acknowledgments 303

Bibliography 309

Index 341

About the Author 357

Editorial Reviews

"The Ecology of Childhood invites the reader to join Woodhouse, one of the leading authorities on children’s rights, on a remarkable journey—one in which she demonstrates an exceptional ability to understand children and connect their lived experience to the law and other systems that govern the lives of children and families. An extraordinary interdisciplinary book that articulates a vision for how we can build communities, and ultimately a world, in which all children can thrive."

Jonathan Todres

"A rare achievement in the literature both on childhood and on human rights, beautifully crafted [with] an impressive variety of research methods and multi-disciplinary analysis. She makes a totally compelling call for us to recognize the problems of the ’small’ as global problems, inextricably intertwined in space and time. Essential reading not only for the study of childhoods but also for anyone whose decisions affect children—that is, the whole of humankind."

Jane Williams

"Recommended for All Levels."

CHOICE

"A transformative book . . . The author’s clear prose, gripping stories, and delightful photographs bring complex ideas and rigorous interdisciplinary research to life. Woodhouse is a realist; she recognizes that we may have passed the tipping point. But she concludes what may turn out to be a grim story with concrete strategies, making a powerful and convincing case that ‘universal human rights, far from being distant abstractions, can serve as a blueprint for preserving and protecting the small worlds of children.’ A brilliant, deeply thoughtful, and important book, not just for academics and social scientists, but for anyone who cares about children or the planet."

Barbara J. Stark

"A rare achievement in the literature both on childhood and on human rights, beautifully crafted [with] an impressive variety of research methods and multi-disciplinary analysis. She makes a totally compelling call for us to recognize the problems of the ’small’ as global problems, inextricably intertwined in space and time. Essential reading not only for the study of childhoods but also for anyone whose decisions affect children—that is, the whole of humankind."

John Eekelaar