56:163:501
Proseminar in Childhood Studies I (3)
The
first half of a two-semester course providing an overview of paradigms
and critical issues in childhood studies. Researchers from within the
university and around the area will present the latest research on
children.
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56:163:502
Proseminar in Childhood Studies II (3)
The
second half of a two-semester course providing an overview of
paradigms and critical issues in childhood studies. Researchers from
within the university and around the area will present the latest
research on children.
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56:163:515
Child Growth and Development (3)
Covers children's physical, mental, and social development.
The goal of this course will be to provide students with an integrated
perspective on how typical children develop, beginning with the
milestones and developmental tasks of infancy and continuing through
the biological, social, and psychological changes of adolescence.
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56:163:517
Review of Literature (3)
This
course will review the literature of a specific content area in
childhood studies preparatory to the student's undertaking dissertation
research.
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56:163:520
Philosophical and Religious Perspectives on Childhood (3)
Examines children's rights from a range of
theoretical, practical, historical, cultural, and global perspectives. It asks what
it means to speak of children as having rights, how considerations of childhood
challenge broader human rights practices, how actual children's rights have
changed over time, what key struggles for rights are emerging locally and
internationally today, how children participate in such struggles, and how
children's rights face complex issues such as cultural difference,
marginalization from power, and political implementation.
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56:163:522
Youth Identities and Urban Ecology (3)
This graduate seminar provides a forum for critically examining the identity constructions of youth coming of age in cities, within the United States and across the world. A central aim is to consider comparatively how social, cultural, and physical urban ecologies shape youth development. Investigates the constitution of youth as student, friend, worker, daughter, and parent, paying particular attention to how identity roles are informed by structures of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. Pays close attention to the roles of institutional contexts such as neighborhood, school, work, family, and peer groups. This course considers the ways in which connections (or lack thereof) across these contexts inform youth identities and development.
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56:163:525
Practicum in Childhood Studies (3)
This is an apprenticeship with an experienced researcher. Students choose a faculty mentor and apprentice themselves in a collaborative project. Students in the basic track will participate in an empirical project. Students in the applied track will work with a faculty member in analyzing a problem in an applied setting and will develop a proposed solution. The proposed solution must include successfully negotiating implementation of the project in the context of an organization, agency, business, or other setting.
Students in the practicum participate in a seminar in which their projects are discussed with the instructor and other first-year students. This course combines the advantages of an apprenticeship model with the advantages of a seminar model. Each student has an individual faculty adviser who supervises his or her individual work. Students' work is tailored to their interests. Through presentations by other students in the seminar, instructor comments and suggestions, and active participation in group discussion and feedback, each student gains knowledge of research strategies and methods used in multiple settings. One-half of the grade is based on the recommendation of the faculty adviser and one-half on participation in the seminar.
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56:163:526
Historical Research Methods (3)
Introduces graduate students to historical
methodology and research. Explores how historians frame the
questions they ask about the past and how they go about answering them. The course pays particular attention to the
historiographic debates about the "new social history," for example, that have
done so much to shape emerging scholarship in the history of childhood.
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56:163:527
Constructing American Childhood (3)
This course on the various constructions of American
childhoods from the colonial times to the present day will provide historical
investigations of the pivotal transformations in the ways that Americans viewed
their children. Topics under consideration will include sexuality and free
speech, juvenile justice and civic responsibility, as well as kids' relationships
to families, consumer culture, and medical professionals.
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56:163:531
History of Childhood (3)
How were children transformed from unsaved souls to "little savages" to the very embodiment of innocence? When, and why, did children lose their role as contributors to the family economy and instead become quarter-of-a-million dollar investments (according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture)? Why do Americans seem obsessed with protecting their kids from illicit drugs, while at the same time medicating them for a host of ills, from being antsy to being short? Although this course will include material from colonial times to the present day, it is not so much a survey of American children's history as an historical investigation of the pivotal turning points in how Americans viewed their children. Topics will include sexuality and free speech, juvenile justice and civic responsibility, as well as kids' relationship to families, consumer culture, and medical professionals.
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56:163:532
Child and Consumer Culture
This course examines how an identifiable children's consumer
culture has emerged historically and has become a visible social, economic, and
political feature of contemporary society. The range of topics include: the
rise of the "child consumer" in the 20th century; the political and moral
dimensions of advertising/marketing to children; moral panics surrounding toys
and video games; the place of goods and brands in children's peer and local
cultures; racial and ethnic dimensions of goods and consumption; food,
parenting, and children's media culture; the material culture of gender identity
and gender relations; the sexualization of girlhood; class markers of inclusion
and exclusion; global markets and identities. Emphasis is on questioning how
the commercial attention paid to children and children's involvement in the
commercial sphere articulates with larger social discourses regarding
children's "proper" social roles, the place of the market in everyday life,
changing relations in families and between generations, and notions of
citizenship in contemporary consumer capitalism.
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56:163:551
Children and Childhood in Cross-Cultural Perspectives (3)
The
richness and diversity of children's development is best understood by
examining socialization norms and child-rearing practices of the
world's various societies. The course focuses on the rich
anthropological literature on children in different cultures, but
considers as well, cross-cultural psychological and sociological
investigations.
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56:163:570
Children and Migration (3)
Examines the historical, social, and political contexts of children's migration in the modern world. In doing so, we will draw on case studies from regions of the world including North and South America, the Mediterranean region, northern Europe, and southern Africa to investigate the lived experience of migrant and refugee children. The course will include examination of historical and theoretical issues in migration, the specific challenges faced by refugee and internally displaced children, and the challenges of developing humanitarian responses to meet children needs.
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56:163:580
Literary and Cultural Constructions of Childhood (3)
A study of changing representations of childhood in literary and cultural texts, including the impact of childhood on imagination and intellectual and aesthetic traditions.
This course is the same as 56:350:580.
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56:163:611
Personality and Social Development (3)
Theory
and research on personality and social development in childhood and
adolescence. Attention is paid to the evolutionary, genetic, social, and
cultural shaping of personality and social interactions.
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56:163:612
Cognitive Development (3)
Theory
and research in children's intellectual development from birth through
adolescence. Neo-Piagetian, information processing, and sociocultural
approaches to cognition. Current research, including children's memory
development, social cognition, language, problem solving, spatial
thinking, and theory of mind. Implications for schooling considered.
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56:163:615
Using Archival Data to Study Children (3)
This
course will provide students with the experiences necessary to analyze
data from publicly available data sets. Students will obtain publicly
available data sets and analyze them using SAS or SPSS in order to test
hypotheses about development and to assess the effectiveness of
interventions.
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56:163:630
Urban Education (3)
This seminar will investigate urban schools as sites of struggle. Using sociocultural and historical frameworks, we explore key debates in defining the purposes and practices of education in U.S. cities. This course examines the relationship between schools and their urban environments, looking at how schools perpetuate or contest inequalities of opportunity, segregation, and economic disparities. Also examines contemporary reform movements and the perspectives of children and youth, exploring new directions for reimagining and recreating urban schools.
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56:163:635
Visual and Material Cultures of Childhood (3)
This
seminar is both about what children see and manipulate, now and in the
past--their visual and material worlds--and how children have been constructed
and represented by adults through depictions of young people and creations of
childhood through material goods.The
seminar asks each student participant to look carefully and critically at
images of children and children's things, and to question how these
representations and goods are constructed and what they might mean (their
ideological underpinnings).By putting
image and ideology, and history and context together, we aim to attain a deeper
understanding of the visual and material cultures of children and
childhood(s).
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56:163:640
Kids' Media Cultures (3)
This course will examine relationships between children,
childhood, and media from historical, cultural, social, political, and
psychological perspectives. Radio, film,
and television along with digital media and new technologies will be
emphasized, as well as certain types of print media. Coursework focuses on the ways in which media
have and continue to be understood both as threatening to childhood and as
liberating/empowering for children. Students are expected to bring their own
projects and issues to bear on the subject matter.
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56:163:651
Sociology of Socialization (3)
Study
of socialization as a concept and as a process; the socialization of
children and adults; variations in socialization among cultures,
socioeconomic status groups, and types of social groups.
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56:163:654
Growing Up in Africa (3)
Examines the social, historical, and political contexts of childhood in Africa through ethnographies, novels, and historical work. It begins with classic work on child socialization, examining how children learn and come to assume certain positions through interaction with peers and adults in work, rituals, and play. Explores children's roles and status within societies in which elders are valued and powerful, and how these roles changed with colonialism through literacy, missionization, and migration to mines, plantations, and cities. Looks at young people's myriad experiences in Africa today as soldiers, AIDS orphans, critics of the state, consumers of modernity, and powerful but hated witches within the context of structural adjustment and globalization.
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56:163:655
Youth Movements in Organizations (3)
Social
movements organized and led by youth are important both for their
contributions to society and as a training ground for youth who become
leaders as adults. This course examines youth and student movements in
a number of countries and regions at key points in their history, including Germany, China, Latin America, and the United States. The
topics will include political, social, and religious movements; minority
group movements; women's and girls' movements; and cultural movements. The relationships between youth movements and adult organizations and
patterns of generational change over history will be examined.
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56:163:661
Quantitative Research Methods
Introduces various approaches to designing and
conducting quantitative research projects in childhood studies research. The course explores study design, measurement,
and analytic issues related to survey, experimental, and content analytic research. Students will gain hands-on experience in
various quantitative methods and relevant data analysis techniques.
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56:163:662
Adolescent Health (3)
Examines critical
health issues in adolescence, focusing on sexual behavior, substance and
alcohol use, physical activity, and violence. The course will draw on behavior
change theoretical perspectives, public health, and intervention science to
explore approaches to improving adolescent health. Careful consideration will
also be given to individual, societal, and structural predictors of risk
behavior, as well as protective factors like youth resilience.
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56:163:671
Youth and Sports (3)
The
social organization of athletics and sports for children and youth.
Youth and family involvement in organized and informal athletic and
sports activities. Social roles including juvenile and adult athletes,
fans, coaches, parents, and consumers of sports equipment and media.
The relationship of sports to social patterns such as ideologies,
values, laws, cultural norms, and methods of social control. Ethnic,
racial, and gender differences in sports activities.
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56:163:690
Issues in Social Policy: Children and Families (3)
Public policy has profound influences on children in the United States and elsewhere. This course focuses on social policy in the United States, and how policy shapes children's education, nutrition, and environments. Policy in the United States is compared to that of other countries in order to better understand the influence of policy on the course of development.
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56:163:691
Interpretive Methods (3)
An understanding of children and the worlds that they live in can be gained through a variety of means. In this course, students are introduced to interviewing, ethnography, and other qualitative methods for appreciating the various influences that shape children and their worlds.
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56:163:694
Play and Play Theory (3)
This course examines the conceptual, social, cultural, and
historical contours of play as approached by scholars in various fields of
inquiry including, among others, psychology, history, geography, anthropology,
and sociology. Emphasis is place on
critically examining how thinkers conceptualize the role and meaning of play in
childhood, learning, evolution, and development.Humor, games, sport, ritual, and festival are among the variety of play
forms to be examined.
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56:163:695
Theories of Childhood Studies (3)
The development of childhood studies has been influenced by a range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. In this seminar, we will explore in depth salient theoretical works emerging from diverse disciplines including philosophy, social anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics, and development studies. It will include examining the work of mid- to-late 20th- and 21st-century authors whose wide theoretical perspectives have had a strong and pervasive influence on the field both in the industrialized and "developing" worlds. Key authors to be studied include Michel Foucault, Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, Walter Benjamin, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Aihwa Ong, Pierre Bourdieu, Richard Sennett, and Judith Butler. This course will include detailed examination and discussion of selected texts and of their impact on the field.
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56:163:697
Independent Research in Childhood Studies (3)
In consultation with a faculty member, students pursue individually designed research projects.
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56:163:698
Special Topics in Childhood Studies (3)
Topics and themes related to childhood studies are considered.
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56:163:699
Directed Readings in Childhood Studies (3)
Topics and themes related to childhood studies are explored through readings selected in consultation with the instructor.
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56:163:700
Doctoral Dissertation (15)
Each student must complete an original dissertation research project under the supervision of a faculty adviser.
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56:163:800
Matriculation Continued (0)
Continuous registration may be accomplished by enrolling for at least 3 credits in standard course offerings, including research courses, or by enrolling in this course for 0 credits. Students actively engaged in study toward their degree who are using university facilities and faculty time are expected to enroll for the appropriate credits.
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56:163:897
Registration Certification Credit (0)
Graduate students registered for less than 9 credits, but
considered full-time and pay a nominal student fee.
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56:163:898
Registration Certification Credit (0)
Graduate students not registered for other coursework, but
considered full-time and pay a part-time student fee.
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56:163:899
Registration Certification Credit (0)
Graduate students who are matriculation continued, taking
0.0 credits, but considered full-time and pay a nominal student fee.
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