The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings pdf

David F. Lancy is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Utah State University. He is author/editor of several books on childhood and culture, including Cross-Cultural Studies in Cognition and Mathematics (1983), Studying Children and Schools (2001), Playing on the Mother Ground: Cultural Routines for Children's Learning (1996) and Anthropological Perspectives on Learning in Childhood (2010).

The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings pdf by David Lancy

How are children raised in different cultures? What is the role of children in society? How are families and communities structured around them? Now available in a revised edition, this book sets out to answer these questions, and argues that our common understandings about children are narrowly culture-bound. Enriched with anecdotes from ethnography and the daily media, the book examines family structure, reproduction, profiles of children's caretakers within family or community, their treatment at different ages, their play, work, schooling, and transition to adulthood. The result is a nuanced and credible picture of childhood in different cultures, past and present. Organised developmentally, moving from infancy through to adolescence and early adulthood, this new edition reviews and catalogues the findings of over 100 years of anthropological scholarship dealing with childhood and adolescence, drawing on over 750 newly added sources, and engaging with newly emerging issues relevant to the world of childhood today.