Childhood identities
Subtitle: self and social relationships in the experience of the child
By: Allison James.
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Edinburgh
Language: eng
Number of pages: 246
Subjects: Identification (Psychology) -- in infancy & childhood.; Social Behavior -- in infancy & childhood.; Identification (Psychology) in children.; Interpersonal relations.; Child development.
Description: Childhood Identities explores the experience of childhood from children's perspectives. Drawing on ethnographic work in schools and the accounts of children aged between four and nine years old, its aim is to understand the importance of the body as a medium of social expression - both in its appearance and its performance - and to assess the significance which this has in children's social relationships and friendships.

It explores the process of socialisation through parents' narratives about their children's experiences of illness at home and at school, raising questions about ideas of difference and disability as they relate to social identity and personhood during childhood.

Contributing to the sociological and anthropological work on the body and health/illness, the children's accounts also reveal the subtle and different ways in which age and gender shape children's growing sociality in relation to the concepts of belonging and outsiderhood.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-243) and index.