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Childhood is socially constructed and holds profound meaning for contemporary society. Although children are increasingly seen as social agents, the dominant view is that children are unable to make substantial contributions to society due to their immaturity and minority status. Childhood theorists have countered this by emphasising the importance of seeking children’s views, an approach which underpins this study. Children’s books provide ideological sources for constructing and understanding childhood. They have a cultural role in representing childhood to children and adults and are widely perceived to be a resource for children’s education and socialisation. In addition, children’s books are written, produced and their use is mediated by adults. This study aims to find out if books provide a space for children in a predominantly adult constructed world by exploring what young people think about the ways in which childhood is represented in children’s books. The research was undertaken with young people aged 10 to 14 years, concentrating on the lower and higher end of the age group, and took place in schools. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used with 158 young people taking part in a questionnaire survey and 43 participating in interviews. The study found that young people were active co-constructors, rather than passive recipients, of representations of childhood in children’s books. Young people demonstrated that they were skilled text handlers who acknowledged the influence of other media on their engagement with books although there were marked differences in their reading interests depending on age and gender. Young people were interested in fiction which portrayed assertive and competent depictions of childhood which they could relate to their own experience as well as enjoying reading about young characters with powers and skills which were extraordinary. Young people did not view childhood or the depiction of childhood negatively, accepting it as a state of being rather than one of becoming, hence contributing to their own understandings of childhood.

This autoethnographic exploration of pedagogy or the craft of teaching was undertaken while I worked as a reception class teacher in a large English primary school. Naturally occurring data that developed out of the process of teaching and learning were used to construct multiple case studies (Stake, 2006). An iterative process of analysis using inductive and deductive methods enabled me to explore the nuances of pedagogical practice, including those that had been tacitly or intuitively known. The work of Hart, Dixon, Drummond and McIntyre (2004) Learning without Limits, and the metaphor of craft were used as a theoretical framework to support this exploration of how and why pedagogical choices and decisions were made and justified. Analysis revealed how pedagogical thinking was embedded within the complex process of life within the community. Commitment to the core idea of learners’ transformability and the principles coagency, everybody and trust (Hart et al., op. cit.) were found to be necessary but not sufficient to explain pedagogical thinking. A principled belief in possibility was added to articulate how I could be determined for children’s learning without determining what would be achieved. Analysis of how these principles functioned was articulated as a practical cycle of choice, reflection and collaboration. This cycle ensured that the principles were shared within the community. The notion of attentiveness to imagination was developed to articulate how I worked to create and sustain an inclusive environment for learning. Attentiveness was used to reflect the necessary constancy of the process of teaching and learning. Imagination was used to articulate how the process of recognising children’s individuality was achieved by connecting their past, present and future lives, acknowledging how possibilities for learning were created by building on, but not being constrained by what had come before.

Childhood asthma is a chronic condition affecting up to one in every seven children. Self-management programs have been developed to help improve children's abilities to both manage and cope with their asthma. If these programs are to be fully effective, an understanding of the psychological factors that influence children's sense of competence to manage their condition is required. This study aimed to identify psychological variables that may influence children's asthma self-efficacy including children's health locus of control, child's attitudes toward illness and children's level of anxiety. The relationship between children's level of asthma knowledge and their sense of competence to manage the illness was explored. The importance of parent's level of asthma knowledge and parent asthma self-efficacy was also examined in relation to children's level of asthma self-efficacy. The study adopted a within group cross-sectional approach. Children aged 7-15 years of age with asthma were invited to participate in the research. Data were collected on 71 children and their parents based on self-report measures rating child and parent asthma self-efficacy and asthma knowledge, child health locus of control, child attitudes toward illness and anxiety. A correlational design was employed to test for associations and relationships between children's asthma self-efficacy and the factors noted above. Results will be given and discussed with reference to previous research findings with conclusions reached.

<p> According to the National Center for Child Poverty, in 2011 nearly half of the 72 million children in the U.S. were living in low-income families. Through this study, the author examined the effect that student poverty has on teachers&rsquo; beliefs about student print knowledge including school readiness and print literacy. Teachers&rsquo; beliefs were explored using a social justice framework that surrounds an explanatory sequential design. This mixed methods research helped me to identify whether or not teachers&rsquo; beliefs about students differ based on family socio-economic status (SES). The author of this study worked with a large urban school district located in the California Central Valley. The school district administers a Head Start preschool program and a California State preschool program. A total of 89 preschool teachers from these preschool programs participated in a Likert-style questionnaire. Participants were asked to share their beliefs about student print knowledge, school readiness, and parental involvement based on their 2016-2017 students. After collecting all questionnaires, 10 participants were interviewed to further investigate the effect of poverty on teacher&rsquo;s beliefs about students and families. The overall findings of this study showed that poverty level thresholds between the two preschool programs did not appear to have an effect on participant&rsquo;s beliefs regarding student print literacy, school readiness, and parental involvement. Participants were consistent in beliefs across both programs. Overall, participants were more positive in the areas of school readiness and parent involvement. Participants in both preschool programs were less positive in regards to student print literacy. </p>

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A marked preoccupation with childhood is evident throughout the works of Graham Greene; it receives most obvious expression in his concern with the idea that the course of a man's life is determined during his early years, but many of his other obsessive themes, such as betrayal, pursuit, and failure, may be seen to have their roots in general types of experience which Greene evidently believes to be common to all children.

The diploma work is concetrating on childhood development and it's dependency on spreading and improving in educational system. The work would give an interpretation how education had influenced the period of childhood in the past in Czech countries. What effect had education on childhood duration and quality. The work has chronological system from the beginning of education in Czech countries (monarch St. Václav) to the end of rule Joseph II. Individual chapter give interpretations about education and childhood in each historical period of time and bring near picture of an evolution from given time. At first each chapter presents development in education and then intent on the childhood. First chapters are concentrating on childhood of individuals, especialy monarch childhood. Continuenig chapters in diploma work are generalizing aristocrat childhood and later on common people. The final work is comparing each period intent on child development of all factors. We can see childhood evolution. The work would attend above all to students from pedagogic faculty as an ilustration how childhood education is connected and how education can influence the childhood.

In the Dead Season is a manuscript of poetry that explores, through family narrative, the tensions between ignorance and truth, between honor and mendacity, between violation and veneration, between love and loss, between grief and transcendence. Set in rural Texas, the poems in this collection describe a harsh and unforgiving landscape seen largely, though not exclusively, through the eyes of a central child narrator. Rattlesnakes, tarantulas, drought, flood, birth, death, the poems present everyday occurrences and suggest that we often experience events before we have the context, knowledge, or emotional maturity to make sense of them in any reasonable manner. This discontinuity leaves gaps in understanding that we fill with mythologies of our own making, mythologies that both masquerade as innocence and lead us too early to toxic truths. In a world where death is commonplace, true wonder is found in surprising places.

The problem of childhood obesity in South Africa has reached epidemic proportions. It is estimated that one in five South African children are either overweight or obese; with twenty percent of children under the age of six being overweight. This is mainly due to a poor diet and a lack of exercise. The aim of this study is to determine the overweight / obesity prevalence amongst grade-one learners at selected schools in the West Rand, Mogale City. The weight and height of each subject was to be physically measured by the researcher and compared to norms for that age category. This study further aims to determine their parents knowledge / perceptions regarding childhood nutrition and physical activity. To this end a questionnaire was constructed so that parental knowledge / beliefs could be assessed. This study has found both overweight and underweight within the same population. The results indicate overweight / obesity in seventeen subjects (3.7%). Eleven girls (4.8%) and six boys (3%) were overweight representing a boy to girl ratio of 1: 1.8 among the overweight group. Among the overweight subjects, girls represented 65% while boys represented 35%. This study has also found underweight / stunting of growth among the eight and nine year old subjects as their weight for height fell below the 25th percentile. Further classification of the study sample according to school-fee structure revealed that all subjects with overweight / obesity were found within low-fee schools, representing 4%. One boy and one girl each were found with obesity among the overweight group having a body mass index (BMI) of 23.8 and 24.8 respectively. Therefore obesity was found in 12% among the overweight group and within low-fee structure schools.