Re-Presenting Childhood and Youth

Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom

The conference will explore the ways in which childhood and youth are represented as life course categories and how, in changing cultural and historical contexts, these are beginning to be questioned and re-presented. The conference offers a chance for reflection and review about the different ways in which this is taking place. We are inviting papers across 4 main strands:

Theory – what new theoretical approaches are being developed in the study of childhood and youth? How do these re-present children and young people? What insights can different disciplines contribute?

Methods – how are children and young people’s views being accessed and represented and what implications do these have for the re-presentation of children’s voices?

Discourses & cultures – how are ideas about children and youth changing? What similarities and differences are there across different cultural sites – e.g. film, literature, art, law, education? How is childhood represented in different societies and cultures? How do children understand and experience these representations of themselves?

Policy – what impacts are changing policy representations of childhood and youth having on young people’s everyday lives and experiences and how are young people responding to these representations?

Full Conference Description