Dion Sommer

Maria Sommer

Research on children and childhood in ancient Greece is a field in its infancy. This book proposes a new interdisciplinary approach called Developmental Childhood Archaeology. In essence it is an archaeological study based on a collection of material relation to childhood in ancient Attica, dating back to 480-300 B.C. That is, various types of toys, iconographic evidence of children on vases and graves steles, primary written sources on children's lives, and the view on children in the Greek Classical period.

A Developmental Childhood Archaeological Approach

Care, Socialization and Play in Ancient Attica

A Childhood Psychologyis a truly unique contribution to the field of childhood psychology. By interrogating the key questions lying at the heart of this rapidly changing field, it provides fresh and bold insights that are accompanied by original analysis and an interdisciplinary approach. Packed with new developments and delivered with clarity, the book challenges our assumptions about childhood in modern society, scrutinizes contemporary trends in international research, and outlines controversial challenges to traditional paradigms. Sommer's valuable insights into developmental and childhood psychology will be of particular interest to students and researchers of psychology, anthropology, cultural studies and sociology.

Young Children in Changing Times

A Childhood Psychology

A Childhood Psychology is a truly unique contribution to the field of childhood psychology. By interrogating the key questions lying at the heart of this rapidly changing field, it provides fresh and bold insights that are accompanied by original analysis and an interdisciplinary approach. Packed with new developments and delivered with clarity, the book challenges our assumptions about childhood in modern society, scrutinizes contemporary trends in international research, and outlines controversial challenges to traditional paradigms. Sommer's valuable insights into developmental and childhood psychology will be of particular interest to students and researchers of psychology, anthropology, cultural studies and sociology.

Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson

Karsten Hundeide

Recent decades have seen a growing emphasis, in a number of professional contexts, on acknowledging and acting on the views of children. This trend was given added weight by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified in 1990. Today, seeking the perspective of the child has become an essential process in all sorts of tasks, from framing new legislation to regulating professions. This book answers the fundamental question of what it is that constitutes a ‘child perspective’, and how this might differ from the perspectives of children themselves. The answers to such questions have important implications for building progressive and developmental adult-child relationships. However, theoretical and empirical treatments of child perspectives and children’s perspectives are very diverse and idiosyncratic, and the standard reference work has yet to be written. Thus, this work is an attempt to fill the gap in the literature by searching for and defining key formulations of potential child perspectives within parts of the so-called ‘new child paradigm’. This has been derived from childhood sociology, contextual-relational developmental psychology, interpretative humanistic psychology and developmental pedagogy. The highly experienced authors develop a comprehensive professional child perspective paradigm that integrates recent theory and empirical child research. With its clear presentation of underlying theories and suggested applications, this book illustrates a child-oriented understanding of specific relevance to both child-care and preschool educational practice.

Dion Sommer

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