TY - CHAP AB - Children – their number, their welfare, their property (whom they belong to), their education – have long been a matter of public concern. What a “proper” childhood should be is always a highly politicized issue never left entirely in private hands. Modern societies in particular have rendered explicit and institutionalized the existence of a public interest in children and in childhood as constituted within, but also outside, families. In this volume, we use the expression “politicizing of childhood” in a broad sense in reference to the ways in which childhood is conceptualized not only as a primary family or parental responsibility, but, in addition, as a matter of public importance and concern, something for (welfare) state intervention. “Politicizing of childhood” encompasses the public motivation and mobilization for childhood change; the political processes in which policies are formulated, legislated and enacted; the response to policy interventions that may in turn feed back into public and political discourse, policy formulation and so on (see Ellingsæter & Leira, 2006, p. 4). The contributions in this volume illustrate one or more of these processes. VL - 25 SN - 978-0-7623-1419-5, 978-1-84950-533-8/0195-6310 DO - 10.1016/S0195-6310(07)00016-6 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0195-6310(07)00016-6 AU - Leira Arnlaug AU - Saraceno Chiara ED - Arnlaug Leira ED - Chiara Saraceno PY - 2008 Y1 - 2008/01/01 TI - Childhood: Changing contexts T2 - Childhood: Changing Contexts T3 - Comparative Social Research PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 1 EP - 24 Y2 - 2024/05/12 ER -