AP/CCY 4142 6.00

Contemporary Children’s Culture

The purpose of this class is to understand children’s lives around the world, with particular focus on the lived experiences of children/youth and childhood/adolescence in the Majority world. In a globalized world our connections to Majority world children are closer than ever – the shoes you are wearing, the music you listen to, issues of war and violence on television, issues of migration and citizenship in Canada, international peers at school – many Majority world children play an important role in these discourses and realities. In this class we will be critical global citizens and analyze the everyday lives of children in the global South. This study will be diverse and show that although the overwhelming discourse of Majority world childhoods is underpinned by issues of marginality, the realities of children across the world are varied and complicated. Our study of childhoods will add to your theoretical understanding of global childhoods and broaden your ability to critique contemporary childhood issues. It will review the complexity of poverty, the possibilities of community development practices and children-centred advocacy and social justice to tackle difficult realities.