Children, Childhood, and the Future: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Although most of the world’s children live in the Global South, much of the corpus of scientific knowledge which forms the basis of the current notion of good childhood worldwide is drawn from research on Western, middle-class children. Even cross-cultural research often applies the Western model of childhood as the standard to which others must correspond. This volume serves to bridge this gap by both bringing up significant features of the development and socialisation of children in African countries and presenting cross-cultural procedures which help to discuss and develop differentiated and joint ideas about childhood, instead of implementing one-sided standards which are disconnected from most children’s lives.