Search

The most well-known and widely cited literature in the multidisciplinary field of childhood studies has been undertaken by scholars based in the Global North, who have produced theoretical frameworks and conceptualisations about childhood frequently deployed by Northern and Southern scholars alike. These are often based on priorities developed in Northern academic institutions, sometimes in response to funding calls by grant-making agencies also based in the North. As a result, when Southern scholars contribute to the dominant childhood studies literature, a field of study in which the majority of well-known articles tend to be published in Northern-based Anglophone journals, their contributions stand mainly as empirical variations of mainstream Northern theories whose scholarship foregrounds theoretical and methodological frameworks designed with particular childhoods in mind. The resulting outcome is that Global South childhoods – in their plurality and diversity – do not contribute epistemically to the construction of a transnational childhood scientific discourse. This ultimately limits the quality of global childhood studies and hinders the development of more conceptually sophisticated, eventually divergent, theoretical frameworks that can account for multiplicity and diversity in childhoods. Therefore, this volume sought to explore locally driven perspectives of childhoods in diverse contexts in the South for the purpose of gaining insights into the knowledge that can be produced about Southern childhoods when research is driven by priorities, demands, and needs of locales in the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools worldwide have long engaged in various forms of 'war education'. In China, an extensive 'Patriotic Education' campaign and an expanded 'National Defense Education' curriculum have led to an increase in youth-oriented military programs in the 2000s. Previous work on the implementation of these programs in Chinese schools has mostly focused on urban elite youth, while overlooking the reception of these programs by non-urban, non-elite populations. The present study addresses this issue by examining youth perceptions and experiences of military training courses in urban and rural high schools. Drawing on the analysis of Chinese publications in the 2000s and on data from field interviews with students of different backgrounds, the study finds that youth military training constitutes a contentious program. Although the Chinese government promotes the program as crucial for military strengthening and the fostering of a patriotic spirit, PRC academic and media writers provide alternative rationales for the program, which at times undermine the logic of government articulations. Meanwhile, interviews with youth document divergent attitudes and even resentment towards the program, especially among city youth. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that military-training courses necessarily contribute to the increased 'militarization' of Chinese youth and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing prevalence of foreign media consumption, including from Japan, has received considerable notice in recent work on PRC youth culture. To date, however, few studies have considered how youth of different social backgrounds perceive their consumption of Japanese popular culture in the context of the Party-state’s ‘patriotic education’ campaign waged in schools and in the mass media. Studies have also overlooked how rural and urban youth in China juxtapose the images and themes conveyed in the Japanese media that they consume with school and domestic media messages. Drawing on interviews with middle school students in Shanghai and Henan, the present study addresses these issues. It finds that while a majority of youths from different backgrounds express animosity toward Japan, they separate these feelings from their passion for Japanese popular culture. In some cases, consumption of Japanese media also allows teenagers to feel that they ‘know’—or even appreciate—the other country better. Amid the anti-Japanese messages currently circulating in PRC schools and domestic media, consumption of Japanese popular culture manifests a form of ‘expressive individualism’ among teenagers, who creatively construct their own notions of patriotism, national memory, and Sino-Japanese relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]