The Integrated Health Interview Series (IHIS) provides free online access to a half-century of consistently-coded data on child and adult health conditions, health care, and health behaviors. Based on the public use files of the U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), the IHIS project is carried out by researchers at the University of Minnesota with funding from NIH. IHIS includes thousands of variables on such topics as child mental health problems and treatment, use of complementary and alternative medicine by children, child disability, children with special needs, health conditions (e.g., autism, asthma, ADD, and hundreds more), general health, and use of medical services. The IHIS data extract system allows researchers to create a customized data file with the years and variables needed for their analysis, or data can be analyzed using an online tabulator. For more information, visit the IHIS website atwww.ihis.us or e-mail [email protected].
The IUSSP International Seminar on Violence in Adolescence and Youth in Developing Countries is issuing a call for papers for an event in Asunción, Paraguay, May 2012. Experiences of violence are frequently present in adolescents’ and young people’s lives, sometimes with lasting consequences. An indication of the importance of the topic is the fact that in the young ages morbidity and mortality resulting from violence are on the rise in many societies. For this seminar the panel welcomes papers dealing with:
• The extent and types of violence among identifiable categories of adolescent and young populations defined by age (for example, younger and older adolescents), marital status, school attendance, area of residence, family composition, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, etc. • Determinants and consequences of violence during adolescence and youth stages. • Demographic aspects of violence in adolescence and youth. • Health related outcomes resulting from violence. • Characteristics of the young population “at risk” of involvement in violence (as victims or perpetrators). • Methodological issues in studying violence among young people. The IUSSP Scientific Panel on Young People’s Life Course in Developing Countries invites researchers in the field to submit online by November 15, 2011 a short 200-word abstract AND upload an extended abstract (2 to 4 pages, including tables) or a full paper, which must be unpublished. To submit and fill out the online submission form, please click here – online submission form – go to: http://www.iussp.org/login/submissionslogin.php. Some Reflections on Studying Children
At the end of a long career that began with a short paper (Handel and Hess 1956) I would like to share with colleagues some thoughts that I have had recently and over the years. Some are about things that I have tried to do, and some are about things that I think need doing and that I hope some of you and some of your students will want to undertake. (1) In the last few years some sociologists have judged it necessary to initiate what they call a new field of children’s studies. A key contention in this initiative is that the concept of socialization, long central to sociological understanding, is obsolete or wrong-headed. I believe this contention is erroneous and misguided, and I have evaluated the claims of several of these scholars in my most recent publication (Handel 2011.) One claim is that children’s agency is a more relevant, appropriate, or effective concept than socialization. I believe this is a misguided opposition. Those who argue it neither set forth the concept of socialization they are opposing nor do they provide theoretical grounding for agency. In my judgment, socialization is one of the general factors that gives rise to agency because, following Mead (1934), socialization interactions generate the self, and the self is what makes agency possible. Agenda: I believe the program committee of ASA Section on Children and Youth should organize one or more convention sessions, perhaps together with colleagues from the theory section, to explore this conceptual issue, which is contentious. (2) When Gertrud Lenzer took the initiative to organize this section, it began as the Section on Children. Some years later the name was changed to Section on Children and Youth. I did not participate in the discussions that led to the change, so I do not know what arguments were advanced in favor or opposition. But the change merits thought. On a practical level, I presume that there were not enough sociologists studying children to preserve the section without expanding its scope to include youth, long a category of sociological interest because of gangs , delinquency, and youth culture. The scarcity of sociologists studying children is lamentable. The arguments for studying children need to be advanced and strengthened among sociologists. The list of topics presented at the recent Rutgers-Camden Conference on Multiple Childhoods offers some valuable examples. I would have liked to have heard those papers. What justification is there for combining youth and children in the same section? One basis I can think of is the concept of child development – children develop into youth. But, to the best of my knowledge, child development is not a sociological concept, except in the mostly abandoned Parsons-Bales theory (1955). (If I am wrong on this point, I would appreciate hearing from colleagues on this website or at [email protected]) Agenda: Therefore, if sociologists of children and childhood, who mostly disdain the psychological concept of child development, are to have a sound conceptual basis for considering children and youth as connected topics, the nature of that connection needs to be conceptualized. I think the concept of the experienced life course (Handel 2003, p. xxi) may be useful here, but not sufficient.Some version of child development may have to be incorporated into sociology, but I would like to hear from any colleagues who propose other ways of conceptualizing that connection. (3) Barrie Thorne (1993, p.3) wrote, “Children’s interactions are not preparation for life; they are life itself.” A 47-year-old construction worker said, when telling his life-course narrative, “I always hung out with fellows like three or four years older than me. I was always the youngest in the crowd. I believe it gave me the smarts – the experience, how to handle different situations, you know.” (Handel 2003, p. 35). What Barrie presented as an “either-or” way to understand childhood is really a “both-and” situation. The meanings of childhood experience are not terminated at the end of the childhood years. I have suggested four ways that they may be processed in later life (Handel 2003, pp.104-107) Readers may think of additional or alternative ways. (4) I want to pay tribute to the late Spencer Cahill. His premature death, a few months after we completed our joint work, was a painful personal loss and a tremendous loss to our field. Spencer was a very appealing person -- gifted, knowledgeable, astute, congenial, and compassionate. If you have not read his chapter, “Children,” (Cahill 2003) you will be rewarded when you do. I want also to acknowledge Frederick Elkin, who was a pioneer with The Child and Society (1960) and who invited me to become co-author and to take primary responsibility for the next four editions, 1972 through 1988. Spencer prompted us to change “The Child and Society” to “Children and Society” for what started out as a 6th edition but became a new book with a more appropriate title. (5) Spencer’s research interests included children’s actions in public (Cahill 1987). My longtime research interest was in understanding children’s participation in their family life. The study that I did with Robert D. Hess (Hess and Handel 1959) consisted of interviews with both parents in two-parent families AND with their two or three children between the ages of six and eighteen. I later sought to further develop this view with an anthology (Handel 1967) introducing the concept “the psychosocial interior of the family;” and later, “whole-family methodology” (Handel 1996). Most commonly, the members of a family inhabit a shared household over an extended period of time. Through their interactions they become what Cooley (1909) called a “primary group” and Burgess (1926) called “a unity of interacting personalities.” These two concepts, together with several of Mead’s, were the foundation of my efforts (Handel 2002.) (6) I am struck by the fact that sociologists pay little attention to sibling relationships. Based on interviews with children and parents I published a study, mostly based on interviews with children, that offers a sociological view of issues that child siblings deal with between/among themselves (Handel 1986). Generally, I have seen little evidence that sociologists are attentive to the fact that (except in China) children have brothers and sisters who are important in their lives. I was pleased to see titles of a few papers on siblings in the Rutgers Camden Conference. If there are gaps in my knowledge here, perhaps readers can fill me in. I do want to call your attention to the excellent paper by Susan O. Murphy (1992), “Using Multiple Forms of Family Data: Identifying Pattern and Meaning in Sibling-Infant Relationships.” (7) There is almost no sociological attention to the issue of how newborn children become participants in society, an issue implicit in Cooley’s concept but still sitting unexplored. When I taught a graduate course in Sociology of Childhood I offered to sponsor a dissertation based on two cases, or even a single case. Student was to find a newly pregnant woman, interview her and her partner on a weekly basis. Both partners were each to keep a diary. With whom did they communicate? What was communicated? How do they process incoming communications from doctors, friends, family members, clergy, and others? Following birth of the baby, student was to do six months of participant observation in the home. I had no takers. I hope some of you will pick it up and carry it forward. We need that sociological understanding. REFERENCES Burgess, Ernest W. 1926. “The Family as a Unity of Interacting Personalities.” Family 7: 3-9. Cahill, Spencer. 1987.”Children and Civility: Ceremonial Deviance and the Acquisition of Ritual Competence.” Social Psychology Quarterly 50: 312-321. Cahill, Spencer, 2003. “Children.” Pp. 857- 874 in Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism, edited by Larry T. Reynolds and Nancy J. Herman-Kinney. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press Cooley, Charles Horton. 1909. Social Organization. New York: Scribner. Elkin, Frederick. 1960. The Child and Society. New York: Random House. Handel, Gerald. (Ed.) 1967. The Psychosocial Interior of the Family. Chicago. Aldine. Handel, Gerald. 1986. “Beyond Sibling Rivalry: An Empirically Grounded Theory of Sibling Relationships.” Pp. 105-122 in Sociological Studies of Child Development, Vol. 1, edited by Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Handel, Gerald. 1996. “Family Worlds and Qualitative Family Research: Emergence And Prospects of Whole-Family Methodology.” Marriage and Family Review 24: 335-348. Handel, Gerald. 2002. “Toward Understanding Families as Groups.” Pp. 489-510 in Pioneering Paths in the Study of Families, edited by Suzanne K. Steinmetz and Gary W. Peterson. New York: Haworth Press Handel, Gerald. 2003. Making a Life in Yorkville. Experience and Meaning in the Life-Course Narrative of an Urban Working-Class Man. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Handel, Gerald. 2011. “Sociological Perspectives on Social Development.” Pp. 119-138 in The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development, 2nd ed. Edited by Peter K. Smith and Craig H. Hart. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. Handel, Gerald and Robert D. Hess. 1956. “The Family as an Emotional Organization,” Marriage and Family Living 18 ( 2): 99-101. (Precursor to Journal of Marriage and Family.) Hess, Robert D. and Gerald Handel. 1959. Family Worlds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Handel, Gerald, Spencer Cahill, & Frederick Elkin. 2007. Children and Society. New York: Oxford University Press. Mead, George Herbert. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Parsons, Talcott and Robert F. Bales. 1955. Family, Socialization, and Interaction Process. Glencoe, IL. Free Press. Thorne, Barrie. 1993. Gender Play. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. David A. Kinney and Loretta E. Bass announce the publication of Volume 14 of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth entitled, “The Well Being, Peer Cultures and Rights of Children.” Volume 14 of SSCY is comprised of empirical research and theoretical papers highlighting current thinking on children and youth in our world today. ASA Children and Youth Section members can order this volume through Emerald at a 30% discount. See the third attachment to this email or the following URL for more information:http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?issn=1537-4661&volume=14.
Section member, Kristin Turney, and her co-editor colleagues, Hedwig Lee, Neil Mehta, are soliciting papers for a Special Issue of Social Science & Medicine on the Social Determinants of Child Health. The deadline for submissions is 16th January 2012, and authors should submit online athttp://ees.elsevier.com/ssm/. Please see the second attachment (C&Y_announce_sept2_k turney) to this email for the details.
Two NICHD-funded Postdoctoral Fellowship opportunities are available at the Population Research Center (PRC) at the University of Texas next academic year. Most research at the PRC is concentrated in four thematic areas: Health disparities, Educational Inequality & Opportunity, Partnership, Parenting, & Human Development, and Work and Stratification. Please see the first attachment to this email for more information or visit the NICHD Postdoctoral Fellowship URL as follows: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/prc/training-and-fellowships/postdoctoral.php.
Postdoc position in the National University of Singapore for Quantitative Research in Family, Children and Youth, Social Inequality, Demography in China One Postdoc position is available in the Sociology Department of National University of Singapore for candidates who have completed a Ph.D. degree in Sociology and demonstrated creativity and promise in research excellence. This position is targeted specifically for applicants who have expertise in research on family, children and youth, social inequality, demography, or social changes in China, and have good skills in quantitative research in social science. This position will be for a period of one year, and may be renewable. Interested applicants are requested to send their detailed CV and a personal statement, citing and explaining major accomplishments in research, to Professor Jean Yeung (E-mail:[email protected] or [email protected]). Please apply by September 30, 2011. The "State of the Young Hoosier Child" Report
Multiple factors contribute to the well-being of Indiana's youngest children and their families. A child's ability to learn and stay healthy can be determined in part by his early childhood experiences-or even before he is born. These experiences can have a lasting effect on children, even as they mature into adulthood. Researchers have found that many adult health problems, for example, can be attributed to early childhood experiences. In addition, children who received a high-quality education are likely to earn more, pay more taxes, and commit fewer crimes as adults. See how young Hoosier children are faring at the state and county level in the "State of the Young Hoosier Child" Report and County Data Profiles available athttp://sunnystart.in.gov/syhc 2011 KIDS COUNT Data Book Available on August 17 The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual KIDS COUNT Data Book is a comprehensive resource on the status of U.S. children, featuring state-specific data on ten key indicators of child well-being. This year’s Data Book essay examines how children and families are faring in the wake of the economic downturn and includes the Casey’ Foundation’s recommendations for strengthening policies and programs to ensure a strong economic future for our country. Visit the KIDS COUNT Data Center to download the report and create maps, graphs, and charts at the national, state, and local level. Our new 2011 mobile site offers access to hundreds of indicators of child well-being on the fly. To download the Data Book please visit:http://datacenter.kidscount.org/databook/ . Or to visit the Data Center, please visit: http://datacenter.kidscount.org Family and/or Developmental Processes and Health
Department of Human Development and Family Studies Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana RANK: Multiple positions available at Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor ranks, tenured or tenure track, 10-month appointment. Salary is open and competitive depending upon qualifications. SPECIALIZATION, RESPONSIBILITIES, & QUALIFICATIONS: We seek applicants whose research and teaching in the area of health and either developmental processes or family processes, or both, who will make a substantive contribution to the department of Human Development & Family Studies at Purdue. We are interested in multiple areas of health including childhood obesity, family violence, health disparities, sexuality, mental health, or prevention. HDFS is located in a newly formed college of Health and Human Sciences and this will afford opportunities to develop interdisciplinary collaborative research programs. Teaching responsibilities will include both graduate and undergraduate courses and may include courses in either developmental or family studies. Applicants should hold a Ph.D. in human development and family studies or a related area. Evidence of strong research and teaching is required. STARTING DATE: August 2012 or as arranged. CORRESPONDENCE AND APPLICATIONS: Send a cover letter summarizing qualifications in relation to the position requirements, curriculum vitae, three letters of reference, and representative publications to: Rita Hipps, Administrative Assistant, Dept. of Human Development & Family Studies, Purdue University, 1202 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2055. Review of applications will begin on September 19, 2011 and continue until the positions are filled. Questions may be directed to Professor Germán Posada ([email protected]) chair of the search committee. THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY STUDIES (www.hhs.purdue.edu/HDFS) focuses on contextual perspectives in the study of children, adults, families and family relationships, with particular attention to economic, ethnic and racial diversity. Its 17 faculty members direct graduate programs in developmental studies, family studies, and marriage and family therapy. HDFS awards B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees. Undergraduate options are Early Childhood Education & Exceptional Needs; Developmental and Family Science, Family and Consumer Sciences Education, and Human Services. Current enrollment in the department is 365, including 30 graduate students. The department houses the Center for Families, the Military Family Research Initiative, and the Center on Aging and the Life Course and its graduate programs in Gerontology. Purdue University is located in West Lafayette, Indiana, an affordable metropolitan area of 150,000 conveniently situated between Indianapolis and Chicago. A background check will be required for employment in this position. Purdue University is an equal opportunity/equal access/affirmative action employer fully committed to achieving a diverse workforce. Ad approved by the Office of Institutional Equity – Posting #002488-2011 Early Childhood Development (Birth to 8 yrs.)
Department of Human Development and Family Studies Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana RANK: Assistant/Associate tenured or tenure track, 10-month appointment. Salary is open and competitive depending upon qualifications. SPECIALIZATION, RESPONSIBILITIES, & QUALIFICATIONS: We seek applicants whose research and teaching is relevant to some aspect of early childhood development and education, including early childhood special education (birth to 8 yrs.) Expertise in early childhood science and mathematics or in special education is particularly desirable and would complement existing faculty strength in literacy. In addition to conducting research, the faculty member will provide instruction in a blended early childhood education/early childhood special education birth through third grade teacher licensure program as well as teach other courses in the department. Teaching responsibilities will include both graduate and undergraduate courses. Applicants should hold a doctorate in early childhood education, human development, developmental psychology, or a related discipline. Evidence of strong research and teaching is required. A background check will be required for employment in this position. STARTING DATE: August 2012 or as arranged. CORRESPONDENCE AND APPLICATIONS: Send a cover letter summarizing qualifications in relation to the position requirements, curriculum vitae, three letters of reference, and representative publications to: Rita Hipps, Administrative Assistant, Dept. of Human Development & Family Studies, Purdue University, 1202 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2055. Review of applications will begin on September, 19, 2011 and continue until the position is filled. Questions may be directed to Professor Karen Diamond ([email protected]) chair of the search committee. A background check will be required for employment in this position. THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY STUDIES (www.hhs.purdue.edu/HDFS) focuses on contextual perspectives in the study of children, adults, families and family relationships, with particular attention to economic, ethnic and racial diversity. Its 17 faculty members direct graduate programs in developmental studies and family studies. The department has undergraduate programs in Early Childhood Education & Exceptional Needs; Developmental and Family Science; Family and Consumer Sciences Education; and Human Services. Current enrollment in the department is 365, including 30 graduate students. The department houses the Center for Families, the Military Family Research Initiative, and the Center on Aging and the Life Course and its graduate programs in Gerontology. The NAEYC-accredited Miller Child Development Laboratory School enrolls 165 children, 6 weeks to 5 years, in part-day and full day programs. HDFS is located in a newly formed college of Health and Human Sciences and this will afford opportunities to develop interdisciplinary collaborative research programs. Purdue University is located in West Lafayette, Indiana, an affordable metropolitan area of 150,000 situated between Indianapolis and Chicago. Purdue University is an equal opportunity/equal access/affirmative action employer fully committed to achieving a diverse workforce. Posting No. 002492-2011 Ad Approved by the Office of Institutional Equity – 07/21/2011 |
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