Introduction: Researching children and childhood: cultures of communication

The first edition of this book appeared in 2000. This was a fitting point in the history of childhood studies to reflect on the paradigmatic shifts that had taken place within key disciplines in the study of children and childhood. By the turn of the millennium, the hallmarks of the new social study of childhood had become firmly established, as witnessed in the burgeoning of research studies about children and childhood from many different disciplines and perspectives. Thus, in the first edition of this book, we wanted to acknowledge and explore the importance of such multi-and interdisciplinary perspectives for childhood studies by including a range of different contributions – from history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, social policy and practice research. Our focus was on research with, rather than on, children, in a desire to position children as social actors who are subjects, rather than objects of enquiry.