An Introduction to Childhood: Anthropological Perspectives on Childrens Lives

In An Introduction to Childhood, Heather Montgomery examines the role children have played within anthropology, how they have been studied by anthropologists and how they have been portrayed and analyzed in ethnographic monographs over the last one hundred and fifty years. Using a wide range of evidence from a variety of very different societies, this book challenges the idea that there is any one correct way to raise children, or that parents across the globe have the same goals in raising their children, or the same attitudes towards them. Drawing on the rich history of anthropological literature, Montgomery uses key topics to illustrate important issues in the anthropological study of children and childhood. This volume provides a fresh investigation into the diversity of beliefs about childhood as well as the variety of children's daily lives, looking at issues such as how parents elsewhere raise their children, what they understand as abusive, how children become adults and what both adults and children see as their respective roles and responsibilities.Montgomery, Heather is the author of 'An Introduction to Childhood: Anthropological Perspectives on Childrens Lives', published 2008 under ISBN 9781405125901 and ISBN 140512590X.