This text explores a range of key issues related to children and childhood, from birth to eighteen years. Challenging current orthodoxies on the nature of childhood, it is an essential text for students as well as those studying relevant professional qualifications in social work, teaching and health. 'Immediately accessible and engaging for thenewcomer to childhood studies, this book provides a strong and cohesive framework for understanding childhood in the contemporary world. The breadth of coverage resists any comfortable or parochial notion of childhood. Instead, it offers critical, global perspectives on issues defining modern childhood. It is a long time since I read a book on childhood that is so comprehensive and comprehensible. This book should be recommended as core reading.' - Russell Jones, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK