For a long time, scientific knowledge on children and childhood was almost exclusively produced by educationalists and developmental psychologists. In recent years, however, a new approach originating in Europe was added: childhood sociology. This book introduces this approach by presenting a collection of essays from various European countries: France, Germany, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. The articles cover a wide range of methodologies as well as subject areas in the field of childhood sociology, giving a picture of the life situation of contemporary children in Europe and arguing how childhood researchers can come to terms with new trends and facts of (post-)modern childhood.

The Editors: Manuela du Bois-Reymond holds a chair in education (youth sociology and youth policy) at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She is a member of a European research network on the transition period of young people and of several European committees concerned with European youth policy. She has co-edited two volumes of the European Yearbook on Youth Policy and Research, which focus on youth research and youth policy in Europe and has also co-edited Teenie-Welten. Her research fields include intercultural childhood study, biographical methods, and parent-peer relationships. Heinz Sünker holds a chair in social pedagogics, Department of Education, University Wuppertal, FRG. His research interests include the theory and history of social work, social theory, educational theory, childhood, and youth. Recent publications include: The Politics, Sociology and Economics of Education: Interdisciplinary and Comparative Perspectives (co-editor) and Education and Fascism: Political Identity and Social Education in Nazi Germany (co-editor). Heinz-Hermann Krüger holds a chair in education at the Martin-Luther-Universität of Halle-Wittenberg, FGR and is Director of the Center for School Research. He has published widely in the fields of educational theory and qualitative research methods, school research, and childhood and youth research. His publications include: Handbuch der Jugendforschung (editor); Handbuch der erziehungswissenschaftlichen Biographieforschung (editor); Einführung in die Erziehungswissenschaft in four volumes (author and editor); Childhood, Youth and Social Change (co-editor); Growing up in Europe (co-editor); and Kritische Erziehungswissenshaft am Neubeginn? (co-editor).