Children of a New World: Society, Culture, and Globalization

by Paula S. Fass

Paula S. Fass, a pathbreaker in children’s history and the history of education, turns her attention in Children of a New World to the impact of globalization on children’s lives, both in the United States and on the world stage. Globalization, privatization, the rise of the “work-centered” family, and the triumph of the unregulated marketplace, she argues, are revolutionizing the lives of children today.
Fass begins by considering the role of the school as a fundamental component of social formation, particularly in a nation of immigrants like the United States. She goes on to examine children as both creators of culture and objects of cultural concern in America, evident in the strange contemporary fear of and fascination with child abduction, child murder, and parental kidnapping. Finally, Fass moves beyond the limits of American society and brings historical issues into the present and toward the future, exploring how American historical experience can serve as a guide to contemporary globalization as well as how globalization is altering the experience of American children and redefining childhood.
Clear and scholarly, serious but witty, Children of a New World provides a foundation for future historical investigations while adding to our current understanding of the nature of modern childhood, the role of education for national identity, the crisis of family life, and the influence of American concepts of childhood on the world’s definitions of children's rights. As a new generation comes of age in a global world, it is a vital contribution to the study of childhood and globalization.

269 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2006

About the author

Paula S. Fass is an American historian and the Margaret Byrne Professor of History (Emerita) at the University of California, Berkeley. A social and cultural historian, Fass has published numerous books on the history of childhood and youth in the United States, and served as president of the Society for the History of Children and Youth from 2007 to 2009.

Reviews

[Benemint]

Something about her argument bothers me. As much as I appreciate the diversity in the US, I feel uncomfortable reading "the US's experience is a precursor of today's globalization," "the US practically invented modern adolescence" while she just tells us how special "American adolescence" of 20th century is (isn't this tautological anyway?) I am not a big fan of Americans' assumption that they are unique because they are representative, which somehow this book seems to subtly enforce.

[Erendira]

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