This text explores the social status of children, through consideration of their positioning in a range of social settings and in sociological theory. It focuses on children as social actors in constructing the social order and participating in it.

Introduction, Chapter 1. Women and Children First and Last: Parallels and Differences between Children’s and Women’s Studies, Chapter 2. Children’s Rights, Chapter 3. Researching Children’s Rights to Integrity, Chapter 4. The Family—A Refuge from Demands or an Arena for the Exercise of Power and Control — Children’s Fictions on Their Future Families, Chapter 5. Television and the Definition of Childhood, Chapter 6. Creating the Capable Body: Discourses about Ability and Effort in Primary and Secondary School Studies, Chapter 7. Children in Action at Home and School, Chapter 8. Responsible Children? Aspects of Children’s Work and Employment Outside School in Contemporary UK, Chapter 9. Opportunities for Childhoods in Late Twentieth Century Britain, Chapter 10. Childhood as a Mode of Production, Notes on Contributors, References, Index