Symbolic Childhood

«Daniel Thomas Cook and his contributors not only mark the differences between experiences and representations of childhood, but analyze how each influences the other. How adults imagine, portray, and prescribe children’s behavior changes and varies greatly from one historical setting to another. Here is an exceptional opportunity to learn how and why.» (Viviana Zelizer, Princeton University, author of Pricing the Priceless Child)



«‘Symbolic Childhood’ adds to research and readings of the so-called new childhood studies, in a highly original and diversified way. In an enlightening introduction, Daniel Thomas Cook places the chapters within this new field – a field with which the book is congruent and from which it departs. Here is work that both supports the view that children are extremely complex and different, and demonstrates continuity and coherence in children’s life worlds –historically, culturally, symbolically.» (Jens Qvortrup, Director, Norwegian Centre for Child Research, and co-editor of the journal, ‘Childhood’)

The Editor: Daniel Thomas Cook received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago and is currently Assistant Professor in the Departments of Advertising and Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has published a number of articles examining the commodification of childhood and is currently working on a manuscript on the rise of the child-consumer in the United States in the twentieth century.