Includes bibliographical references and index.

Childhood : changing contexts / Arnlaug Leira and Chiara Saraceno -- Childcare services in 25 European Union member states : the Barcelona targets revisited / Janneke Plantenga ... [et al.] -- Policy packages for families with children in 11 European countries : multiple approaches / Jeanne Fagnani and Antoine Math -- The 'meaning' of children in Dutch and German family policy / Trudie Knijn and Ilona Ostner -- Changes in children's age and generation mosaics : challenges to research and policy / Gunhild O. Hagestad -- Grandchildhood in Germany and Italy : an exploration / Wolfgang Keck and Chiara Saraceno -- Children's welfare in ageing Europe : generations apart? / An-Magritt Jensen -- First born in Amsterdam : the changing mother-child setting / Cecile Wetzels -- Changing childhoods : migrant children and the confrontation of uncertainty / Nadina Christopoulou and Sonja de Leeuw -- Diverse childhoods : implications for childcare, protection, participation and research practice / Andy West, Claire O'Kane and Tina Hyder -- Childhood : a homogenous generational group? / Maria Carmen Belloni and Renzo Carriero -- Street youth's life-course transitions / Cecilia Benoit ... [et al.] -- Children, new social risks and policy change : a Lego future? / Jane Jensen -- Investing in children and childhood : a new welfare policy paradigm and its implications / Ruth Lester.

Demographic and societal changes are strongly affecting the contexts of childhood and the experience of being children. At the same time, across social groups and across societies, diversities and inequalities in childhood are taking new forms. In the developed world, in particular, children their number, their welfare, their education, the division of power and responsibilities over them among the different social actors have entered the public agenda, at the national and supranational level. Public concern over issues such as fertility rates, mothers working, early childhood education and care as well as solemn international declarations of children's rights are examples of the ongoing politicization of childhood. Drawing both on micro and macro, national and comparative studies, this volume of "Comparative Social Research" traces some of the trends and analyzes in comparative perspective how they affect images and practices of childhood and transforms responsibilities for children. The volume's focus is mainly on children in the developed countries, but attention is also paid to transnational diversities and to the impact of globalisation through the experiences of migrant children and of children living through the processes of modernization in the developing world.

Description based on print version record.