What is Childhood Studies- and how do we teach it in the classroom?

The Sixth Annual Meeting of the Cultural Studies Association
New York University
New York City
May 22-24, 2008

“Childhood” has become a hotly contested subject in academic discourse. Its growth in popularity parallels the emphasis over the last half century in the field of cultural studies to give voice to the “voiceless.” Childhood & Children’s Studies now occupy an important place in academia, as illustrated by the fact that York University in Toronto and Rutgers University have both recently added degree granting Children’s Studies programs. In this seminar, a potential syllabus for a first year undergraduate course “Introduction to Children’s Studies” will be looked at - and a series of constructivist activities will be used for each week of the syllabus- to illustrate ways of engaging student activity and critical thought in both small seminar and large lecture style classrooms. Participants in this seminar are asked to read the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (available at http://www.unicef.org/crc/) in advance and come to the seminar with an activity designed to help teach some aspect of the convention. At the completion of the workshop each participant will be given a copy of each of the seminar’s activities, in addition to a copy of each of the activities designed by the other 14 participants. Please note that this is a workshop for all teachers, not only those in childhood studies, since many of the activities used in this workshop can be adapted and used to cover other areas of cultural studies. The seminar is being taught by Stephen Gennaro. Stephen Gennaro is a cultural historian of youth and media. He has over 10 years of teaching experience at all levels from nursery school to undergraduate and has been developing curriculum for public school boards and private institutions for close to 15 years. Stephen is currently teaching in the Children's Studies Department at York University in Toronto, Canada.

Interested parties please contact:
Stephen Gennaro
Children's Studies,
Division of Humanities
76 Winters Lane
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario
M3J 1P3
sgennaro@yorku.ca