NEWSLETTER

Society for the History of Children and Youth

SHCY NEWS

Call for Papers

SHCY Biennial Conference: UC-Berkeley, July 10-12, 2009

The Society for the History of Children and Youth is pleased to announce that its 5th Biennial Conference -- Children and Youth at Risk and Taking Risks: Historical Inquiries in International Perspective -- will take place at the University of California, Berkeley, July 10-12, 2009.

SHCY President Paula Fass writes:

I am very excited about the prospect of bringing the next meeting of Society for the History of Children and Youth to Berkeley, and am working hard on the planning for our conference.  We have now arranged for the hotel and the conference site and are working on getting some dorm suites for those who prefer the rigors of dorm life.  Our program, Children at Risk/Children Taking Risks, is being organized by Steven Mintz and the subject is sure to bring out some exciting and innovative work. We are eager to have our European affiliates, who came out in force in Norrkoping, join us on the West Coast this time, and also look forward to new work about Asian, African, and Latin American childhoods. Mark the dates and plan to be there.

Look for more details about the conference in later email announcements to SHCY members and on h-childhood.   We hope you will share the information with colleagues who are not yet members of the organization and encourage them to participate.

Call for Papers: Children and Youth at Risk and Taking Risks: Historical Inquiries in International Perspective

The Conference Theme

The conference theme of risk and risk taking refers not only to young people who are "troubled" or "endangered," but to children and youth who take active risks in creative ways, who are active makers of history, who step beyond the bonds of tradition, defy age restrictions, challenge accepted norms and institutions, and help create new cultural practices, values, and sensibilities.  Thus proposals might look at young people as political actors, as active contributors to historical change, as defiers of cultural norms and traditions, and as creators of new sensibilities.

Steven Mintz , chair of the program committee, invites a broad interpretation of “risk.” As he explains,

Today's adults tend to conceive of risk in exclusively negative terms: as impulsive thrill-seeking or as potential threats to children's well-being. But inventiveness, individuality, and innovation are often products of risk-taking. Youthful adventure, discovery, growth, and resistance to adult-imposed norms and structures have often involved risk-taking. That youth has so often served as a cultural vanguard or avant garde is due largely to young people's willingness to take risks.

Mintz and the members of this year’s program committee hope that “presenters will also be risk-takers, who will propose novel formats to present information and promote discussion.”

Possible topics include:

The Construction of Childhood and Youth as At-Risk and Risk-Taking Stages of Life

Discourses of Risk and Risk Taking: Legal, medical, pedagogical, psychological, and sociological

Shifts in the Forms, Functions, and Cultural Meaning of Risk Taking

Creative Risk Taking: Risk taking as a challenge to cultural norms, traditions, institutions, and age restrictions

Risk Factors Over Time: Poverty, neglect and abuse, malnutrition, environmental risks, health and developmental problems, migrant status, family disruption, war and natural disaster, peer pressure, trafficking, child work, and consumption

Contexts Influencing Risk and Risk Taking: Age, class, environment, gender, race and ethnicity, religion

Resilience in Children

Efforts to Protect Children from Risk and Risk Taking

The Program Committee invites proposals from all those who study childhood from a historical perspective, regardless of discipline, country of study, or era. Direct engagement with the conference theme is encouraged, but not required, of submissions.

We are especially eager to make this an international, interdisciplinary, interactive conference that will reflect the most exciting work on the history of childhood.  In addition to panels presenting original research findings, we hope to include sessions on teaching and pedagogy, public history practice, new modes of presenting historical work, scholarly controversies, the historical context of contemporary issues, and updates on new scholarship in specific areas.

Along with proposals for sessions featuring formal papers, the Program Committee welcomes proposals and presentations that do not follow the traditional format.  We encourage proposals that offer innovative approaches to presenting and discussing scholarship, including discussions and roundtables, pre-circulated papers, and workshops, as well as sessions featuring audio and visual resources.

We strongly prefer proposals for complete sessions, and encourage those new to the field to seek out co-panelists through H-Childhood. However, in an effort to facilitate the participation of newcomers, we will consider individual papers.

We encourage session organizers to create diverse panels and urge organizers to include papers that cross national and other categorical boundaries. Rather than a series of nation-based or regionally-specific conversations, we want to create a space for truly comparative, cross-cultural exchange.

Submission Procedures

Please submit the proposal as email attachments to the program committee chair, Steven Mintz, at sm3031@columbia.edu , for consideration.

Proposals must be submitted electronically no later than Midnight, Eastern Standard Time, February 15, 2009.

All proposals must include the following information:

--A complete mailing address, e-mail, phone number, and affiliation for each participant;

--An abstract of no more than 500 words for the session as a whole;

--A prospectus of no more than 250 words for each presentation (for paper sessions and, if you wish, for roundtables -- panels and workshops do not allow for individual presentation abstracts); and

-- A vita of no more than 500 words for each participant.

Note: All individuals who are on the program must be members of SHCY at the time of the conference.

The Program Committee for the 2009 Conference

Chair: Steven Mintz

Committee Members:  Nina Christensen; Ning de Coninck-Smith; Audra Diptee; Maritza Maymi-Hernandez; Nara Milanich; and Stefan Tanaka.