This volume brings an extraordinary range of theoretical ideas and empirical research to a neglected area of sociology. William A Corsaro shows how children contribute to both social stability and social change through a process of interpretive reproduction. He breaks new ground by stressing the conceptual autonomy of children. Part One reviews traditional approaches to socialization and contrasts them with the author's perspective of interpretive reproduction. The second part places the new sociology of childhood in historical and cultural perspective. The importance of children's peer culture is defined and discussed in Part Three, and the last part considers children as social problems as well as the social problems of children.
I grew up in a working class family with 4 brothers and 3 sisters in Indianapolis, Indiana. Despite working from a very young age at my father's fruit and vegetable stand in the old city market in Indianapolis and then holding down many other part time jobs as a child and adolescent, I still had a happy childhood. I was the first in my family to attend college and received my B.A. degree in sociology at Indiana University in 1970. I then went on to the University of North Carolina where I developed a strong interest in studying young children and their peer interactions. I received my Ph.D. in 1974 and then did a year post-doctoral study in a Berkeley, California preschool. It was here that I discovered that young children have their own peer cultures and earned the nickname "Big Bill" from the kids I studied.
I later carried out research in Head Start centers, preschools and elementary schools in Indianapolis and Bloomington, Indiana, Bologna and Modena, Italy and in Trondheim, Norway. I joined the faculty at Indiana University, Bloomington in 1975 and have been in Bloomington ever sense. I am presently the Robert H. Shaffer Class of 1967 Endowed Chair in the Department of Sociology. I teach courses on the sociology of childhood, children in contemporary society from a comparative perspective, and ethnographic research methods. My current research focuses on children's early life transitions and children in civil society. The third edition of my The Sociology of Childhood will be published in 2010 by Pine Forge Press. I cherish the many friendships I have developed with children, their parents, and teachers over the years and I strongly believe that the future of childhood is the present.
