Imagining Children Otherwise Theoretical and Critical Perspectives on Childhood Subjectivity

«Everyone who suspects (and who in their right mind could not?) that the accepted way in which we think about children and prepare adults to work with them is flawed, foolish, and failing, will welcome and relish this book. It weaves together practical engagement, theoretical eclecticism and sophistication, scholarly discretion, criticality bordering on anger, and straightforward human warmth – and the result is brave, powerful, rich and liberating. Its contrarian commitment to human subjectivity and agency, human and disciplinary boundary-crossing, non-binary and universalistic understanding, challenging privilege, promoting equity and social justice, and speaking truth to power, makes it fundamentally important. For practitioners and academics in early childhood studies and cognate fields who want to connect their intellectual, personal, professional, and political lives, this is essential reading.» (Heather Piper, Professorial Research Fellow, Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University)
«Everyone who suspects (and who in their right mind could not?) that the accepted way in which we think about children and prepare adults to work with them is flawed, foolish, and failing, will welcome and relish this book. It weaves together practical engagement, theoretical eclecticism and sophistication, scholarly discretion, criticality bordering on anger, and straightforward human warmth – and the result is brave, powerful, rich and liberating. Its contrarian commitment to human subjectivity and agency, human and disciplinary boundary-crossing, non-binary and universalistic understanding, challenging privilege, promoting equity and social justice, and speaking truth to power, makes it fundamentally important. For practitioners and academics in early childhood studies and cognate fields who want to connect their intellectual, personal, professional, and political lives, this is essential reading.» (Heather Piper, Professorial Research Fellow, Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University)

Michael O’Loughlin is Professor at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York, where he is on the faculty of the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies and the School of Education. He published The Subject of Childhood in 2009 with Peter Lang Publishing.

Richard Johnson is Professor in the Institute for Teacher Education at the University of Hawaii. He has taught and served extensively in various field-based preservice teacher education programs at the University of Hawaii, where he has worked for 20 years.