CAMDEN — Childhood studies students at Rutgers–Camden are striving to raise awareness of a global population whose distinctive experiences are often ignored or poorly understood.
“Children don’t always get a voice in our adult world,” says Neeta Goel, a childhood studies PhD student at Rutgers–Camden. “Childhood studies help us focus on a vulnerable part of our society. There are all sorts of issues impacting children and our program turns the lens specifically on these kids and considers them as central characters with a story to tell.”
Goel is one of 31 students currently enrolled in the PhD program in childhood studies at Rutgers–Camden. The discipline is widely recognized as an emerging academic field that is transforming research and scholarship on children.
Since Rutgers–Camden introduced the country’s first PhD program in childhood studies in 2007, the pioneering program has attracted graduate students like Goel from around the world. Additionally, Rutgers–Camden is home to 163 undergraduate childhood studies majors, eight master’s students, and some of the world’s top childhood studies scholars.
“We want to encourage research that includes a global perspective on children,” says Charles Watters, chair of the Department of Childhood Studies and a professor at Rutgers–Camden. “Our goal is to foster our students’ knowledge of global and interdisciplinary perspectives on childhood.”
Faculty members from the Rutgers-Camden Department of Childhood Studies stand with Margaret Marsh and Howard Gillette at the announcement of the Marsh-Gillette Endowed Fund for Childhood Studies at Rutgers-Camden. (From left to right): Dan Cook, Charles Watters, Margaret Marsh, Dan Hart, Lynne Vallone, Lauren Silver, Susan Miller, Howard Gillette.
To do so, Rutgers–Camden is developing academic partnerships with institutions around the world to allow students to visit other countries and undertake childhood studies research that has a global reach.
One such partnership is with Linköping University in Sweden. Like Rutgers–Camden, the Linköping Department of Childhood Studies is one of the few programs in the world that grants doctoral degrees in the field.
Dan Cook, an associate professor of childhood studies at Rutgers–Camden, travelled to Sweden to meet with Linköping students about their research in March 2010, and Linköping faculty came to Rutgers–Camden to speak to and instruct students during the spring of 2011. That partnership will continue next year.
Rutgers–Camden’s childhood studies program is also making inroads in Brazil. Watters is currently engaged in developing partnerships with universities in Brasilia. As part of a course he teaches on childhood and migration, undergraduate students will soon have the opportunity to travel to observe programs for disadvantaged children there.
Another partnership is one with the New School in New York City, which is renowned for its progressive teachings in the social sciences, liberal arts, humanities, fine arts, design, public policy, and numerous other disciplines.
Watters is developing a partnership between Rutgers–Camden and the New School’s Graduate Program in International Affairs, and the two institutions are collaborating on the international studies of children and childhood.
“I want to encourage a more sophisticated analysis of children in other countries so that it’s not only about analyzing shortcomings,” Watters says. “It’s about what works in areas such as literacy, health, and public policy and what can be successfully
Charles Watters, chair of the Department of Childhood Studies and a professor at Rutgers-Camden, says the department strives to encourage research that includes a global perspective on children.
employed in other countries.”
Lynne Vallone, a professor of childhood studies at Rutgers–Camden, is involved with various international groups that study children's literature and culture. She is part of an international research team that is exploring the impact of the First World War on children's culture in the global south, North America, Europe, and the United Kingdom.
“As we work together to understand the issues that confront children globally and the ways in which childhood is constructed and represented around the world, the various international initiatives undertaken by faculty and student members of the department of childhood studies enhance our program by integrating our scholarship with top researchers from around the world and sharing our global reach,” Vallone says.
But Rutgers–Camden’s efforts don’t end with international partnerships. As befits a research university, Rutgers–Camden PhD students are partaking in their own groundbreaking research that seeks to understand the complexity of children’s issues on a global scale.
Goel, who has 17 years of experience working with international and national charities and non-profits organizations that help young people, is studying children’s rights at Rutgers–Camden.
Gulilat Abdi, a second-year PhD student from Ethiopia now living in Palmyra, is interested in how certain cultural values, social structures, and environmental factors influence the development of resiliency in African youth.
“Findings from my study can improve intervention program design and policy formulation that target children and youth in developing countries, Abdi says.
Martin Woodside, a second-year PhD student and presidential fellow in the Rutgers–Camden Childhood Studies Department, studies the lack of Romanian children’s literature both in Romania and internationally.
Woodside, of Philadelphia, says international childhood studies offers seemingly countless possibilities for expanding what we already know.
“As childhood studies grow, it seems critical to me that we grow with a truly international focus, one that looks to encompass different visions and constructions of childhood,” he says.
That is also true for Anandini Dar, a PhD student who also teaches “Introduction to Childhood Studies” to undergraduates at Rutgers–Camden.
“When I show images and discuss readings about children’s lives from India, Norway, Brazil, or even California, it helps deconstruct the often intimately held modern idea that childhood is a period of play,” says Dar, a Philadelphia resident and recipient of the prestigious David K. Sengstack Fellowship.
Dar continues, “One student early on in class said he didn’t realize how different children’s lives can be in various parts of the world. Such a lens incorporates and extends knowledge beyond the bounds of New Jersey.”
Rutgers–Camden’s Department of Childhood Studies was established through Rutgers’ Academic Excellence Fund, has attracted a number of presidential fellowships, and graduate students participate in programs of study on both the Camden and New Brunswick campuses.
For more information on the Department of Childhood Studies, visit childhood.camden.rutgers.edu.
Media Contact: Ed Moorhouse
(856) 225-6759
E-mail: ejmoor@camden.rutgers.edu
