Cover; Contents; Tables; Preface; Notes on Contributors; The Modern Child and the Flexible Labour Market: An Introduction; Part I: The Labour Market and Institutionalization of Modern Childhood: Historical and Comparative Perspectives; 1 Dilemmas over Childcare in Norway, Sweden and West Germany after 1945; 2 Childcare Policies at a Crossroads: The Case of Iceland; 3 Free Choice or Gentle Force? How Can Parental Leave Change Gender Practices?; 4 'Flexible Flexibility': Norwegian Politics of Daycare; 5 Kindergartens in Denmark -- Reflections on Continuity and Change
Part II: Flexible Spaces, Flexible Children? Contemporary Policy and Practice6 'Child-Centredness' and 'the Child': The Cultural Politics of Nursery Schooling in England; 7 Governed Markets and Democratic Experimentalism: Two Possibilities for Early Childhood Education and Care; 8 Daycare, Flexible Workers and the Combination of Work and Childcare; 9 Kindergarten as a Bazaar: Freedom of Choice and New Forms of Regulation; 10 Children's Sense of Place: Aspects of Individualization, Flexibility and Free Choice within the Preschool Context
11 Flexible Spaces -- Flexible Subjects in 'Nature': Transcending the 'Fenced' Childhood in Daycare Centres?12 Policies of Early Childhood Education and Care: Partnership and Individualization; Part III: Concluding Thoughts; 13 Users and Interested Parties: A Concluding Essay on Children's Institutionalization; 14 Childhood and Social Investments: Concluding Thoughts; Index
Summary
This book sheds light on new research related to welfare state, child care policies, and small children's everyday lives in institutions in Europe. In uniting recent social childhood research, welfare perspectives and historical and comparative approaches, the book explores institutionalization as a feature of the modern child's life
