Reclaiming Childhood is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research project that examines the changing nature of American childhood. Under the auspices of the Simpson Center, Project Director Katharyne Mitchell aims to engage faculty from the University of Washington with students, parents, mentors, teachers, and administrators in a discussion of the multiple factors affecting childhood and schooling in the contemporary era.

rchild@u.washington.edu

About the Project

All of the core faculty in the research group are working on publications for a broad audience. Katharyne Mitchell is currently engaged in two public writing projects. The first is entitled, "Pay to Play: Privatizing Childhood," which investigates the growth and impact of corporatized child “edutainment” centers and the increased fees required for public school students to participate in after-school music and sports activities. This paper will be submitted to the magazine American Prospect. This material was presented in two public lectures: the first on October 5th in the “Reclaiming Childhood Lecture Series,” held the first Wednesday of every month during the academic year, 2005-2006; the second on April 7th at the University of Toronto as part of the Centre for the Study of the United States’ F. Ross Johnson/Connaught Distinguished Speakers’ Series.

Mitchell is also engaged in a book-length monograph, tentatively entitled, Stealing Childhood. This study examines the spaces and sites through which childhood is experienced, with a focus on the changing nature of education. Global competition, public disinvestment, and a heightened fear of domestic and foreign violence are affecting the institutions and experiences of American children. The testing culture in public schools, defunding of the humanities, stress on competition and individual achievement, and loss of public parks and play space occur in tandem with ongoing refrains about public school failure and the virtues of the market system. These processes and rhetorics indicate a more general backlash against the tenets of multicultural democracy and the formation of a democratic citizen.

Forthcoming

Mitchell, K. and Parker, W.C. "I Pledge Allegiance To...Flexible Citizenship and Shifting Scales of Belonging" Forthcoming in Teachers College Record.

2006

McCue, F. "The Poet Richard Hugo's Childhood Home." Jack Straw Writers Program Anthology, 2006.

Mitchell, K. "Children, Wandering" ARCADE: Architecture and Design in the Northwest, Summer 2006.

Mitchell, K. "Neoliberal Governmentality in the European Union: Education, Training, and Technologies of Citizenship" Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2006.

Parker, W.C. "Pledging Allegiance" Phi Delta Kappan, 2006.

Sutton, S.E., Kemp, S.P., Gutiérrez, L., & Saegert, S. Urban youth programs in America: a study of youth, community, and social justice conducted for the Ford Foundation, 2006.

2005

Parker, W.C. "Teaching Against Idiocy" Phi Delta Kappan, 2005.

2003

Mitchell, K. "Educating the National Citizen in Neoliberal Times: From the Multicultural Self to the Strategic Cosmopolitan" Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2003.

2000

Mitchell, K. "Education for Democratic Citizenship: Transnationalism, Multiculturalism, and the Limits of Liberalism" Harvard Educational Review, 2000.

 

 

 

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