Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures

Black Lives Matter – Statement of Solidarity

Lauren Bosc — 2020-08-27

Masthead

Lauren Bosc — 2020-08-27

Editorial Pictorial

Sally Campbell Galman — 2020-08-27

Introduction to Special Section—Youngsters 2: On the Cultures of Young People

Naomi Hamer — 2020-08-27

“God Only Knows What It’s Doing to Our Children’s Brains": A Closer Look at Internet Addiction Discourse

Katie Mackinnon — 2020-08-27

This article examines the current discourse of “ethical technology” or “tech humanism” as it relates to young people’s use of mobile and social media. Reminiscent of earlier moral and media panics surrounding the use of communication technologies by young people, the current rhetoric focuses on “internet addiction” and other health aspects, and whether and how tech companies should be responsible for the use of their products and services. It is a contested debate that has brought together reformed Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs, policy-makers, health specialists, academics, educators, and parents. In this article we demonstrate the range of stakeholders deeply engaged in these debates to argue that while there is genuine concern about the power and influence of social media and digital technologies, fears about young people’s relationships with digital technology has been profitable, and discourse on “internet addiction” has worked in ways that protect corporations and redirect condemnation away from them and toward the young people they are claiming to protect. In making this argument, we trace a history of “internet addiction” research in order to situate the current discourse, examine the rhetorical shift that emphasizes the health effects of technology on young people, survey the stakeholders leading these debates, and assesses the corporate responsibility of tech companies that depend on the commodification of young people’s content for their bottom line.

Girls Playing at Soldiers: Destabilizing the Masculinity of War Play in Georgian Britain

Jennine Hurl-Eamon — 2020-08-27

This article destabilizes previous assumptions of the inherent masculinity of war play by examining the many forms of Georgian girls’ participation. Girls may not have used professionally manufactured guns, but they did similar things with more makeshift weapons. Veterans’ accounts played a key role in inspiring both boys’ and girls’ re-enactments. Girls’ interest in war play was fuelled by complex social messaging admiring female soldiers and praising the value of martial training for both sexes. These findings highlight the need to historicize play and to recognize the pervasive influence of war in eighteenth-century girls’ lives.

“Girls Don’t Like Cars, They Like ‘Girl’ Cars”: Kindergarten Children’s Conceptions of Gender and Play Materials

Ameera Ali — 2020-08-27

Play is a central element of childhood through which children acquire physical, emotional, intellectual, and social skills. The gendered facets of play materials also influence children’s conceptions of themselves as gendered beings and what this implies about their position within the broader social world. Considering that much of the current research on gender and play materials does not actively seek children’s perspectives on their play choices, this research seeks to address this gap in the literature by striving to provide opportunities for children to express their insights and perspectives pertaining to gendered play. This small qualitative study with six kindergarten children focuses on their conceptions of the gender appropriateness of play materials. Themes elicited from participants’ responses include play materials as gender neutral, play materials as gender specific, gender flexibility, and contingent gender flexibility. Implications of these results as well as recommendations for early childhood practitioners and parents are provided.

Those that Fly: Michaela DePrince and the Transnational Politics of Rescue

Sarah Olutola — 2020-08-27

This article analyzes Taking Flight, a memoir written by former African war-orphan-turned-ballerina Michaela DePrince with her white adoptive mother Elaine DePrince. Through an analysis of DePrince’s narrative, this article seeks to lay out how the privileged international movement of African youths uncomfortably aligns with more violent forms of inter and intra-national movement, including child soldiering as well as the shutting down of borders to other racialized children who do not meet the ideological requirements implied by discourses of childhood innocence. By thinking through the acceptance and rejection of black and racialized children across borders, this article will not only interrogate the Western framework of humanitarianism but also explore how the subjective formations of a rescued African child can either challenge or be contained in service of the hegemonic terminology of human rights that makes her movement possible.

Negotiating the Hyphens in a Culture of Surveillance: Embodied Surveillance and the Representation of Muslim Adolescence in Anglophone YA Fiction

Lisa White — 2020-08-27

In the era defined by the war on terror, border security, and increased Western cultural anxiety, the discourses of politics, race, and gender influence the representation of non-normative bodies, notably in the signification of female Muslim adolescent bodies as sites of political, racial, and cultural contestation within a culture of surveillance. Mirroring Western society, Anglophone YA fiction typically privileges white normative portrayals of Western adolescence. Fostered in a culture of suspicion, the revitalized orientalist tropes depict Muslim adolescent girls as bodies to “save,” “fear,” and “Westernize.” An emerging group of YA novels presents a substantive challenge to this tradition by seeking to disrupt patriarchal, white normative conceptualizations of Western adolescence. Through an analysis of Randa Abdel-Fattah’s When Michael Met Mina and S. K. Ali’s Saints and Misfits, this article explores the ways in which the female Muslim adolescent body is constructed as a product of surveillance, problematizing the experiences of embodied surveillance and the complexities of being identified as a part of racialized surveillant assemblages.

Palestinian Children’s Literature: An Overview

Hanan Mousa — 2020-08-27

This resource offers a general historical overview of Palestinian children’s literature since 1948, the year when the whole Palestinian people ceased living in Palestine. After the establishment of the State of Israel, many Palestinians were either evacuated and driven from their homeland or chose to leave. Critics have divided Palestinian literature since that time into three categories: Palestinian literature in the diaspora, Palestinian literature in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinian literature inside Israel. Children’s literature is a part of each of these Palestinian literatures, and I discuss its development in what follows.

On Being Haunted by King: An Elegy for Queer Youth

Adam J. Greteman — 2020-08-27

In this elegy for queer youth, the author returns to a photo of Lawrence/Leticia King to reflect on the ways King's life and death provided then and now insights on the promises and perils of queer and trans youth in schools. King has become a part of the past, a shared queer past, but a past that might be used to imagine a future—a queer, a trans, future—for students becoming amidst the halls and classrooms of school.

Mille Pompons! Fantômette, the Famous, Unknown, Schoolgirl Superhero of France

Julie M. Still — 2020-08-27

One significant character in French and Francophone literature aimed at young girls is completely absent from English language culture. The books and other media about crime fighting schoolgirl Françoise Dupont / Fantômette have not been translated into English and are very sparsely represented in American and British libraries. She is ubiquitous enough in Francophone culture to be referred to without any explanation (much as English publications would reference a detective named Nancy or Hermione the witch). Who is this heroine and why have we never heard of her?

Cross-Border Bodies: How to Fit When Your Body Does Not

Leonor Ruiz-Guerrero — 2020-08-27

Review of:

Brun-Cosme, Nadine and Aurélie Guillerey. Daddy Long Legs. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2017.

Cali, Davide and Sébastien Mourrain. The Tiny Tale of Little Pea. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2017.

Leng, Qin. I Am Small. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2018.

Renaud, Anne and Marie Lafrance. The True Tale of a Giantess: The Story of Anna Swan. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2018.

Where are the Girls? Locating Girlhood in Game Studies

Ashley P. Jones — 2020-08-27

Review of:

Cunningham, Carolyn M. Games Girls Play: Contexts of Girls and Video Games. Lexington Books, 2018.

Detours of Growth

David Lewkowich — 2020-08-27

Review of:

Farley, Lisa. Childhood beyond Pathology: A Psychoanalytic Study of Development and Diagnosis. SUNY P, 2018.

“Always Becoming”: Posthuman Subjectivity in Young Adult Fiction

Anah-Jayne Markland — 2020-08-27

Review of:

Tarr, Anita, and Donna R. White, editors. Posthumanism in Young Adult Fiction: Finding Humanity in a Posthuman World. UP of Mississippi, 2018.

Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral? Nordic Ecocritical Approaches to Children’s Texts

Catherine Olver — 2020-08-27

Review of:

Goga, Nina, Lykke Guanio-Uluru, Bjørg Oddrun Hallås, Aslaug Nyrnes, editors. Ecocritical Perspectives on Children’s Texts and Cultures: Nordic Dialogues. Palgrave, 2018.

Toward a Transformative Education within Youth Media Production

Sandra Chamberlain-Snider — 2020-08-27

Review of:

Jocson, Korina M. Youth Media Matters: Participatory Cultures and Literacies in Education. U of Minnesota P, 2018.

About Jeunesse

Lauren Bosc — 2020-08-27

Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures

Black Lives Matter – Statement of Solidarity

Masthead

Table of Contents

Editorial Pictorial

Introduction to Special Section—Youngsters 2: On the Cultures of Young People

“God Only Knows What It’s Doing to Our Children’s Brains": A Closer Look at Internet Addiction Discourse

Girls Playing at Soldiers: Destabilizing the Masculinity of War Play in Georgian Britain

“Girls Don’t Like Cars, They Like ‘Girl’ Cars”: Kindergarten Children’s Conceptions of Gender and Play Materials

Those that Fly: Michaela DePrince and the Transnational Politics of Rescue

Negotiating the Hyphens in a Culture of Surveillance: Embodied Surveillance and the Representation of Muslim Adolescence in Anglophone YA Fiction

Palestinian Children’s Literature: An Overview

On Being Haunted by King: An Elegy for Queer Youth

Mille Pompons! Fantômette, the Famous, Unknown, Schoolgirl Superhero of France

Cross-Border Bodies: How to Fit When Your Body Does Not

Where are the Girls? Locating Girlhood in Game Studies

Detours of Growth

“Always Becoming”: Posthuman Subjectivity in Young Adult Fiction

Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral? Nordic Ecocritical Approaches to Children’s Texts

Toward a Transformative Education within Youth Media Production

About Jeunesse