Call for papers – Norbert Elias and Sociology of Childhood

Submissions are invited for the book Norbert Elias and Sociology of Childhood  to be edited by Tatiana Savoia Landini (Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil) and Norman Gabriel (University of Essex, United Kingdom)

Since its emergence in the 1990s, the growing field of Childhood and Youth Studies has fuelled debates about ways of conceptualising childhood in society, making children’s views heard, promoting interdisciplinary methodology and analysis. One of the long-term projects of childhood sociology has been to fill the conceptual, methodological, social and political lacunae that still exist in the theories and research of mainstream sociology.

However, innovative thinking about children and childhood is not limited to those scholars who identify themselves as part of the Childhood and Youth Studies. For Norbert Elias, sociologists need to develop an approach that is relational and processual, investigating long-term historical processes which are dynamic and structured in different societies. Understanding long-term processes related to children and, at the same time, new figurations formed by and with children may be an important contribution that comes from Elias´s theory. Such as approach is multi-disciplinary, making  important connections with other related disciplines such as developmental psychology, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, biology, history, anthropology, geography, literature and politics. In this connection, the goal of this book is to discuss Norbert Elias’s processual and figurational sociology contribution to this research field. By the same token, this book seeks to raise questions about how Childhood and Youth Studies contribute to the wider discipline of sociology, especially to Elias´s sociology.

We invite all scholars who are keen to develop Elias’s sociology and to the research field on children and youth to contribute to this book. We welcome proposals that are more theoretical as well as proposals focused on empirical research. The dominant (though shifting) ideals of children, youth and upbringing; processes of social learning, integration, distinction and fragmentation; processes of violence against and involving children and youth; social and public policies on culture, education, health, immigration and public security are all topics that we want to see addressed in the book.

Proposals should be sent directly to both editors and should consist of an expanded abstract (3 pages max). Deadline for proposals: 29 May 2020,

Tatiana Savoia Landini – tatiana.landini@unifesp.br
Norman Gabriel – n.r.gabriel@essex.ac.uk