Narcissistic individuals feel superior to others, fantasize about personal successes, and believe they deserve special treatment. When they feel humiliated, they often lash out aggressively or even violently. “Origins of narcissism in children,” PANS 2015    Most people associate narcissism with adults, but today’s headlines suggest it is now children who are being pointed at […]

Earlier this year, New York’s iconic Scholastic store in SoHo permanently closed. I never visited the store while it was open, but I got a glimpse of its history while visiting the small exhibit that was put in its place. The larger piece in the exhibit (displayed in an entrance window) is a scroll-shaped canvas with an […]

Perceptions about childhood and innocence tend to go hand in hand. People generally believe that young children are innocent and deserving of a worry-free childhood. Unfortunately, children in racialized groups might stop benefitting from such convenient assumptions way earlier in life than children in more racially advantaged groups. Dr. Goff from the University of California in Los […]

Pauline Hunt and Ronald Frankenberg wrote an academic analysis about Disneyland titled “It’s a Small World” several decades ago, before Disneyland became the multibillion dollar company it is now. Today, their analysis is still on target. The authors’ reflections on their own experience visiting Disneyland (as a couple) in the nineties illustrate a sense of “infinite nostalgia” that today’s visitors might […]

Every now and then I read an interesting article about parenting. While this is not a blog on parenting, I like to comment on articles that address these issues because they reflect a big part of how we think about children. On “Seven Reasons We Hate Free-Range Parents,” Meghan McArdle wonders why America has “gone lunatic” on […]

Sociologist Sari Knopp Biklen died last year, but she left a substantial body of research that will undoubtedly be brought to life by people across disciplines. In reading her article “Trouble on Memory Lane,” I am reminded of the analytical risks of working with youth, including the assumption that we can connect to a group we once […]

Every now and then I like to look at the stories told by teenagers on slam poetry contests (see 5 November 2013). Here is an excerpt from Patrick Roche’s performance at the 2014 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational in Colorado. The poem tells Roche’s experience growing up in a shattered family, possibly repressing his homosexuality. While Patrick counts […]

In an article published in 2008, sociologist Penny Tinkler argued that “Very little is known about the photographic practices of people under 18 — that is, the range of ways and media through which they take, feature in, and use photographs.” Today, her words might make readers chuckle. Anyone looking at teenagers’ current photo uses would be surprised […]

In recent years, the US has strongly favored education programs that focus on creating more engineers and scientists. Education advocates have opened up debates on how to get children more interested in STEM fields, an acronym that stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. They are also interested in learning how to integrate these subjects into children’s everyday […]

Last week, the Business Insider published an article about the way we see colors, arguing that until recently in human history, people did not “see” or notice blue. In The Odyssey, it explains, “Homer famously describes the ‘wine-dark sea.’ But why ‘wine-dark’ and not deep blue or green?” The suggested answer is not a mere matter of […]

Or On the Importance of Inclusion To some extent, ethnic art (including film and literature) has been recognized as an empowering tool for minorities. Latino and African-American advocates have consistently pushed for the inclusion of content reflecting the lives and struggles of people of color in art and at school. But while these stories have […]