Daedalus articles from January 1993

Daedalus archives from January 1993

Social movements for children. (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... Why is there no successful social movement for children in the United States as the twenty-first century approaches?(1) This may be a question with a simple answer: children do not vote, lobby, or have money to influence public and private...

Contexts of optimal growth in childhood. (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... There are few things we claim to value more than our children. They are our most cherished resource; they represent the future; they justify the hardships of everyday life. "I am doing this for my children," says the exhausted bank executive or...

Child poverty and public policy: toward a comprehensive antipoverty agenda. (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... MUCH ATTENTION HAS BEEN FOCUSED recently on the economic well-being of children, particularly on the fact that the child poverty rate remains so high after the economic recovery of the 1980s, and so high relative to the rate in other...

Thoughts and images. (photographs of children) (America's Childhood) (Illustration)
January 1, 1993... This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me -- The simple News that Nature told-- With tender Majesty. Emily Dickenson There was such speed in her little body. John Crowe Ransom They do some wonderful things. They have some...

Towards sustainable development for American families. (strengthening the family unit) (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... Having no idea of how to raise children, and having never watched any parent raise himself, he could not even comprehend what such a relationship should be.(1) A PROMINENT THEME IN DISCUSSIONS about the welfare of America's children is...

Witness of joy. (children's capacity for joy) (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... I On a blustery February morning, I arrive at the unconscionably run-down Boston housing project that a policeman friend of mine believes should be evacuated and bombed. The scene of this sorrowful edifice is at the same time so...

Early childhood education: then and now. (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... HISTORICALLY AND CROSS CULTURALLY there is considerable variation in the ages at which children are sent to school. In the first half of the twentieth century in the United States, five or six was a common age for beginning formal schooling in...

America's children and their elementary schools. (cultural aspects of education) (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... America's children seem to have at least one large experience in common--school. They spend roughly one-quarter of their rooms, corridors, lunchrooms, and playgrounds, all under teachers' supervision. But the more we examine that experience,...

Teachers and schools - what makes a difference: a principal's perspective. (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... I HAVE BEEN WORKING AS A TEACHER, central office administrator, and principal in the Boston Public Schools for twenty-two years. The challenges are immense, and my colleagues and I ave to fight off pessimism and despair every day. At their...

Education: the crucial variable for children? (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... The image of schooling for all has had a powerful hold on American political consciousness for more than a century and a half Mass education has been the country's most important domestic social policy. --Ira Katznelson and Margaret...

Thief of time, unfaithful servant: television and the American child. (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... THE TIDE OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION moves slowly, giving advantage to some mutations over a period of centuries and eons. Social evolution is another matter altogether. Driven by discovery and invention, it is often rapid and unpredictable. Some...

"Why do men barbecue?" and other postmodern ironies of growing up in the decade of ethnicity. (America's Childhood)
January 1, 1993... PREAMBLE Once had lunch with Margaret mead at an American Anthropological Association meeting. It was a round-table event. The year was 1971. Someone asked her, "Which society is the best place to raise children?" "Not so fast," mead...