Scholars giving voice so that children and youth can speak for themselves: An introduction to this special volume

Abstract

During the 2006 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA), a group of us gathered for a session entitled, “Children and Youth Speak for Themselves.” The session was sponsored by the Children and Youth Section of the ASA, and it was well attended. The topic was one that many of us had long been awaiting at a major conference. The papers were good, and there was enthusiasm among those of us gathered there that day. As the session ended, and the attendees flowed out of the room, those of us who had given papers on the panel were filled with a sense of excitement about what had just taken place. There was a palpable energy surrounding a topic near and dear to the hearts of us and our peer scholars of children and youth: the authentic voices of kids themselves. We had a sense that day that something important had happened. We had made central to our discipline, at least for a moment, the perspectives of young people (people who most often cannot, on their own, make their voices heard by a scholarly audience). That session took place in Montreal, Canada, in the summer.

Citation

Beth Johnson, H. (2010), "Scholars giving voice so that children and youth can speak for themselves: An introduction to this special volume", Beth Johnson, H. (Ed.) Children and Youth Speak for Themselves (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. xiii-xv. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-4661(2010)0000013004