Book and Film Reviews  135 

The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada  
 

Xiaobei Chen, Rebecca Raby, and Patrizia Albanese, Editors (2017).  
Toronto: Canadian Scholars. 425 pages.  

$74.95 (print). ISBN 978-1-77338-018-6 (softcover). 978-1-77338-019-3 (PDF). 

978-1-77338-020-9 (EPUB). 

 

 

The editors and contributors to The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada 
seek to revise childhood and youth studies through inversion of their developmental 

stages. We see child-centered stories that revamp the criteria that one uses to 

define what young folks need to know and be in society. The contributors treat us 

to a wealth of sources and methods for representation of youngsters’ lives. The 

volume has 20 chapters in four sections, an introductory essay, and a glossary at 
the end.  

 

The introductory chapter notifies the reader that children and youth are individuals 

whose lives do not neatly fit the contexts that experts assign. The editors depict the 

very real challenges that any student of research with children, youth, and their 
families faces. There is a perennial topic in Section I: Research on and with Children 

and Youth, which concerns how researchers form relationships with youngsters. The 

writing in the five chapters is quite lively, and contributors write to the research 

neophyte. Section II: Social Constructions of Childhood and Youth, investigates 

experiences and texts in children’s lives. We look at studies in disability, 

friendships, and storybooks. Section III: Inequalities and Intersections in 
Experiences of Childhood and Youth, shakes the assumption of benevolence in 

institutions. Section IV: Citizenship, Rights, and Social Engagement, points out that 

international standards such as those in the United Nations Convention on the 

Rights of the Child (CRC) buttress the need for recognition of children as 

participants in determination of their life courses. There is a perennial reminder that 
international law like the CRC may articulate Western norms and ideals of 

childhood.  

 

The editors give us a wide scope of topics, and possibilities for further research 

programs may be imagined. It is laudable to draw in readers who are students as 
active participants in creation of research questions and consideration of ethical 

issues. I carefully read the glossary, and it is an enjoyable read on its own. Its 

writing reminds readers of key methods and lessons from the studies in the 

collection. I applaud inclusion of research in Francophone educational contexts. 

Investigators decouple a traditional relationship between pedagogy and Quebec 

nationalism. This pairing is being ruptured through focus on the child as a “unit of 
analysis” (p. 51) who depicts the school environment and not “the other way 

around.” I like that methods are part of the stories because all researchers make 

and remake plans as they collect and analyze data. Such weaving of methodological 

insights into story shows how research actually occurs.  

 
The authors make great effort to ensure that their unique studies pose arguments 

and questions of interest to readers. Unfortunately, there is a significant problem: 



Book and Film Reviews  136 

there is simply too much information in the chapters. To illustrate my criticism, I 

refer to chapter 16 by Cameron Greensmith and Adam Davies. There is brief 
mention of a student, David, who did once attend his school’s gay-straight alliance 

(GSA) meetings but decided not to continue involvement because in his opinion, 

lesbians and tea dominated the club’s rhythm. In sum, he did not feel included in 

the club. I did really enjoy reading this anecdote, and Greensmith and Davies are 

correct that it deserves picking apart, as there are issues of sexism, racism, power, 
diversity, and complexity that affect development of GSAs in schools. This story 

could be the focus of the entire chapter, but the authors introduce it and then leap 

to another topic. A counterpoint to chapter 16 is Jihan Abbas’ superb chapter six, 

which begins with her memories of her brother, her home, and her childhood. She 

uses literature to comprehend her experiences, frustrations, and hopes for children 

with disabilities. 
 

Significant topics that are likely to interest readers get short shrift. In chapter five, 

Jacqueline Kennelly, Valerie Stam, and Lynette Schick have a relationship that 

transcends standard understandings of roles and responsibilities of faculty, their 

students, and their community coinvestigators, collaborators, and consultants. 
What we witness are exposures of everyone’s vulnerabilities and mentorship 

through care of one another. Unfortunately, this lesson is an implicit one—I think 

that it is such a powerful one that it needs extensive discussion in an additional part 

of the essay. 

 
Several chapters refer to the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for 

Research Involving Humans-2. I think that there is a need for a single chapter that 

identifies the concepts of childhood in the document, analyzes its relevant parts, 

and outlines rigorously implications for researchers. There could be a direct 

inference on how the concepts of childhood and attendant research guidelines could 

affect the review processes of research ethics boards in Canadian universities and 
colleges.  

 

Many contributors frame their positionalities with the aid of Pierre Bourdieu’s 

concepts of doxa, field, habitus, and symbolic capital. For effective comprehension 

by students, a chapter prior to the meat of the collection or at the end of it for 
review would be of value. It could also be a comprehensive introduction or review 

of theories of relevance to the sociology of childhood, for example, in work by 

Michel Foucault.  

 

The biggest problem in this book is its majority focus on urban Ontario, in spite of 
its claim to represent childhoods in Canada. An explanation for reliance on Ontario 

is necessary—I am sure students using the book in postsecondary institutions are 

going to wonder how a body of work set mainly in and around Toronto—where only 

a quarter of the nation’s population resides—accounts for all children and youth in 

Canada. While I believe that there is an urban hue on childhood since the postwar 
years, I wonder why the editors did not take a greater effort to seek contributors 

who study rural sociology or conduct research in rural and remote areas of Canada.  

 



Book and Film Reviews  137 

The questions that appear at the end of every chapter could be launch pads for 

investigation by students in their local lives. In sum, the book’s placement of 
children and youth knowledges as roots that give expression to possibilities capsize 

the developmental and dependent caricatures of the child figure. 

 

 

Review by Jonathan Anuik 
 

Jonathan Anuik received his Ph.D. degree in History from the University of 

Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. He is currently an associate professor in the 

Educational Policy Studies department at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, 

Canada, where he teaches courses in Indigenous educational history and policy. He 

researches nourishing the learning spirit, youth and teachers in Archie comics, and 
the pedagogy of the history of education in teacher education.