The critical literature on early childhood has grown in recent years. So much so, that in the UK, Routledge (an academic publisher) has an entire series entitled "Contesting Early Childhood". One of the latest titles in the series is Constructions of Neuroscience...
Autism, Parent-Blaming and False ‘Cures’ Once again the mainstream autism field risks blaming parents for the cause of autism. This time, through studies often funded by relative-led organisations. The “refrigerator mother” hypothesis blamed supposedly cold parenting for autism. Some of...
Attention to children’s brain development in the early years has been at the centre of English social policy since the late 1990s, and is linked to recent efforts to ‘improve people’s life chances’. Children’s food policy has been influenced by...
The Nobel Prize winners David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel demonstrated that kittens deprived of sensory input in one eye at birth remained permanently blind in that eye. The story of a blind kitten certainly tugs at the heart strings, but...
Picture perfect pregnancy Since the days when a pregnant Demi Moore posed proudly on the front cover of Vanity Fair, the media has bombarded us with images of what pregnancy should look like. Magazine covers display images of glowing women...
Early intervention (EI) is greatly concerned with the idea of ‘life chances’. This is the ‘good’ that EI seeks to provide for its citizens, and a fair distribution of life chances for children during the early years is seen as...
Upon receiving the call for papers for the panel Raising Europe: managing parents and the production of good citizens, I immediately thought it was relevant for our BeGOOD research on mothering and early intervention. The notion that parents can be...
