Kids in Context: The Sociological Study of Children and Childhoods

Sarane Spence Boocock is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University where she taught in the Department of Sociology and the Graduate School of Education. Formerly, she was a research scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, taught at Yale University, University of Southern California, and Johns Hopkins University, and was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Japan and a Visiting Professor and Fromer Memorial Lecturer at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author or co-author of books, book chapters, and articles in scholarly journals on the sociology of education, simulation games as learning devices, historical and sociological trends in family structure and family life, cross-cultural comparisons of childrearing, and the long-term effects of early childhood care and education programs. Her research has been supported by grants from the Carnegie Corporation, ESSO Educational Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Spencer Foundation, Packard Foundation, and the U.S. Office of Education. She is currently engaged in a cross-national project on the educational experiences of minority children in Japan and the United States. Kimberly Ann Scott is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education and Allied Human Services at Hofstra University, where she also holds an appointment in the Department of Foundations, Leadership, and Policy Studies. In 2003-2004, she was a Fellow at the Rutgers Center for Children and Childhood Studies. A sociologist of education and childhoods, her research interests include race, class, gender, and sociopolitical climate as intersecting features informing the academic and social developments of children in general and African-American girls in particular. Her publications include papers on children's friendships and play patterns, Latina and African-American girls' school experiences and achievements, African-American girls' access to computers and patterns of interactions in virtual space, rap music as a reflection of socie