Abstract
Acknowledgement
With this issue, the Childhood Editors and Managing Editor bid farewell to Daniel Thomas Cook who is stepping down as co-editor after more than 12 years of dedicated and productive service to the Journal. Dan has been a pillar of this journal that was absolutely “his kind of thing” as he wrote in his introduction for the conversations that we published in the 25th anniversary volume (see Cook, 2018, vol. 25:1). He has been a very generous editor, in all kind of ways: generous in providing great ideas and taking new initiatives to keep the journal thriving; generous in his support to the editorial team, to authors and reviewers; generous in his efforts to contribute to the advancement of the childhood studies community, and generous in his support to younger colleagues, especially contributors coming from less privileged backgrounds. Likewise, he extended his kindness and generosity to us, co-editors, whenever we turned to him for help and advice. Dan has been a guardian of the strong ethical standards upheld by Childhood – in a context of the continuing marketization of academia and increasing pressure to publish, he has rigorously defended independent scholarship, quality and originality as the main criteria for the running of an academic journal.
His editorials have offered incisive analyses of Childhood Studies as a field pushing all of us to think critically about the issues and concepts we work with. Dan’s hard work, often taking place behind the scenes, has without any doubt contributed a great deal to the high regard that Childhood enjoys today.
Thank you, Dan, for all your contributions to the Journal – we will miss your participation both in our day-to-day operations as well as in long-term strategic work, but are convinced that you will continue to be a valued colleague and consultant for the field of childhood studies that will definitely remain, we are sure, “your kind of thing”.
Welcome
The Editors of Childhood are delighted to welcome Sarada Balagopalan as a new co-editor of Childhood. Sarada is Associate Professor of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University, Camden (USA). She has MA degrees from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Columbia University, New York, and earned her PhD at New York University. Trained in education and anthropology, her work draws from the lives of marginal children to historicize and disrupt hegemonic understandings of childhood, including challenging the exclusionary logics that often underlie humanist interventions. Sarada’s research is broadly focused on postcolonial childhoods and engages marginal children’s experiences with compulsory schooling, labour, skilling, children’s rights discourses and pedagogies of ‘citizenship’. Sarada is a familiar figure to the Childhood community, having authored several well-regarded articles in the journal, having been one of the guest editors of an important Special Issue on Children’s Lives and the Indian Context (2011, vol. 18:3) and served on the Editorial Board. Her work has also involved efforts to translate her research interests into curricular and related interventions in elementary education in India. Between 2005-2008, Sarada served as the Chief Advisor to the Indian government’s middle-school ‘Social and Political Life’ (earlier known as ‘civics’) textbooks. We are looking forward to working with you, Sarada.