Researching Ideas: Post #2

The Children’s Culture Reader and Childhood in America both cover a large group of topics in which child development has significant relevance. For most it would be easy to relate topics within these two books to areas of interest for their research papers. With my hardheaded luck it is a little different. I have already decided that I want to discover child development in the Middle Eastern region. With that in mind it is hard to pick out subjects within these books that will closely relate to my area of interest.

The first subject I found interesting was the “Eye of the Storm” (The Children’s Culture Reader, p. 150) experiment. Racism, though not as extreme as it once was, is still of relevance. Historically, it is unbelievable that any person would conduct and experiment that would be so controversial in racisms peak years. The experiment interests me because most children do not understand, recognize, nor know how to signify sarcasm. This one thought makes me believe that this experiment could have a much more real effect on the students’ way of thinking.

A second topic I found interesting was that of gender relations in the school setting (Childhood in America, p. 118). Since most Middle Eastern countries are not developed and set up the way that our system is, girls still receive different treatment than boys do. This include in schools, if they are lucky enough to attend. Though it is most likely that in the future there will be more equality in education, it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of kids of Middle Eastern descent on their experiences with gender relations inside the schools as well as outside.

Another subject I found interesting and relatively pertinent to my subject was the subject of child labor (The Children’s Culture Reader, p. 81). In areas of the world such as Egypt, Child labor has been a huge topic for at least the past fifty years. The subject of child labor in Egypt has led to a skewed number in the population. The importance of families having children to to cultivate farms and earn a decent income for the family has led a great deal of families to not report kids to the national census. A discrepancy of hundreds of thousands has had a significant impact on government planning. Though the book discusses social, psychological and economic issues of child labor in America, I think that it would make for an interesting research paper on the effects of child labor in Egypt.

Comments

[HISTORY LINKS]

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/07/iraq.scene/
http://www.mercycorps.org/items/1849/
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3069564/
http://www.iacenter.org/knowledg.htm

[ryan]

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/iraq/sadquots.htm

http://www.iraqinews.com/org_ashbal_saddam.shtml

http://www.operationsick.com/articles/20030328_komosaddamschildsoldiers.asp

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Dictators/Saddam_Ruins.html

[ryan]

http://meero.worldvision.org/news_article.php?newsID=198

http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/iraqfocus1.pdf

http://www.command-post.org/2_archives/013484.html