Representing Agency in Popular Culture

Representing Agency in Popular Culture: Children and Youth on Page, Screen and In-Between addresses the intersection of childrens and youths agency and popular culture. As scholars in childhood studies and beyond seek to expand understandings of agency, power, and voice in childrens lives, this book places popular culture and representation as central to this endeavor. Core themes of family, gender, temporality, politics, education, technology, disability, conflict, identity, ethnicity, and friendship traverse across the chapters, framed through various film, television, literature, and virtual media sources. Here, childhood is considered far from homogeneous and the dominance of neoliberal models of agency is questioned by intersectional and intergenerational analyses. This book posits there is vast power in popular culture representations of childrens agency, and interrogation of these themes through interdisciplinary lenses is vital to furthering knowledge and understanding about childrens lives and within childhood studies.