Eleanor Roosevelt once described Edith King as a "worldminded woman". In LOOKING INTO THE LIVES OF CHILDREN: A WORLDWIDE VIEW, Edith King maintains this tradition which has guided her observation, research, writing and university teaching. Taking as her central theme the wide-ranging diversity and cultural pluralism which she sees as one of the key features of postmodern nations, she looks at the ways in which education should be delivered to young children ages four to ten years in the complex and diverse contemporary society in which they grow up. Her ultimate goal is that her writing will help teachers around the world to develop teaching strategies that acknowledge our human diversity within an overall context of equality and peacefulness.

Controversial but Important Topics in Relation to Children's Lives

This book is special because its wealth of information, anecdotes and research include very relevant but highly controversial and often neglected topics which are indispensable in any consideration of the relationship between the lives children lead and their education. These topics include the growing incidence of bi-ethnicity and multi-ethnicity of children and families today; the sexual orientation of children as young as ages 8-10; the lives of children from families of gay and lesbian parents; and the lives and childhood experience of children in families with triplets, quadruplets and more.

Guided by three overarching positions:

• a global and comparative view of children, families, and education;
• the sociological perspective;
• the qualitative approach to research design and methods,

each chapter opens by placing the experiences and education of young children ages four to ten years into a sociological focus. The chapters use personal accounts, anecdotes and stories taken from the first-hand experience of the daily life of young children to illuminate concepts and theories based on a qualitative, ethnographic research perspective.

Looking Into the Lives of Children: A Worldwide View is designed for graduate level teacher education courses, in-service courses and workshops and pre-service teacher education programs, especially courses in early childhood and primary education; educational sociology; qualitative research methods in childhood education, diversity and multicultural education.

Professor Peter Woods, Centre for Sociology and Social Research, The Open University, Milton Keynes, England wrote:

I do not know of any other (book) that combines the range of forms of inequality, the global view, the application of critical theory, and the implications for teachers and for school policy and practice. The vignettes... really bring home to the reader the experience of inequality.

Professor Jeanne Ballantine, University Center for Teaching and Learning, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio writes:

This is a valuable book for courses in teacher education. It will be especially valuable in Social Foundations of Education, Educational Psychology, Sociology of Education, Multicultural Education and related offerings. The examples of real children and what they face in their daily lives are illuminating for teachers in training.

Edith W. King, Professor of Education at the University of Denver, is a highly respected and distinguished teacher and an internationally recognized scholar in sociology of education and comparative education. Her recent books include Educating Young Children in a Diverse Society (with Marilyn Chipman and Marta Cruz-Janzen) Teaching Gender and Ethnic Awareness and Twentieth Century Social Thought (with R. P. Cuzzort).

Professor King (front center) is pictured in Vail, Colorado with a group of her international and US postgraduate students.