Each student will select a country in the majority world (NOT Canada, US, European Union) at random in Week 3 and investigate the ideas and expectations regarding childhood in that country. This country and its context will become the focus of their work in this course. This report is an opportunity for students to critically engage with the theoretical and practical elements explored in this course and put them to work in a particular context through research and reflection. In this report, students are expected to explore the following elements:
i. demographic details of their focus country – including populations, geographies, major industries, government infrastructure and key historical information;
ii. key issues facing children in their focus country, including a profile of a grassroots child-focused service or program, local to their focus country;
iii. the relationship established by their chosen country and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the effects of the CRC on their chosen country’s ideas and expectations of children and childhood;
iv. contrasts between their focus country’s ideas regarding childhood and popular Western/Northern conceptualizations of childhood;
v. connections between this research to their reflections on their own childhood.
This paper will be written in in full sentences and with proper citations and references according to APA, between 5 and no more than 7 pages double-spaced (excluding first page/references), be theoretically grounded in the course material, and refer to additional scholarly and child-related professional and advocacy material (minimum 3 peer-reviewed journal articles).