This work argues that children's needs have often been neglected in the social sciences, especially in the areas of law, social policy and sociology. It presents empirical research on children in contemporary family settings and provides suggestions for future research and policy initiatives.

The postmodern child, Chris Jenks; the politics of children's rights, Jeremy Roche; strategies and structures - towards a new perspective on children's experiences of family life, Allison James and Alan Prout; the challenge in child research - from being to doing, Anne Solberg; demographic change and the family situation of children, Lynda Clarke; children's constructions of family and kinship, Margaret O'Brien, Pam Alldred and Deborah Jones; helping out - children's labour participation in Chinese take-away businesses in Britain, Miri Song; discourses of adolescence - young people's independence and autonomy within families, Julia Brannen; conceptualising parenting from the standpoint of children - relationship and transition in the life course, Pat Allatt; the economic circumstances of children in ten countries, Steven Kennedy, Peter Whiteford and Jonathan Bradshaw; family, state and social policy for children in Greece, Theodoros Papadopoulos; the crumbling bridges between childhood and adulthood, Hilary Land; teenage pregnancy - do social policies make a difference?, Peter Selman and Caroline Glendinning.