Partners
The Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth at the
University of Sheffield
The Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth was established in 2002. It is a multi-disciplinary
Research Centre committed to contributing to the improvement of children and young people's lives.
Through research and dissemination it is actively involved in gaining a greater understanding of the
lives of children and young people in modern society and in helping to develop and shape local, national
and international policies that improve their everyday lives.
High Tech High Chula Vista
While the campus of this new school will not be built until 2008, the school welcomed its first students in
Fall 2007 at a temporary location. The school embraces an environmental theme and utilizes project-based
learning that integrates subjects and involves students in their community in meaningful ways. Representatives
of the ISYS Center and the Department of Geography will be working with the school’s staff to develop innovative
projects through which the students will interact with and illuminate characteristics of their local environment.
This is one of two new schools opening under the California Statewide Benefit Charter that was awarded to High Tech High in 2006.
Norwegian Centre for Child Research
It is NOSEB's purpose to initiate and carry out research on the life worlds of children and childhood. It aims
at creating comprehensive insights in and understanding of the conditions under which children grow up and of
the basic premises of childhood in modern society. The aims of the Centre are, through theoretical and empirical
studies, to describe and explain both the framework for children's lives and children's own activities. As such,
much of the research which is being done at NOSEB is in line with the new social studies of childhood. These
studies include both structure and agency as important perspectives. It is the expectation that NOSEB's studies
and research themes are contextualized socially, economically, spatially, temporarily, technologically and/or
culturally, and not least in intergenerational terms. Thus, NOSEB's research focus is methodological rather
than thematic.
The overall purpose of NOSEB's research is to make complexity transparent in a field of research which is
highly significant for society and its people, be it children or adults. Interdisciplinary work has a high
priority in NOSEB's research profile. Also, the Centre perceives an international and comparative orientation
as indispensable - even for the understanding of Norwegian childhood(s). NOSEB aims at enhancing competence in
its field of research, not least through producing new PhD candidates. Furthermore, the Centre hosts both national
and international guest researchers.
-(NOSEB Board 1/1/05)
PlayBoard, Northern Ireland
PlayBoard is the lead agency for children's play in Northern Ireland, working to improve the quality of
children's lives by increasing their opportunity to play. Playboard are constantly involved with the creation
and implementation of exciting new initiatives and projects. Some are a necessary reaction to fresh statistics
which highlight new areas of concern such as 'obesity in children'. Others support many vital areas of essential
development. PlayBoard projects of particular interest include Reclaiming PlaySpace, Positive PlayGrounds, and
the Extended Schools Initiative.
All projects contribute to the agencies goal of “Changing the child's world through play.”