Adrian James is Emeritus Professor of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield. He trained and practised as a probation officer and was subsequently extensively involved in their training. After becoming an academic in 1978, he researched and published widely in the field of socio-legal studies, including the completion of two major ESRC-funded projects on child welfare and divorce. Appointed as Professor of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Bradford in 1998, he became Professor of Social Work at the University of Sheffield in September 2004, during which time he was also Professor II at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. He was a Special Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on the Lord Chancellors Department when it scrutinised the work of the Children And Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) in 2002-03. His recent books include Constructing Childhood: Theory, Policy and Social Practice (co-authored with Allison James and published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004), The Child Protection Handbook, Elsevier/Ballière-Tindall, London/Edinburgh, 2007 (3rd. edn) (joint editor with K. Wilson), and European Childhoods: Cultures, Politics and Childhoods in Europe (edited with Allison James and published in 2008 by Palgrave). The first edition of Key Concepts in Childhood Studies (also with Allison James) was published by SAGE in 2008.

Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction
Age and Maturity
Agency
Best Interests
Child
Child-Focused Research /Research with Children
Child-Friendly
Childhood
Child Soldiers
Childhood Studies
Children as Consumers
Children as Researchers
Childrens Voices
Citizenship
Competence
Cultural Politics of Childhood
Cultural Relativism
Delinquency
Developmental Psychology
Developmentalism
Disappearance or Loss of Childhood
Diversity
Ethnicity
Familialization
Family
Friendship
Futurity
Gender
Generation
Global Childhood
Health
Innocence
Internet and New Social Media
Interpretive Reproduction
Minority Group Status
Nature vs. Nurture
Needs
Neglect
Parenting
Participation
Peer Group
Play
Poverty
Protection
Representation
Resilience
Responsibility
Rights
Schooling and Schools
Sexual Abuse
Sexualization
Social Actor
Social Construction
Social World
Socialization
Spaces for Children and Childrens Places
Standpoint
Street Children
Structure
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)
Vulnerability
Welfare
Work and Working Children
Youth