Abstract
This chapter presents a peace and justice framework that considers direct and structural violence, and examines the effects of war on young children in the United States. All young children in the United States have lived their lives during a time that their country has been at war. Widely acknowledged is the impact of war on more than 800,000 children whose parents have been deployed—often multiple times—in armed combat. First, researchers report that preschool children with deployed parents are more likely to act out and be aggressive. Second are effects on all young children who hear accounts of war, and casualties, from the media as well as adults and peers. Third, during the past decade of war, budget priorities to finance war have competed with priorities to finance programs for young children. The wellbeing of young children and their families has been undermined by the structural violence of war. We conclude this chapter by suggesting that early childhood educators can respond at multiple levels, from their work with children in classrooms to the level of national policy.
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Notes
- 1.
The examples in the chapter are true though the names have been changed.
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Hoorn, J.V., Levin, D.E. (2011). Not in Harm’s Way. Or are They? War, Social Justice, and Young Children in the United States. In: Fennimore, B., Goodwin, A. (eds) Promoting Social Justice for Young Children. Educating the Young Child, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0570-8_5
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