Childhood and Family in Contemporary Children's Fiction: Resilience, Agency, and Emerging Gender Norms

Abstract

New awareness of re-thinking childhood in the emergent field of childhood studies inspires production of new discourse on social construction of childhood in literature. This paper looks at contemporary children’s literature

in the Philippines from this perspective and within the context of the globalization and transnationalization of
care giving. Its interrogation of selected children’s books and literature for young adult reveals that the traditional concept of childhood is now being challenged and resisted. Cognizant of the need to sustain this direction of literary production, this paper posits that children’s literature in the country should mainstream this new thinking so that

it can become a meaningful venue for Filipino children’s socialization and construction in light of the increasingly complex world that children need to deal with.