Mapping and Making Spaces of Childhood

The contributions to this book have explored some of the manifold ways in which emotions are positioned in policies and practices for children. The contributors offer nuanced understandings of emotion, which advance theoretical, empirical and applied insights into the workings of emotion in diverse contexts. In this concluding chapter, we seek to draw out some of the most prominent themes that appear throughout the volume. The chapter has two aims. First, it seeks to prompt further reflection — particularly conceptual, but in some cases methodological — about future research agendas around children’s emotions in policy and practice. Second, it aims to build upon the bulleted ‘implications for policy and practice’, presented at the end of each chapter, so that in this conclusion some more general reflections might be offered for policy-makers and practitioners working with children. With this focus, the chapter addresses the propositions from Chapter 1 by reflecting on how spaces of childhood are ‘made’ through policy and practice, and by discussing approaches to find a way through — to map — spaces of childhood as a an inspiration for adults. However, given that these aims are very much entwined throughout the book — and that some readers may well be interested in both — we do not institute an artificial separation between ‘theoretical’ and otherwise ‘useful’ discussions (Horton and Kraftl, 2005).