Introduction

The essays in this issue offer an intriguing range of scholarly perspectives on the theme of children and science. While some contributors consider how knowledge about children and childhood was produced at different historical moments, others reflect on how science was presented for children, what the possible historiographic value of an evolutionary perspective might be for historians of children and youth, and how to incorporate children and childhood into contemporary policies regarding climate change. The literature on the history of children and science continues to flourish, as the essays here attest, and JHCY is happy to be able to contribute this themed issue to that ongoing discussion.

Erika Milam's Object Lesson essay draws our attention to the co-production of science and society through American social science curriculum in the 1970s. The Man: A Course of Study curriculum placed humans in the natural world in way that raised fundamental questions about what it meant to be human. The compelling line drawings from this course of study presented children with a vision of both science and society that blurred boundaries between the human and animal worlds.

The next four essays by Benzaquén, Brian, Lambert, and Rose were originally presented as a panel organized by Adriana Silvia Benzaquén for the 2008 meeting of Chieron: The International Society for the History of Behavioral and Social Sciences. We are very pleased to be able to offer them here as the nucleus of this issue. As a group, these essays critically examine the history of the science of childhood as it was constructed by figures such as John Locke, Gabriel Compayré, William Preyer, Clara and William Stern, and Robert Owen. These early experts and developmental psychologists sought to place their knowledge of children and their pedagogy on an objective, scientific basis. The struggle to constitute this objective stance is powerfully described in the transnational comparisons created by this set of four essays.

Rebecca Onion steps back from the scientific enterprise itself to look at how children at American Museum of Natural History and the Brooklyn Children's Museum were depicted by Progressive Era photographers. Onion grapples with the how the supposed "transformative power" of science carried with it cultural expectations regarding class and culture in American society. Onion's analysis resonates with Lambert's on performance and pedagogy, while returning to Milam's engagement with visual representation.

Anthony Volk's essay turns away from traditional historical analysis to issue a provocative historiographic challenge. Drawing on evolutionary theory, Volk traces the possible benefits and limitations of an evolutionary perspective for the history of children and youth. Volk's methodological reflections are firmly rooted in contemporary science, as are Sheridan Bartlett's thoughts on the impact of climate change on children around the world. Bartlett's analysis articulates a challenge to provide children the central place that they deserve in global climate change policy. For Bartlett, this does not necessarily mean mythologizing children's agency in global crises, but providing meaningful action on policies that would have the greatest impact on children.