This book is the result of a long movement of ideas and practices between Braziland Germany. It brings together different research methodologies (discourseanalysis, case studies, cross-cultural comparison, and action and practice-research) and studies innovative theoretical approaches and childhood-relatedpractices that question present power relations and open up new ways of dealingwith emerging phenomena in the fields of school and educational policy as wellas in home-rearing, therapeutic, and community practices. A series of criticalcase-studies and examples of radically innovative educational, media andtherapeutic practices and community-based interventions are presented, all ofwhich demonstrate the transformative powers of collective subjectivities in themaking of the history of childhood and youth and of society in general. Thestudies presented in this volume also illustrate the role cultural-historical andqualitative childhood research may play in this making of history. With anintroduction by M. Kontopodis and chapters by: I. Behnken, M. Benites, F.Camerini, M. Damiani, B. Fichtner, F. Liberali, A. Lopes, M. Mascia, I. S. Soares,H. Winkler, and W. Wörster.

Dr. Michalis Kontopodis has studied Psychology in Greece, France, Poland andGermany and is currently a research associate at the Institute of EuropeanEthnology at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He is the Secretary of theInternational Society for Cultural and Activity Research (ISCAR). Kontopodis isengaged in both theoretical and empirical work on anthropological and cultural-psychological approaches to human cognition and development. He has also co-edited the Special Issue "Materializing Times: from Memory to Imagination" ofMemory Studies (January 2009, Vol. 2, Number 1) and the book "Technologiendes Selbst im Alltag" (with J. Niewöhner, in German 2009).