Sharon Ding is Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at The Open University.

Karen Littleton is Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at The Open University.

Heather Montgomery is a lecturer in Childhood Studies at The Open University. She is an anthropologist who has conducted fieldwork in Thailand among young prostitutes and is the author of "Modern Babylon? Prostituting Children in Thailand" (Berghahn, 2001). She has held post-doctoral positions in the USA, Norway and Oxford and is the author of several articles on children's rights, child abuse and the anthropology of childhood. Other publications include 'Imposing rights? A Case study of child prostitution in Thailand' in "Culture and Rights" (edited by Cowan, Dembour and Wilson, Cambridge University Press, 2001) and 'Abandonment and child prostitution in a Thai slum community' in "Abandoned Children" (edited by Panter-Brick and Smith, Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Rachel Burr is a lecturer in Childhood Studies at The Open University. She has worked as a social worker and trainer in England, Ireland and Vietnam. Between 1996 and 1998 she lived in Vietnam where she did child-focused research for a doctorate in anthropology. Her research interests are in child-focused human rights, the role of child-focused international aid agencies, and children of the streets and orphanages in Vietnam (she is currently investigating the effect of HIV/AIDS on the lives of those children). She has taught anthropology in the US. Her recent publications include 'Global and local approaches to children's rights in Vietnam', "Childhood," 9 (1), and 'Ethics of doing anthropological fieldwork', "Anthropology Matters," 3. She is currently working on a book on children and their rights in Vietnam, to be published by Rutgers University Press in 2004.

Martin Woodhead is a senior lecturer in the Centrefor Childhood, Development and learning at The Open University. He has contributed to courses in child development and education, and has carried out research in child development, early education, sociology of childhood, child labour and children's rights. He has been a Fulbright scholar in the USA and a consultant to international organizations including the Council of Europe, save the Children and OECD. He is co-editor of the journal "Children & Society," His publications include "In Search of the Rainbow: Pathways to Quality in Large-scale Programmes for Young Disadvantage Children" (Bernard van Leer Foundation, 1996), and the three-volume series "Child Development in Families, Schools and Society" (Routledge in association with The Open University, 1998, edited by Faulkner and Littleton). Martin chaired the course team for the Open University course U212 "Childhood," for which this book is a core text.