Nordic Childhoods in Barn

In connection with the 40th anniversary of the journal Barn in 2023, the editorial team hosted an anniversary conference in Trondheim, Norway. After the conference, we invited a small number of participants to contribute to a special issue on the occasion of the anniversary: a group of authors whose papers together covered a range of themes, contexts, disciplines, theoretical inspirations and methodological approaches that are key to Nordic Childhood Studies, thus demonstrating the diversity of the field. Through a collegial process, the papers were developed into the articles of this special issue. This editorial introduces and contextualises the articles, discussing how they can be understood in the context of the Nordics and how they contribute to our knowledge about growing up in Nordic countries. This discussion is structured around four themes: institutionalised childhoods, the child as citizen, the in(ter)dependent child, and child protection and childhood innocence.