About the Centre for International Research in Childhood: Literature, Culture, Media

The Centre for International Research in Childhood was established in the English Department at the University of Reading in Reading, England, in October 1996. Known as CIRCL for short, the centre aims to promote and coordinate international and interdisciplinary academic research in childhood, focusing particularly on research in children and culture, children's literature, and children and the media.

CIRCL is run by its research associates: staff and postgraduate students working on childhood. CIRCL's members also run and teach the University of Reading's Master's Degree Course in Children's Literature (in the Department of English Literature of the University).

CIRCL organises lecture series, seminars, and conferences. For up-to-date information on past and forthcoming events, please go to News and Events (Publications, Lectures, Seminars, Conferences).

CIRCL maintains these web-pages to distribute up-to-date information on up-coming News and Events, but also to provide a forum for the provision and exchange of information on on-going research in childhood, either for students (please go to: Reading Lists), or researchers. CIRCL also provides a list of selected other web-sites of interest in this field under Other Interesting Sites.

(cedar tree photo copyright: Professor Klaus Meyer, used by kind permission)

For more information, please contact:

Dr Karin Lesnik-Oberstein,
Director, Centre for International Research in Childhood: Literature, Culture, Media (CIRCL),
Department of English and American Literature, University of Reading,
PO Box 218
Reading RG6 6AA
U.K.
E-mail:k.b.lesnik-oberstein@reading.ac.uk

If you are interested in applying to the MA in Children's Literature, or to do a PhD with CIRCL, you may also want to look at the University of Reading's information on their provision for students with disabilities.

CIRCL performs checks to validate its web pages against WCAG Priority 1 and 2 and Access Board Section 508 guidelines that govern the accessibility of sites. For more information about these guidelines please check the Web Accessibility Initiative website at http://www.w3.org/WAI. Conformance is checked with Frontpage, EvalAccess or FAE.

HTML validity is checked with the WDG HTML Validator. (click here for site validation )

Style Sheet validity is checked with W3C CSS Validator. (click here for stylesheet validation)