SOCS 0032 UH W4 The Industrial Revolution and Child Labor Review

The report should include:

A description of the ‘Media’ you have chosen.

A discussion of the context of the media project, including attention to historical, social, political, economic, and global factors.

An exploration of the ways children and childhood are represented in the project.

An analysis of the implications of the project for the status of childhood and children’s well-being.

As well as deconstructing the project you’ve chosen, and considering these 4 bullet points, also think about children as producers and consumers of representations of childhood – so did children have any involvement in the production of the project, are they consumers of it either directly or indirectly?? Might be interesting to also look and see if there are any responses from children or views of children about the project you’ve chosen to focus on….

Examples of media projects you can choose a film, book, poster, charity campaign, or a news paper article.

SOCS0032:
Sociology of Childhood
Seminar Groups E,D,I
Week 4 Seminar
Dr Yan Zhu (yan.zhu@ucl.ac.uk)
Question time!
• Do you have any questions about the assignment
one – media analysis report?
• 500 words (15%)
• You can be as creative as you want in how you
present it – it still needs academic rigour and
references though!
• Deadline: 4.30pm on Friday 25th March.
In advance of each seminar:
1) Make notes of 12 key points from the lecture
(main messages, most interesting things,
questions you have)
2) Make notes of important points from the key
reading for each week
BE READY AND PREPARED TO DISCUSS
Week 4 seminar:
Media and childhood
Group Discussion One:
1. What are the key points that you have
learned from this week’s lecture?
2. What are the key points that you have
learned from the key reading? (Holland, P. (2004)
Picturing Childhood: The myth of the child in popular imagery.
London: IB Taurus, (Introductory chapter, pp. 1- 23).)
Each group please discuss and share 1 point for each
question ☺
Some points for you to have a think…
• ‘Pictures of children contributes to a set of narratives about
childhood which are threaded through different cultural forms,
drawing on every possible source to construct stories that
become part of cultural competence’ (Holland, 2004, p.3)
• We are joint authors of stories. (e.g., why we are joint authors of
stories about children and childhood? How?)
• Pictures offer both reality and illusion.
• What can we learn from desired
images and images that make us
feel uncomfortable? (e.g.,
sexualization of childhood – ‘little
adults’ – can you recall Ariès’
argument about the concept of
children and childhood?).
Group Activity ☺:
Please discuss with your groupmates to analyse some pictures
about children/childhood used in media and answer following
questions:
1. What can these pictures tell us about attitudes towards children
and childhood?
2. What role do these pictures play in producing ideas about
children and childhood? (e.g., Who does these pictures effect?)
3. What are the purposes of such representations suggested by
these pictures?
You could use pictures from Lecture slides 12, 13, 15, 17, and 18.
Or, you could find and choose other pictures from the Internet.
Here is a Padlet link, each group, please develop your
own poster to share your answers ☺
https://padlet.com/yzhu21/o1xbxtcbsyfuw4qi
On the left of this shared Padlet page you could see this
activity’s questions.
Key reading for discussion next week:
Valentine, K. (2011) ‘Accounting for Agency’,
Children and Society 25(5): 347-358.
Come with12 points from the lecture and 12 from the
key reading for next week
SOCS0032:
Sociology of Childhood
Seminar Groups E,D,I
Week 3 Seminar
Dr Yan Zhu (yan.zhu@ucl.ac.uk)
In advance of each seminar:
1) Make notes of 12 key points from the lecture
(main messages, most interesting things,
questions you have)
2) Make notes of important points from the key
reading for each week
BE READY AND PREPARED TO DISCUSS
Week 3 seminar:
Micro-Power and the AdultChild Relation
Group Discussion One:
What are the key points that you have
learned from this weeks lecture?
Group Discussion Two:
Child Labour?
• What is child labour?
• Why do parents let children take part in these forms of
labour if they’re so harmful to children?
• How do constructions of childhood shape perspectives on
and regulation of children working?
• What impact might the regulation of children’s labour have
on children’s contribution to the household economy,
children themselves and their families?
Some videos to watch…
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc1ZkyKwrZo
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiigMxu6Roc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um9q_SzrH5k
Group Discussion Three:
Q. Whether ‘children’ should/should not
be allowed to vote and why?
Please draw ideas discussed so far in the
module…
Another task for you ☺
• Topic: Children’s influence on family life
• What kinds of choices do children influence in the
family? Discuss and identify at least two
examples of the choices children make.
• In what ways do the media influence children’s
choices? Try to decide if the media is a positive
or negative influence and why.
Key reading for discussion next week:
Holland, P. (2004) Picturing Childhood: The myth
of the child in popular imagery. London: IB
Taurus, (Introductory chapter, pp. 1-23).
Come with12 points from the lecture and 12 from the
key reading for next week
SOCIOLOGY OF
CHILDHOOD
WEEK 3: ADULT CHILD POWER RELATIONS
Nelly Ali 2022
TODAYS SESSION
•
If and how children can be considered as a
marginalised social group
•
How can we understand adult-child power relations we will focus on two contexts, child labour and also
relationships in families
•
How children negotiate, resist and exercise power
UNICEF DEFINITION OF CHILDHOOD
“What then do we mean by childhood? The quality of children’s
lives can vary radically within the same dwelling, between two
houses on the same street, between regions and between
industrialized and developing countries. The closer children
come to being full-grown, the more cultures, countries, and
even people within the same country differ in their views of
what is expected of children and on the level of adult or legal
protection they require.
Yet, despite intellectual debates about the definition of
childhood and cultural differences about what to expect for
and from children, there has always been a substantial
degree of shared understanding that childhood implies a
separate and safe space, demarcated from adulthood, in
which children can grow, play and develop.”
(The State f the World’s Children 2005, p. 3)
CHILDREN OUT OF PLACE
• Mary Douglas – Purity and Danger 1966
• meaning of dirt in different contexts
• dirt in a given society is any matter considered out of place
• Therefore children out of home/school are dangerous e.g.
• Child Soldiers
• Street Children
• Child Prostitutes
• Rubbish is only matter out of place
DISCUSSION
• It is in respect of the abuse of children in work, rather
than the fact of their involvement in work – that the
‘child labour’ problem should be understood.
(White,1999)
• When it comes to the issue of child labour, children are
too often cast in the role of victims rather than agents.
• International campaigns against child labour too often
rebound to the detriment of working children.
• Does the empirical evidence suggest that child labour is
harmful when it comes to children’s schooling ?
• Discuss the Morrow & Pellis distinction between rights as
`rules’ and rights as `relationships’ in the context of child
labour.
• Why is it considered
acceptable or
unacceptable to smack
children?
• What ideas about children
and childhood support
these positions?
It is unlawful for a parent or
carer to smack their child,
except where this amounts
to ‘reasonable punishment’
(Section 58 Children Act
2004)
ADULT-CHILD POWER RELATIONS
• Relations between adults and children are
asymmetrical in terms of power, status and access to
resources
• Children’s discussions of their lives “point to
inequalities between their status and that of adults,
and to commonalities between them in their
childhood status” (Mayall, 2002: 122)
• Power operates through everyday interactions and
practices that make one group of people are made
into adults and another into children
• How might smacking be viewed as a form of adultchild power relations?
• What are other examples?
CHILDREN AS A MINORITY SOCIAL GROUP
Social groups : how people are grouped in
society by others and by themselves according to
certain characteristics, e.g. gender, class, race
Children as a minority social group (Jenks, 2004: 92)
• Challenging existing power relations between
adults and children
• “‘minority’ is a moral rather than demographic
classification that conveys notions of relative
powerlessness or victimization.”
• “indictment of a social structure and an
accompanying dominant ideology”
• “deprive[s] some people of freedom in order to
give it to others” (Oakley, 1994: 32)
GENERATIONAL ORDER
• Some people are positioned as adults and
others positioned as children
• Shapes the relationships between adults
and children
“Generational relationships
locate children and adults
in particular relational
positions and it is from
within and between these
positions that both [children
and adults] act and impact
on the world around them”
(Leonard, 2016: 121)
RELATIONS WITHIN THE FAMILY
How do children’s understandings of their social
position get established? (Mayall, 2002)
• Relationally (e.g. obedience and
negotiation, apprenticeship and
participation, dependence and
interdependence)
• Agency and “people work”
• Intersections with gender and
school status
• Rights and responsibilities
AN EXAMPLE
Interviewer: It’s up to you to decide whether to buy
sweets?
Gamse: No, it’s up to my Mum, but mostly it’s my
Mum — and Dad. They want me to keep healthy and
everything. I can’t explain it.
Interviewer: Do you think it’s more they look after
you?
Gamse: Well, I look after myself half the time, but
mostly it’s my Mum looks after me — makes sure I
eat the right things. Like veg or sometimes meat
and not much fizzy drinks. Water, at dinnertime —
we have to drink two glasses of water and then
have a fizzy drink. So we’re not allowed to have a
fizzy drink first.
(Mayall, 2002: 44)
AN EXAMPLE
Interviewer: It’s up to you to decide
whether to buy sweets?
Gamse: No, it’s up to my Mum, but
mostly it’s my Mum — and Dad. They
want me to keep healthy and
everything. I can’t explain it.
Interviewer: Do you think it’s more
they look after you?
Gamse: Well, I look after myself half
the time, but mostly it’s my Mum looks
after me — makes sure I eat the right
things. Like veg or sometimes meat
and not much fizzy drinks. Water, at
dinnertime — we have to drink two
glasses of water and then have a fizzy
drink. So we’re not allowed to have a
fizzy drink first.
How is Gamse
learning about her
status as a child in
the family?
In what ways is she
positioned/positions
herself in relation to
her parents?
In what ways can
Gamse act from her
position as a child?
NEGOTIATING POWER IN THE FAMILY
• How does power operate intergenerationally
(between parents and children) and
intragenerationally (between siblings)? (Punch
2005)
• Family as “sites of negotiation rather than control
and regulation”
• Children “choose to resist or to comply with adult
power to a varied extent”
• Strategies and tactics for negotiating with parents
and to a greater extent, siblings
• Children “resist and assert control over their own
use of time and space”
• Not neglecting relations of love, care and affection
“ADULTISM”
• Age-based discrimination: “Adultism” or “adultarchy”
• The oppression by children and young people by
adults (akin to racism or sexism) (Liebel, 2014)
“[B]ehaviours and attitudes
based on the assumptions that
adults are better than young
people, and entitled to act
upon young people without
agreement”
(Bell, 1995: 1)
CHILDREN AS A MARGINALISED SOCIAL
GROUP
• Children discriminated against for being “under
age” or minors
• Received less attention than discrimination
against other social groups (e.g. gender, race)
• Focus on differences between children rather
than adults and children
(Liebel, 2014)
• In what ways can it be argued that children are
discriminated against as a social group?
• What might be the reasons for these
discriminatory practices?
• In your opinion is such discrimination justified?
DISCRIMINATION OWING TO UNDESIRED
BEHAVIOUR
“[P]olicies against, and the punishment of,
behaviour that is not desired in the case of
children, whilst it is tolerated or seen as adequate
in adults” (Liebel, 2014: 125)
• Not breaching criminal law or endangering
others, solely prohibited
because “they involve a
‘minor’”.
• Corporal punishment one
example
• Others?
DISCRIMINATION DUE TO CHILD
PROTECTION CONCERNS
• Intended to protect children, often by age
limits
• Can result in negative consequences, e.g.
children and work, medical treatment
• Argued necessary to protect children from
themselves
• Becomes discriminatory “where the relative
lack of experience or competence serves to
justify particular regulations in order to extend
the children’s dependency beyond the
necessary measure or to limit their freedom or
their scope of activity.” (Liebel, 2014: 131)
DISCRIMINATION DUE TO CHILD
PROTECTION CONCERNS
• Intended to protect children, often by age
limits
• Can result in negative consequences, e.g.
children and work, medical treatment
• Argued necessary to protect children from
themselves
• Becomes discriminatory “where the relative
lack of experience or competence serves to
justify particular regulations in order to extend
the children’s dependency beyond the
necessary measure or to limit their freedom or
their scope of activity.” (Liebel, 2014: 131)
RESTRICTED ACCESS TO RIGHTS AND
SERVICES
• Discrimination on grounds of age not included in
UNCRC
• Key rights principles, e.g. “best interests”
interpreted by adults
• Children often have
limited opportunities
to exercize rights, e.g.
in justice system
• Limited access to
resources and children
often invisible in policy
decisions
GENERATIONAL DISCRIMINATION
• Intergenerational justice:
impact of current decisions
on children in the future
yet no say in the process,
e.g. political and
environmental policies.
Examples?
• BUT too conflictual an approach? Obscures:
• Commonalities between generations, e.g.
impact of neoliberalism
• Inequalities within all generations
CHILDREN AND THE RIGHT TO VOTE

?autoplay
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics46737013
Drawing ideas discussed so
far in the module put
forward a case for whether
‘children’ should/should not be
allowed to vote and why
SUMMARY
• Children are a marginalised social group,
discriminated on account of their legal and
social status
• The actions of adults and children are
interdependent and shaped by their position in
the generational order
• Power permeates everyday relationships often
constraining children’s actions, yet not
precluding possibilities for negotiation and
resistance
REFERENCES
Alanen, L. (2011) Generational order. In J. Qvortrup, W. Corsaro, M.-S. Honig
(eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies, pp. 159-174. Basingstoke:
Palgrave MacMillan.
Alanen, L. and Mayall, B. (eds.) (2001) Conceptualising Child-Adult Relations.
London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Bell, J. (1995) Understanding Adultism: A Major Obstacle to Developing Positive
Youth-Adult Relationships. Somerville, MA: YouthBuild USA.
Jenks, C. (2004) Constructing Childhood Sociologically. In M. J. Kehily (ed.) An
Introduction to Childhood Studies. Maidenhead: Open University Press
Leonard, M. (2015) The Sociology of Children, Childhood and Generation.
London: Sage.
Liebel, M. (2014) ‘Adultism and age-based discrimination against children’, in D.
Kustar and H. Warming (eds) Children and non-discrimination: Interdisciplinary
textbook. Berlin: CREAN.
Mayall, B. (2002). Towards a Sociology for Childhood: Thinking from children’s
lives. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Oakley, A. (1994) Women and children first and last: parallels and differences
between women’s and children’s studies. In B. Mayall (ed.) Childrens’
Childhoods. London: Falmer.
Punch, S. (2005) ‘The Generationing of Power: A Comparison of Child-Parent and
Sibling Relations in Scotland’, Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, 10:
169-188.
CHILD LABOUR
• Another difficult issue for children’s rights
• An issue which highlights conflict between global standards (rights) and cultural relativism
• Children and work throughout time and across the globe – child work is the `norm’
• Ambivalent attitudes in many developed countries – `work experience’ = good `child
labour’ = bad
• Also N.B. Morrow’s research on children’s work in 2ndWW Britain
• Issue also raises possible conflict between `protection rights’ and `participation rights’.
• lots of evidence that when asked children more often than not say they want to work.
• Campaigns against child labour have frequently backfired against children – see UNICEF
report.
THE ISSUE OF EXPLOITATION
A problematic concept
• Marxists ( e.g. Lavalette) would argue that all waged labour
in a capitalist society is `exploitation’
• are there specific factors which make children more
vulnerable to exploitation ?
• if so, does that mean that child labour is per se exploiting
children’s vulnerability ?
• how does this square with children’s wish to work ?
1999 ILO CONVENTION ON THE
`WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOUR’
• `Worst forms of child labour’ used to refer to four particularly
harmful types of work involving anyone under 18, including:
• Forms of slavery, servitude and forced labour, including forced
recruitment for use in armed conflicts;
• Commercial sexual exploitation (prostitution or pornography);
• Illicit activities;
• Hazardous work that jeopardises the lives,
• health or morals of those involved.
ESTIMATES ON NUMBER OF CHILD
LABOURERS
According To UNICEF (2005),
• Nos. of children aged 5-14 in full time employment worldwide
was estimated at 211 million ( beginning of 1990s figs.
Suggested 100 million)
• A further 141 million 15-17 yr olds were also in employment.
• Approx. 1 in 12 children in world were involved in work which
put their health at risk
• In Sub-Saharan Africa around one in three children are
engaged in child labour, representing 69 million children.
• In South Asia, another 44 million are engaged in child labour.
`HAZARDOUS WORK’
• The types of work regarded as “hazardous” have to be identified in each
country.
• The ILO set out the criteria for identifying them, as work that might expose
children to:
• Physical, psychological or sexual abuse;
•
Work underground, under water, at dangerous heights or in confined spaces;
• Work with dangerous machinery, equipment and tools, or which involves the manual
handling or transport of heavy loads
• Work in an unhealthy environment which would expose children to hazardous
substances, agents or processes, or to temperatures, noise levels, or vibrations which
might damage their health
CHILDREN AND HAZARDOUS WORK
• Hazardous work is one of the worst forms of child labour. More
than half (53 per cent) of the 215 million child labourers worldwide
do hazardous work.
• Hazardous work is increasing among older children, aged 15–17.
Within four years (2004–08), it jumped 20 per cent – from 52 million
to 62 million. Boys outnumber girls by two to one in this age group.
• Progress is being made:
• For younger children (aged 5–14) in hazardous work, rates came down 31
per cent between 2004 and 2008; for girls they are down by 24 per cent
• There are 173 countries that have committed themselves to tackling
hazardous work of children “as a matter of urgency” by ratifying the ILO’s
Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN TO END CHILD
LABOUR
• Very few people would defend the employment of children in `the worst forms’ of
child labour, including hazardous labour
• However as Morrow argues the explicit goal of the ILO remains to eradicate all child
labour
• The ILO roadmap to eliminating child labour states that child labour is a ‘significant
impediment to the realization of children’s rights (ILO 2010)
• According to the ILO, between the years 2004 and 2008, there was a drop in the
number of girls, and of children under 15 working, but the number of boys working,
and of young people aged between 15 and 17 working increased.
• The ILO suggests that about 60% of child labourers work in agriculture.
CHILD LABOUR AND EDUCATION
•
Much of the drive to end child labour ( in developed as well as developing countries) comes from
the fear that it interferes with school
•
This is as much ( if not more) driven by `social capital/investment’ concerns rather than children’s
rights.
•
The drive for universal primary education (UPE) has gained momentum during the last decade. The
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed upon in 2000, set 2015 as the year in which universal
primary education (MDG-2) should be achieved
•
UPE has come up against child labour in many countries.
•
•
•
•
No simple trade-off between education and work
– e.g. children may work to pay for schooling
•
Countries with lowest school attendance rates also have highest rates of children who are neither in school nor
work.
•
The socio-economic context is important – is the child the family breadwinner in a family stricken by
AIDS: is the child worker a girl for whom educational expectations are limited ?
•
We need to understand more about relationship between education and work – growing body of
qualitative research on child work in majority world suggests this is often complex and by no means
always negative.
•
Children’s work is often a positive choice of the child ( or family) so from a child’s rights perspective
this raises issues over the right to participate in `adult’ world of employment.
WHO’S BUSINESS IS IT?
‘All those who come into contact with children and
families in their everyday work, including
practitioners who do not have a specific role in
relation to child protection, have a duty to
safeguard and promote the welfare of children.’
(Source: What To Do If You’re Worried A Child is Being Abused, 2006)
SOCS0032:
Sociology of Childhood
Seminar Groups E,D,I
Week 2 Seminar
Dr Yan Zhu (yan.zhu@ucl.ac.uk)
In advance of each seminar:
1) Make notes of 12 key points from the lecture
(main messages, most interesting things,
questions you have)
2) Make notes of important points from the key
reading for each week
BE READY AND PREPARED TO DISCUSS
Week 2 seminar:
Deconstructing the
Developmental Child
Group Discussion One:
Q1. What are the key points that you have
learned from this weeks lecture?
Q2. Could you please indicate one
question that you want to discuss in this
seminar?
Three key things that you need to learn
from this week:
• Key underlying assumptions of developmental approach to
childhood.
• Sociological critiques of the developmental approach.
• Key ideas of sociology of childhood.
• After seminar, please check if you could answer these
three questions by yourself. Then, please read the following
three slides to check your ideas. Slide 6 includes notes ☺
Developmental approach to childhood
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Continuity across fields/disciplines/geopolitical spaces
Universal child
‘Normal’ development
Transparent and measurable child: through scientific study and
observation of a child we can ‘know’ them
Normative dimension: what should happen
Development as ‘progress’: that an individual gets better and better
as time passes
Child development linked to economic/national development
Parents (mother’s) practices seen as crucial for child’s development
Three main sociological critiques
• Decontextualisation
• Low status of children
• Consequentialist
The sociology of childhood emerged, in part, out
of critiques of developmental psychology, it says
childhood is:
• Social construction, not a natural or universal feature but a structural
and cultural component of society.
• A variable of social analysis not divorced from other variable e.g.
class, gender, or ethnicity.
• Children’s social relationships and cultures are worthy of study in
their own right.
• Children are not just the passive subjects of social structures and
processes.
Group Discussion Two:
The idea of “normal and universal child”?
• What you consider a normal child to be, or to do, in your
own countries and cultures?
• What do you think are the potential risks caused by this
idea of normal and universal child? Can you give
example(s)?
Group Discussion Three:
Q. What are some of the key points from
this weeks key reading (Burman)?
Some points from this weeks’ key reading (Burman)
• Definitions of maturity vary depending on context (arbitrary legal age limits)
• Development psychology’s categorisation of the life span (age brackets), uniform
trajectory of development (universal), natural and inevitable, culture is an optional
extra
• Lack of attendance to cultural and class variations – white middle class society
used as the norm/template against which development is judged/compared – see
this particularly in educational contexts e.g. Piaget; standardised testing and
developmental/attainment goals
• Different periods of history have represented childrearing very differently
• Developmental approach = a needs discourse of children, childhood as passive,
vulnerable, need to be protected rather than active agents; childhood as
dependency, powerless, lacking knowledge or right to own agency, leading to
compulsory schooling, controlling young people, anxieties over children’s antisocial
behaviour
• Childhood as universal, a standard model devised in the Western World/Global
North in a certain context and applied to all – ethnocentric
• What about other cultures, countries? Dependency models, imperialism, charity;
sponsoring of children in developing world to achieve the goals/have the life seen
as the norm or acceptable in the West/Global North
Key reading for discussion next week:
Leonard, M. (2015) The Sociology of Children,
Childhood and Generation. London: Sage
(Chapter 3, pp. 38-62).
Come with12 points from the lecture and 12 from the
key reading for next week
SOCIOLOGY OF
CHILDHOOD
WEEK 2: DECONSTRUCTING THE DEVELOPMENTAL
CHILD
Nelly Ali
TODAYS SESSION
• Consider the origins and characteristics of developmental
approaches to childhood
• Discuss sociological critiques of the ‘developmental child’
• Consider how the sociology of childhood emerged, in part,
out of critiques of developmental psychology
CHILDHOOD AS A SUBJECT OF STUDY
• In the three international encyclopedias of the social sciences
published during the 20th century, childhood as a social
phenomenon is not represented at all. In these cross
references, children are seen purely in psychological terms
• Between 1930 and 1935 a 15- encyclopedia volume was
published with 57 double column pages for the entry “Child”.
Divided in 12 sections including childhood psychology, and
what can be called social policy issues e.g. child welfare,
child hygiene, child mortality, child guidance, child marriage,
dependent children, neglected children, delinquent children
institutions for the care of children, child labour and child
welfare legislation.
• Even today with the internet, if you type child and childhood,
very little will come up in relation to the social studies of
childhood.
A TIMELINE
Later Industrial Period and Childhood
Mid 19th century Factory/Mine acts meant children were no longer able to work.
Children no longer economic assets.
1870 Education Act – Children need to be supported.
Further advances in sanitation and medicine meant a decline in the infant
mortality rate amongst the working class.
• This led to a decline in the birth rate – couples had fewer children, because the
children they had were more likely to survive. Also, children no longer economic
assets.
• This led to a change in attitudes towards children – children came to be seen as
different to adults and in need of love, care and support.
•
•
•
•
20th Century
• Child centred society – Children are viewed differently to adults and are viewed as
in need of support and protection. Society is geared towards putting the interests
of children first.
• Childhood has come to be seen as a separate category from adulthood.
• Children’s toys, clothes, programmes, books, foods etc –
http://health.utah.gov/utahactearly/parents.html
DEVELOPMENTALISM AND ADULT
IMAGINARIES OF CHILDHOOD
• Continuity across fields/disciplines/geopolitical spaces
• Universal child
• ‘Normal’ development: closely linked to this is the sense of predictability
• Transparent and measurable child – if we watch the activity of a child we
‘know’ him/her
• Normative dimension: what ‘should’ happen
• Development as ‘progress’: ‘The notion that the individual gets better
and better as time passes has been central to most developmental
thinking.’ (Morss 1990: 173)
• Child development linked to economic/national development
• Parents (mother’s) practices seen as crucial for child’s development
POSITIVISM
‘Mainstream child
psychology conceptualizes
the child in much the same
way as a chemist
conceptualizes an interesting
compound, it made
absolute sense for the
psychologist to take the child
into a laboratory for closer
inspection and testing.’
(Greene 1998: 258)
WHY DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY?
• Mass schooling in late 19th century Britain
• Lives of children became separated from adults;
issues of children became more visible
• Children as a group available to professionals/
academics who sought to produce ‘scientific
knowledge’ in order to address concerns about
‘the quality of the child population’ (Hendrick, 1997:
46)
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AS
CURE
• These interests were tied up with larger political and
social ‘problems’ concerning politicians,
philanthropists, and middle classes: poverty and
crime
• Developmentalism provided:
• individual understanding of ‘social problems’ e.g. moral
development
• a way to provide ‘proper’ conditioning/intervention
• Understanding of children’s ‘nature’ in order to ‘produce
rational adults through education’ (113) that ‘worked with
‘boy life’ in Europe:
and not against their nature’ (115).
(Walkerdine, 2009)
Fresh from school, and in
many cases before they
have left school, they
enter upon a wild,
undisciplined life, and
suffer both mental and
moral degeneration
(Whitehouse, 1912: 167).
… WITH RACIALISED OVERTONES
‘The nation seemed under threat from within (by declining
birth rate in its women and waning virility among its men),and
without (from the dilution of American stock by soaring
immigrant numbers). Into this equation, the new discipline of
psychology projected a profile of human development
which offered to solve the crisis of civil progress by suggesting
a means of securing ‘normal’ development. If the fledgling
population could be instructed in normal development, and
indeed improved upon, then the future of the nation was
protected.’
Gagen (2007: 16)
WHY DO IDEAS ABOUT THE
‘DEVELOPING CHILD’ MATTER?
The ways we think about children…
• what children are like
• what children are capable of
• what children are ‘should’ be doing
…effect how ‘children’ are treated
CRITIQUE 1. DECONTEXTUALISATION
• ‘Children are conceptualized…as
though they have an existence
that can be divorced from the
context in which they live. Universal
laws governing development
continue to be sought and the
findings of research are explicitly or
implicitly held to be globally
applicable across both place and
historical time.’ (Hogan, 2005: 26)
Image: copyright Young Lives
CRITIQUE 2. LOW STATUS OF
CHILDREN
Constructs children as:
• Passive
• Dependent
• Deficit in comparison to
adults
• ‘Human becomings’
rather than ‘human
beings’ (Qvortrup, 1994)
• Children’s practices
‘interpreted as
reflections of their
limitations rather than
expressions of their own
intentions, desires, or
opinions’ (Lee, 2001: 44).
• Childhood as a
preparatory phase,
focus on the future, not
the present
CRITIQUE 3. CONSEQUENTIALIST
• Increased surveillance
• Reinforces adult power
and authority
• Justifies the
marginalisation of children
from decision-making
• Is highly normalising
• ‘description provided by
developmental psychology
slips into naturalised to
prescription’ (Burman
2008:4)…..
I. WHAT COUNTS AS ‘NORMAL’? EX.
CARE
• Fulani of West Africa: girls are
expected to be able to care for
younger siblings by 4-years-old
(Johnson, 2001)
• Peru, 1985: sizable portion of 6 to 14year-olds are heads of households,
including sole person caring for
younger siblings (Boyden, 1985).
• In San Pedro Tlalcuapan, Mexico:
children are expected to care for
younger siblings by 6. Children spend
4-6 hours on this and other household
activities. ‘Ayuda’: ‘‘aid’’ or ‘‘help’’
for their families. (Magazine and
Sánchez 2007).
Santiago Ixcuintla Nayarit, Mexico
http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticne
ws/indepth/child_labor/mexico/index.asp?
article=tobacco_fields
I. WHAT COUNTS AS ‘NORMAL’? EX.
CARE
• UK: Government refers to guidance from
the NSPCC: ‘There’s no legal age to
babysit but you should really think
carefully about using anyone under
16. Any younger and they might not be
mature enough – or have the authority –
to be in charge’
‘Young carers are ‘extremely different from
what, what we as a society call normal. A
normal teenager would be somebody who has a
mum and a dad, who have full functioning
bodies, who speak English, who have decent
jobs, maybe and [a] couple of brothers or sisters.
But they’re not typically normal.’ (Year 13, WhiteBritish girl, young carer)’ (Crafter et al, 2009: 181)
‘Caring can have a detrimental
impact on young carers’
development and life chances.’
(Public Policy Exchange)
I. WHAT COUNTS AS ‘NORMAL’?
‘The ‘normal’ child is in fact a curious mixture
of statistical averages and historically specific
value judgements. The most striking aspect of
the ‘normal’ child is how abnormal he or she
is, since there is no such person in reality and
never has been….
The advantage of defining normality is that it
is a device that enables those in control or in
charge to define, classify and treat those
who do not seem to fit in.’
(Penn 2008: 8).
II. POWER, (NEO)COLONIALISM, AND
INEQUALITIES
‘The World Bank is the
most powerful source of
ideas and ideology since
it has most money to
invest… INGOs and
charities draw heavily on
World Bank rationales, use
the same kinds of
evidence and sources,
and in turn are used by
the World Bank to
implement the Bank’s
investment decisions.
(Penn 2011: 96-97)
III. INTERVENTIONS
Can lead to:
• ineffective interventions
• judgements which ‘other’
• reinforcing inequalities
Example: migrant children,
care networks and age
assessment (Rosen and
Crafter)
III. INTERVENTIONS
Can lead to:
• ineffective interventions
• judgements which ‘other’
• reinforcing inequalities
Example: migrant children,
care networks and age
assessment (Rosen and
Crafter)
THE SOCIOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD
Should developmental
psychology be
‘consigned to the dustbin
of history’?
(James, Jenks and Prout 1998)
An ‘emergent paradigm’
• Childhood as a social construction.
• Childhood is a variable of social
analysis.
• Children’s social relationships and
cultures are worthy of study in their
own right.
• Children are and must be seen as
active in the construction and
determination of their own social
lives, the lives of those around them
and of the societies in which they
live.
(James and Prout 1997:8)
THE SOCIOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD
• What might this
‘paradigm shift’ mean
for professional
practice? What might
be done differently to
practices based on
developmentalism?
• Should developmental
psychology be
‘consigned to the
dustbin of history’?
(James, Jenks and Prout 1998)
• Childhood as a social construction.
• Childhood is a variable of social
analysis.
• Children’s social relationships and
cultures are worthy of study in their
own right.
• Children are and must be seen as
active in the construction and
determination of their own social
lives, the lives of those around them
and of the societies in which they
live.
(James and Prout 1997:8)
SUMMARY
• Over the last 100 years developmental psychology has
become a key way of constructing children and childhood.
• Constructions of the ‘developing child’ have been critiqued
because:
• They decontextualize development and developmental norms
• They treat children as ‘human becomings’ rather than ‘human beings’
• Dominant developmental norms have largely originated in the global
North based on middle class values and anxieties. These norms turn
descriptions and into prescriptions.
• The sociology of childhood emerged, in part, as a critique of
developmentalism, offering a view of children as active and
worthy of study in their own right.
SOCS0032:
Sociology of Childhood
Seminar Groups E,D,I
Week 1 Seminar
Dr Yan Zhu (yan.zhu@ucl.ac.uk)
Social Time!
• Introducing yourself… (5 minutes)
• What is your name?
• Where are you from?
• One interesting thing that happened in your childhood.
Plan for seminars
• Discussing key points from the lecture and from the
key reading
• Engaging with, and discussing, major concepts and
critical arguments
• Group work in Week 5 to prepare for Media Analysis
Report (will be introduced in Week 4/5)
• Feedback on essay plans in Week 10
In advance of each seminar:
1) Make notes of 12 key points from the lecture
(main messages, most interesting things,
questions you have)
2) Make notes of important points from the key
reading for each week
BE READY AND PREPARED TO DISCUSS
Week 1 seminar:
Social construction of
childhood
Q. What are some of the key points from
this weeks lecture?
Q. What did Aries say about childhood? Main
criticisms of his contention?
Q. What factors have influenced current
constructions of childhood?
Q. What are the impacts/effects of how
childhood has been constructed?
Social and cultural perspectives/social
constructionism
In groups, identify what you think are the key points
from the lecture and the key reading (Gittins, 2008)
on social and cultural perspectives of
childhood/social constructionism.
• What does social constructionism/the social and cultural
perspective say about childhood?
• What does this perspective have to say about the
biological/developmental perspective and notions of a
‘Universal childhood’?
• What are the implications of the social and cultural
perspective for how children are viewed/treated?
Social and cultural perspectives/social constructionism
• Childhood, rather than a real and material state of being, is more of an adult construction.
Our knowledge of what children are and the ideas we hold about childhood are shaped
by the social, cultural and historical context in which we are living. It also shapes society’s
perceptions of children’s capabilities.
• If childhood is socially and historically constructed then representations/understandings
will change both over time and in different contexts (culture, country).
• The state of being a child is transitory and how long it lasts is culturally and historically
variable
• Challenges the notion of a ‘universal childhood’ that emerges from the
biological/developmental approach – The myth of universal childhood, entrenched in/by
Western culture
• Gittins describes childhood as being invented by adults in order to serve certain purposes
e.g. to position young humans as being inferior to adults fulfils certain needs adults have
to care for and protect others, or alternatively to control others. Here, childhood denotes
not just physical immaturity but dependency, powerlessness, inferiority.
• Social constructionist perspective sees children as having opinions and ideas and, with
support or information being provided in an accessible way, being able to make decisions
and have agency.
Important for this module:
• Deconstructing the ‘taken for granted’, assumptions,
constructions and representations about childhood
• Understanding that these have direct effects on and
implications for policy and practice around
children/childhood and for children’s lives and
wellbeing
• That these assumptions, constructions and
representations are not necessarily positive, beneficial,
or an improvement on what went before – need to be
questioning and critical
Key reading for discussion next week:
Burman (2008) Discourses of the child
Come with12 points from the lecture and 12 from the
key reading for next week
Next Week Seminar Plan
• Online seminar (Just next week): Group D and E together from
12:00 – 13:00. Here is the Zoom link:
Topic: SOCS0032 Sociology of Childhood’s Seminar (Teaching Week 2)
Group D and E
Time: Jan 20, 2022. 11:50 AM London (You will be able to join the room
since 11:50 am)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://ucl.zoom.us/j/91801284941?pwd=Vk8xNHlOYWw2WGZRTS9TMT
hTRzhEUT09
Passcode: 458108
• I will send you another email to remind you next week.
SOCIOLOGY OF
CHILDHOOD
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO MODULE & TOPIC
Nelly Ali
TODAYS SESSION
– Module overview
– What is meant by the social construction of childhood
– Aries and Childhood as a ’modern invention’
– Changing understandings of childhood
MODULE OVERVIEW
The Module Aims
•
Introduce key theories and concepts in the sociological study of children and
childhood
•
Engage with central debates surrounding the status of children and childhood
across time and place
•
Develop critical awareness of unequal childhoods at global and local scales
•
Examine children’s varied contributions to their social, political, and economic
worlds
•
Explore symbolic representations of childhood and their political and social
implications
LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Demonstrate an awareness of how sociological approaches to
childhood assist in analysing the status of childhood and the
social positioning of children
• Critically examine and reflect upon the politicised nature of
childhood and the implications this has for the everyday lives
of children globally
• Demonstrate skills for critically analysing symbolic
representations of childhood
• Consider the implications of sociological approaches to
childhood for social research, professional practice, and/or
policy processes
MODULE OUTLINE
WEEK SESSION
1
Introduction to sociology of childhood
2
Deconstructing the developmental child
3
Micro-power and adult-child relations
4
Representations of children and childhood
5
Reclaiming and reworking representations
READING WEEK
6
Multiple childhoods
7
Embodied childhoods
8
Interactions between local and global childhoods
9
Status of childhood and children’s contributions
10
The challenges of childhood
WHAT IS A CHILD? BIOLOGICAL AND
DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES
Understandings of the child based on: Biological and
psychological characteristics, e.g. age
Ideas about the child: Physical, psychological, social
and emotional immaturity
Implications: Universal phase of life
called childhood
WHAT IS A CHILD? SOCIAL AND CULTURAL
PERSPECTIVES
Understandings of the child: Not based on “facts of
nature” but understandings constructed through social
interactions and process
Ideas about the child: Shaped by social, cultural and
historical context
Implications: Understandings and ideas about children
vary across time and place
SO WHAT IS CHILDHOOD STUDIES?
• It’s not about socialisation and it’s not about
children becoming adults
• It is about studying childhood on its own terms. Viewing children as
‘human subjects’ rather than ‘things that will one day become
human subjects’ children as people that do things – not just as
people that stuff happens to. It is about the study of ‘childhood as
lived’ in a general sense – as distinct from research that is motivated
by a particular social problem or policy (Qvortrup 2009, p 4)
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM
• Human life is socially created rather than existing
objectively and independently
• Society “is actively and creatively produced by human
beings”
• Consequently the world is “made or invented – rather than
merely given or taken for granted”
• [M]oves away from the ideas of the naturally given or taken
for granted and questions the social and historical roots of
phenomena”
• (Marshall, 1998: 609)
CHILDHOOD AS A SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION
• “A social constructionist approach views different ideas about
childhood and understandings of what constitutes a child as the
products of different world views” (Stainton Rogers, 2003: 10)
• Such understandings and ideas:
• are not fixed but relate to a particular social and cultural setting
• change over time and depend on individual experience and wider
beliefs
• have consequences for the treatment of children and young people
• Social constructionism enables the study of the creation and
consequences of such understandings and ideas
WHY CHILDHOOD STUDIES?
• A need to view children as participants and not
merely vulnerable beings in need of protection
• Filling a gap with children’s voice in research
• A holistic study of Childhood
• A view that children are human beings and not
human becomings
DID CHILDHOOD EXIST BEFORE
CHILDHOOD STUDIES?
• Aries – Centuries of Childhood
•
Childhood did not exist before 17th Century
•
Children entered adulthood at 7 years old when they no longer physically depended on their
parents
•
Children began work at a very early age , they were seen as ‘mini-adults’ with the same rights,
duties and skills as adults.
•
For example – the law often made no distinction between children and adults with children facing
severe punishments.
•
Schooling bought about childhood
•
Methods: medieval writing, art, dress and games where children and adults shared the same
activities.
•
Edward Shorter (1975) argued that parental attitudes towards children was also very different. He
argued that high death rates encouraged indifference and neglect. Often, children were called ‘it’
or forgotten about. An argument made by other anthropologists
•
Criticism: Pollock attacked his methodology, lacking a study of parent-child relationships, grief and
actual experiences
CHILDHOOD IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• “[C]hildhood has been historically constructed and
needs to be understood in relation to ideas about what
children should be and have meant to adults over time,
and why such ideas and beliefs have changed”(Gittens,
2004: 27)
• Heavily influential (and contested):
Philippe Ariès’ Centuries of Childhood (1962)
ARIÈS: CHILDHOOD AS A MODERN INVENTION
• “In mediaeval society the idea of childhood did not
exist; this is not to suggest that children were
neglected, forsaken or despised. The idea of childhood
is not to be confused with affection for children: it
corresponds to an awareness of the particular nature of
childhood, that particular nature which distinguishes
the child from the adult … In mediaeval society, this
awareness was lacking … as soon as the child could live
without the constant solicitude of his mother, his nanny
or his cradle-rocker, he belonged to adult society.”
(Ariès [1960] 1986: 125)
ARIÈS: ‘CHILDHOOD’ & MEDIEVAL SOCIETY
• Prior to end of fifteenth century no conception of
childhood as a separate state to adulthood, based
primarily on study of European art. Look at the following
images. What do you notice?
ARIÈS: ‘CHILDHOOD’ & MEDIEVAL SOCIETY
• In medieval society the idea of childhood did not exist:
• Children as “miniature adults” – “reduced to a smaller scale […].
without any other difference in expression or features” (1962: 30)
• People did not know their date of birth or age. Schools for all ages
rather than organized on basis of age
• Lack of division between worlds of adults and children, e.g. work,
behaviour, play and sex
• Look at the following images. What do you notice? How do these
compare to the previous images we have just seen?
ARIÈS: “THE DISCOVERY OF CHILDHOOD”
• The idea of childhood emerged during the Early Modern period
(late 15th century to late 18th century)
• Associated with changes in family structures: from large extended
families and networks to small, private family
• Changing understandings of the nature of children: need for
discipline and schooling and protection from adult world
• Led to “the gradual separation and segregation of children from
adult society” (Wyness, 2012: 16)
• Reductions in child mortality and changing parent-child relations
led to children having increased sentimental rather than economic
value
CRITIQUES OF ARIÈS: USE OF SOURCES
• Focus on religious art and neglect other sources, e.g.
Pollock (1983) argued parents did love and value their
children in the medieval period (though note work of
other historians are often conflated with Ariès)
• Text and images are representations of reality which
“articulate values, convey messages and contribute to
social processes” rather than true reflections of reality
(Gittens, 2004: 29)
• What might be some of the purposes or intended
messages conveyed in the images we have viewed?
A TIMELINE (BRITAIN)
The social construction of childhood as being the separate phase of life
as we know today is a relatively modern development. It has
developed and changed along with the building of development and
change in our societies views and attitudes. Just further proof that our
childhood is a “social construction”
Childhood experience in pre-industrial society




Children viewed as ‘tiny adults’ – no real difference between children and adults. (Philippe Aries 1973)
Children worked from a young age and were viewed as economic assets – means of bringing in money and
supporting the family.
Children joined in similar leisure activities to adults and could be punished for criminal offences.
No real distinction between childhood and adulthood during this period
Early Industrial Period and Childhood




Children during this time worked alongside adults.
Working class children in particular continued to work in the factories, mines and mills.
However, advances in public health and medicine led to a decline in the infant mortality rate amongst the
middle classes.
This led to a change in attitudes amongst the middle classes to how children were viewed
CRITIQUES OF ARIÈS: PRESENTISM
• Ariès’ “predisposition to interpret the past in light of
present-day attitudes, assumptions and concerns” (Archard:
2015: 27)
• All societies have concept of childhood: “What the past
lacked was our concept of childhood” (Archard: 2015: 27)
• Ariès makes a moral judgement about how children should
be treated, e.g. the worlds of adults and children should be
separated
• Writing at a time when there was concern about the
“decline” of the family
CRITIQUES OF ARIÈS: NEGLECT OF GENDER
AND CLASS
• Idea of ‘childhood’ or ‘boyhood’?: “Boys were the first
specialised children” (Ariès, 1962: 58)
• Focus on social and cultural aspects of change and less on
economic and rise of middle class:
•
“They were not just boys, however, but also
middle-class boys” (Gittens, 2004: 34)
• “The concept of childhood as it developed was historically
and class specific, while at the same time disguising both
gender and class differences. The term suggests all
childhoods are equal, universal and in some way
fundamentally identical […] later used to define what all
families and all childhoods should be.” (Gittens, 2004: 35)
CHILDHOOD IN CONTEMPORARY
WESTERN SOCIETY
In contemporary Britain and in most western societies people
take it for granted that children are different from adults.
Children are viewed as innocent and vulnerable who need
protecting from the dangers of the adult world. We view
childhood as a completely different period of time away from
the adult life. As a result adults have to a extent constructed a
“separate world” for children in the way…
•
Children are protected from adult dangers by laws (e.g.
Negligence)
•
They have cheaper travel and special foods, clothes, toys
•
Special areas designed only for children (e.g. Indoor play areas)
•
Special arrangements made for them by the state like schools
and child benefits.
We design theses features to protect children in their best interest as
a result of children’s “natural biological immaturity”, adults
construct childhood
•
WHERE CAN WE SEE THE CHANGE?
• Some reasons why the idea of modern childhood
came about as a separate stage to adulthood:
• Children Protection Act (1989)
• Laws that apply specifically to children (e.g. age of consent
at 16)
• Development of economic market directed at childhood
• Industrialisation – society now needing an educated
workforce
• Laws restricting child labour
• Introduction of compulsory education
WHERE DID CHILDHOOD STUDIES
COME FROM?
• Defined by its Interdisciplinary nature; It brings
together research and insight from:
• Anthropology – The Beginning and End of Childhood
• Sociology – Agency and Identity, Class, Gender and Race
• Psychology – Child Development – a Human “Becoming”
• Human Rights Law – Children’s Rights
• Social Policy – The Political and Economic Value of a Child
• Pedagogy – Learning and Childhood
These will all be discussed in more detail in week 5: Perspectives of Childhood
SUMMARY
• Social constructionism views the social world as made or
constructed rather than existing naturally
• Childhood is a social construction based on “different ideas about
childhood and understandings of what constitutes a child” which
vary over time and place
• Ariès raised fundamental questions over how childhood has been
socially constructed historically but has been heavily critiqued for
sweeping statements and his interpretation of representations
(texts and images)
• “The concept of childhood as it developed was historically and
class specific, while at the same time disguising both gender and
class differences” (Gittens, 2004: 35)
GROUP ACTIVITY
• Group Work: What does it mean to be a child?
Think of a classic piece of literature, or an old film and
explore how childhood was represented that is different
from today.
• What expectations of childhood in the past?
• Clothes
• Day-to-day lives
• Future
• What things affected your childhood?
• How have these things changed today?