Childhood

Question 1

How do sociologists define childhood?

Answer 1

Something that is socially constructed and the position they occupy in society is not fixed but differs

Question 2

What is the Modern Western notion of childhood?

Answer 2

Children are fundamentally different from adults and are regarded as physically and psychologically immature

Question 3

What is Pilcher’s view on childhood?

Answer 3

Separatedness, childhood is a clear and distinct life stage

Question 4

What is a belief based on the Modern Western notion of childhood?

Answer 4

Children’s lack of skills and knowledge means they need a lengthy, protected period of nurturing and socialisation

Question 5

How is childhood emphasised as a distinct life stage?

Answer 5

Difference in clothing, toys, food, books, products etc

Question 6

What is another view related to separatedness?

Answer 6

Childhood is a ‘golden age’ of happiness and innocence

Question 7

What did Wagg find?

Answer 7

Different cultures construct or define childhood differently

Question 8

Why are cross-cultural differences in childhood important?

Answer 8

A good way to illustrate how childhood is socially constructed

Question 9

What did Benedict argue?

Answer 9

Children in simpler, non-industrial societies are generally treated differently, much less of a dividing line between adults and childrens behaviours

Question 10

Name 3 ways in which Benedict claims how children are treated differently in different societies.

Answer 10

1. Take responsibility at an early age (Punch’s study in rural Bolivia; age 5 already helping)
2. Less value placed on children showing obedience to adult authority
3. Children’s sexual behaviours are often viewed differently

Question 11

How has Western childhood been globalised?

Answer 11

International humanitarian and welfare agencies have exported and imposed western norms of what childhood should be

Question 12

What do historians argue that childhood is?

Answer 12

A relatively recent invention

Question 13

What does Aries say about childhood in the Middle Ages?

Answer 13

• The idea of childhood did not exist; children were ‘mini-adults’
• Same rights and duties and often faced with same severe punishments as adults

Question 14

What does Aries use to demonstrate childhood in the Middle Ages?

Answer 14

Work of art, in these children appear without any of the characteristics of childhood only depicted on a smaller scale

Question 15

What does Shorter argue?

Answer 15

• High death rates encourage indifference and neglect (not uncommon for children to be called ‘it’ or parents to lose track of children count)

Question 16

What developments culminated the modern cult of childhood?

Answer 16

1. Schools came to specialise purely in the education of the young (reflects the influence of the Church as children being ‘fragile creatures of God’)
2. Growing distinction between children’s and adults clothing
3. Handbooks on child rearing widely available

Question 17

What did Aries conclude about modern childhood?

Answer 17

We have moved from a world that did not see childhood in any way special, to a world obsessed with childhood, he describes the 20th century as the ‘century of the child’

Question 18

What were the reasons for the change in the position of children?

Answer 18

1. Laws restricting child labour
2. Introduction of compulsory schooling
3. Child protection and welfare legislation

Question 19

What did Postman say about the disappearance of childhood?

Answer 19

‘Childhood is disappearing at a dazzling speed’ and the emergence of childhood lies in the rise of print culture and disappearance in television culture

Question 20

What was the information hierarchy?

Answer 20

Childhood emerged as a separate status because of print culture which caused a sharp division between adults who can read and children who cant read

Question 21

How did television culture affect childhood?

Answer 21

Blurs the distinction between childhood and adulthood by destroying the information hierarchy

Question 22

What was the difference in Aries and Jenks studies?

Answer 22

‘Futurity’, how childhood was seen as a preparation for adulthood

Question 23

What is Jenks current say on childhood today?

Answer 23

Childhood is undergoing change from modernity to post modernity.

Question 24

In post modern society, what are adults relationships with their children like?

Answer 24

Relationships in society become unstable which generates feelings of insecurity so relationships with children becomes a refuge from the constant uncertainty and upheaval of life

Question 25

What does Lloyd De Mause say on the position of childhood today?

Answer 25

‘The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we recently begun to awaken’

Question 26

What type of view does Aries and Shorter take?

Answer 26

March of progress view

Question 27

What was the infant mortality rate like in the 1900s compared to now?

Answer 27

154 per 1,000 live births compared to 4 per 1,000 live births

Question 28

What is the ‘child centred family’

Answer 28

• Children are the focal point of the family today
• To one estimate by the time a child reaches its 21st birthday it will have cost their parents over £227,000

Question 29

What does Palmer say on toxic childhood?

Answer 29

Rapid technological and cultural changes have damaged children physical, emotional and intellectual development

Question 30

What is the conflict view?

Answer 30

Marxists and feminists dispute the march of progress view on 2 grounds:
1. Inequalities among children in terms of the opportunities and risks they face
2. Inequalities between adults and children are greater than ever, children receive oppression, control and dependency not care and protection

Question 31

What inequalities among children did Brannen find?

Answer 31

A study of 15-16 year old found that Asian parents were more likely than other parents to be strict towards their daughter

Question 32

What 3 class inequalities were found between children?

Answer 32

1. Poor mothers more likely to have low birth weight babies
2. Children of unskilled manual workers are over 3 times more likely to suffer from hyperactivity
3. Children born into poor families are more likely to die in infancy/childhood or have difficulties later on in life

Question 33

What did Firestone and Holt argue regarding inequalities in paid work between children and adults?

Answer 33

They argued ‘protection’ from paid work is not a benefit but a form of inequality, forcibly segregating children making them dependent and powerless

Question 34

How many children were subject to child protection in 2013?

Answer 34

43,000

Question 35

How are children’s space controlled?

Answer 35

Children’s movement in industrial societies are highly regulated and closely surveilled

Question 36

What percentage of children in 1971 were allowed to travel home from school alone compared to now?

Answer 36

86% compared to only 25% now

Question 37

What did Katz find?

Answer 37

Sudanese children were already engaged in productive activities from the age of 3/4

Question 38

Who uses the term ‘age patriarchy’ and why?

Answer 38

Gittins, to describe inequalities between adult and children
- Age patriarchy of adult domination and child dependency

Question 39

What are 2 ways children resist adult control?

Answer 39

‘Acting up’ and ‘acting down’

Question 40

What do critics of the child liberationist view say?

Answer 40

Some adult control can be justified on the grounds that children cannot make rational decision