childhood Flashcards
Gittins: age patriarchy
-describes the inequalities between adults and children
-That there is an age patriarchy of adult domination and child dependency
-This power may assert itself in the form of violence against both children and women
Humphreys and Thiara
-found a quarter of the 200 women in their study, left their abusing partner because they feared for their children’s lives
-Such findings support Gittins’ view that patriarchy oppresses children as well as women
Hockey and James: strategies children used to resist the status of child
-Evidence that children may experience childhood as oppressive comes from the strategies that they used to resist the status of child and the restrictions that go with it
-They describe one strategy as ‘ acting up’- acting like adults by doing things that children are not supposed to do such as swearing, smoking drinking alcohol, joy, riding and underage sexual activity and similarly children may exaggerate their age (‘ I’m nearly 9’)
-‘Acting down’: behaving in ways expected of younger children is also a popular strategy for resisting adult control e.g. By reverting to Babytalk or insisting on being carried.
-Conclude, that modern childhood is a status from which most children want to escape
Criticisms of the child liberationist view
): argue that some adult control over children’s lives is justified on the grounds that children cannot make rational decisions, and so are unable to safeguard their interests themselves
): although children remain under adult supervision, they are not as powerless as the child liberationists claim e.g. The 1989 children act, and the United Nations convention on the rights of the child established the principle that children have legal rights to be protected and consulted.
The ‘new sociology of childhood’
-Mayall: argues that views that see childhood as a social construct risk, seeing children from an ‘adultist’ viewpoint: it may see children as mid ‘socialisation projects’ for adults to mould shape and develop of no interest in themselves, but only for what they become in the future
-this approach doesn’t see children as simply ‘ adults in the making’ and instead sees children as active agents, who play a major part in creating their own childhood
-because it allows children to express their point of view, the new sociology of chartered also draws attention to the fact that children often like power in relation to adults and as such is an approach, favoured by child liberationists, who campaign in favour of children rights and priorities
The child’s point of view: Smart
-The new approach aims to include the views and experiences of children themselves while they are living through childhood. Hi darling.
The child’s point of view: Mayall
-we need to focus on the ‘present tense of childhood ‘to study ordinary every day life from the child’s perspective
The child’s point of view: Mason and Tipper
-show how children actively create their own definitions of who is ‘family’- which may include people who are not ‘proper’ aunts, or grandfathers but who they regard as ‘close’
The child’s point of view: Smart et al’s study of divorce
-found that far from being passive victims, children were actively involved in trying to make the situation better for everyone
-Studies like these use research methods such as informal, instructed interviews, which empower children to express their own views and allow research to see the world from the child’s point of view
-enable sociologist to explore the divers multiple childhood that exist within a single society e.g. notes that there are ‘ disabled childhoods, Chinese childhoods, girls childhood, the childhood of adopted children, poor childhood and so on’
