Childhood

Question 1

Childhood Definition

Answer 1

The social construction of the experience of a child has before adulthood.
Childhood is generally considered to be either a natural biological stage of development or a modern idea or invention.

Question 2

Dimensions of Childhood

Answer 2

Historical Dimension (Childhood is determined by time)
Cultural Dimension (What part of the world) 
Sociological Variables (Status, Work, Marriage, Education)

Question 3

Childhood

Answer 3

Most people take for granted the idea that children are different from adults.
In most Western societies, children are considered immature, vulnerable and in need of special protection. Childhood as a separate phase of life when children should be separated from adults is very much a modern invention.
Childhood can, therefore, be seen as a ‘social construction’, as something that is created by society’s attitudes and the assumptions we make about children in our culture.

Question 4

How has Childhood Changed?

Answer 4

It has become more child-centred

Extended childhood far longer than most other societies in history

Question 5

Children in the 15th Century

Answer 5

Due to infant mortality rates being higher from lower standards of living, children under 3 weren’t expected to live so parents were more cautious of growing too attached to them and teaching them as their children.

Question 6

Infant Mortality Rates

Answer 6

The number of babies who die before the age of 1 per 1000 live births.

Question 7

Industrialisation in the UK

Answer 7

Occurred in the 18th Century

Involved the mass introduction to manufacturing with the production of many factories

Question 8

Children in the 18th Century

Answer 8

• Up until the 18th-century children were regarded as extra workers to help their parents especially in poorer families
• In richer families, sons were there to inherit titles and property and daughters to be married off in order to create useful alliances
• Took on adult roles/ ‘little adults’
• 218 million children in work
• Up until 1850 child labour was practised and accepted
• Long and hard
• Families were a patriarchal unit but men had little involvement care

Question 9

Aries (1973)

Answer 9

Analysed art, memoirs and letters from the middle ages (15th and 16th centuries) as evidence
Children depicted as adults in dress, participating in work and leisure alongside adult
No toys or games just for children
Adult roles adopted at 7
Similarly children due to them being seen as criminally responsible as could be tired of stealing and other crimes

Question 10

Industralisan and Children and the change in society

Answer 10

• Many children worked in factories due to being small enough to get into some machines and fix them due to their energy
• Many children were dying in these conditions due to the illness from poor hygiene in factories or due to the machine themselves
• Restrictions on child labour in mines and factories were put in place after attitudes changed to seeing them as the need for protection
• Introduction of the Butler Education Act 1944 made education compulsory which also meant that children became a concern of the state and, as they were not able to work, children became dependent on adults
• Industrialisation resulted in children moving from being an economic asset, where they would have contributed financially to the family, to become an economic burden, meaning that children are now financially dependent on their families.
• Not all children’s lives equally, rich got far superior education and lifestyle, poor children did still work despite laws to supplement family income

Question 11

Wagg (1992)

Answer 11

Argues that although all humans experience the same physical stages of development, the experience of childhood is entirely socially constructed.

Question 12

The 20th Century and Child-Centred Society

Answer 12

• Legal and attitudinal changes were very much linked to changes in the family. The family became smaller, geographically mobile and, typically, nuclear. Parents had the time to establish a closer relationship with their children.
• Western societies that children have become separated from the adult world, excluded from the world of work and confined to educational institutions.
• There are also specific foods, clothes and leisure activities aimed at children.
• Families have become more child-centred.
• Families revolve around children’s needs.
• A far greater proportion of family income is now spent on children, to the extent that many parents will make considerable sacrifices for their children’s welfare.
• Parents, especially fathers, also spend more time in actively parenting children

Question 13

Child-Centred

Answer 13

Things have become more centred around children and working around them

Question 14

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Smaller Families)

Answer 14

Families got smaller since the end of the 19th century and this means that individual care and attention can be dedicated to each child.
More love, attention and financial
resources can be lavished on each individual child.

Question 15

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Working Hours)

Answer 15

Working hours have been reduced from 60-70 to 44 hours.
So parents spend more time with them.
Amount of time has doubled.
Parents, especially fathers, have more time to spend with their children.

Question 16

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Greater Affluence)

Answer 16

Improved living standards and higher wages mean that there is more disposable income to spend on children.
Children’s welfare is a major primary and costs a lot of money
Children’s activities

Question 17

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Extension of Education)

Answer 17

Education only became compulsory in England in the 1880s; before that, many working-class children were sent out to work from an early age. 
Since then, the school-leaving age has risen from 10 to 16 and young people are now obliged by law to continue in some kind of education or training until 18. 
This extends the period of children being dependent on parents for much longer and also further separates children from the adult world.

Question 18

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Social Policy)

Answer 18

Successive governments have given ever greater emphasis activities in child welfare. This can be seen in the range of benefits designed to assist parents in maintaining and caring for children.
It can also be seen in greater emphasis on child protection, as is evident in the willingness of social workers to remove children from families where they are abused or neglected.
Introduction of the NHS in 1948 provided a range of benefits to help parents care for their children as well as increasing demands for them to do it properly, social workers

Question 19

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Children’s Rights)

Answer 19

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) extended the
idea of human rights to suggest that children had specific rights in addition to those of adults. In the UK, the 1989 and 2004 Children Acts established legal rights for children in the UK. For example, in divorce cases, courts must give priority to the needs and wishes of children in making decisions about where they will live and access to each parent.

Question 20

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Child Experts)

Answer 20

Paediatrics, Science of Childhood, research and books telling parents how to raise their kids
Since the nineteenth century, a range of medical, psychological and educational experts have put forward scientific theories about how children should be brought up. Children are no longer seen as simply naturally developing into adults, but as having special needs, and parenting is seen as a skill that parents must learn. Parents are increasingly turning to childcare books written by such specialists as well as websites where they can exchange ideas and experiences with other parents. There are also TV programmes such as Supernanny that offer role models and guidance to parents.

Question 21

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Concerns about Children)

Answer 21

Traffic Accidents, Parental fears mean more kids travel with their parents instead of being alone
Parents have become much more concerned about threats to children due to risks of accidents but also because of fears about ‘stranger danger’ and paedophiles. Furedi (2001) , have argued that this is largely a moral panic encouraged by the media and that parents’ fears are largely unjustified.
However, one consequence is that children have become more closely supervised by parents and are less likely to have the freedom to play outside without restrictions.
Cunningham (2007) suggests that the ‘home habitat’ of typical eight-year-olds has shrunk to one-ninth of its previous size in the last 25 years.

Question 22

Changes in society that contributing to the emergence of this modern attitude of Childhood (Consumers)

Answer 22

Big business has created a consumer market targeted at children.
Toys, games foods, clothes and leisure activities aimed at children.
Children play a big role in families’ spending decisions, using ‘pester power’ to encourage parents to buy them sweets, toys, computer games and mobile phones. Telegraph (2013), parents spend around £460 a year on average on things they do not need after giving in to the pestering of their children. Sweets and junk food were among the most popular items, with four in ten pestering their parents.

Question 23

Conventional Approach to Childhood

Answer 23

Functionalism and the New Right

Question 24

Conventional Approach

Answer 24

Argue that childhood is in fact improving as the family becomes more specialised.
They claim that changes in attitudes, coupled with greater child-centredness in society and social policies, have resulted in happier, safer and more valued children.
That children should be viewed as vulnerable and in need of protection from adult society that is successfully done through a nuclear family.

Question 25

Evidence to support Conventional Approach

Answer 25

There is evidence to support this view as well; for example, there has been a 75 per cent reduction in the number of children killed on the roads in England and Wales, either in cars or as pedestrians.
The UK tops the European rankings for the use of filters on the internet-enabled devices that children use at home.

Question 26

Murray and the Nuclear Family

Answer 26

Critical of single mothers due to being seen as inadequate in maintaining a functional childhood causing social problems and delinquency.

Question 27

Five Sociologists who take on the Conventional Approach (Children need to be protected)

Answer 27

1) Postman (1982)
2) Phillips (1997)
3) Pugh (2002)
4) Evans and Chandler (2006)
5) Palmer (2007)

Question 28

Postman (1982)

Answer 28

• Rise and fall of the print media has led to the blurring of the line between children and adults.
• In other words, in the past children had to read in order to gain access to adult worlds.
• Postman claims that this will result in the disappearance of childhood with less time spent outside and more on TV and video games
• Technology has resulted in greater access caused ‘social blurring’ between the stages of being a child to becoming an adult (part-time jobs and world issues)

Question 29

Pester Power

Answer 29

The ability of children to pressure their parents into doing or buying things for them.

Question 30

Phillips (1997)

Answer 30

• Children aren’t being protected by society
• The innocence of childhood has been undermined
• Primary socialisation is losing its influence with parenting being undermined by giving too many rights and power to children
• Secondary socialisation is becoming more influential than parents
• The media being aimed at girls leads to the sexualisation of children and so childhood is shorter

Question 31

Consumption as Compensation

Answer 31

When parents buy toys and other products for their children to compensate for them not actually being there.

Question 32

Pugh (2002)

Answer 32

• Consumption as compensation creates maniplative children into a consumer society
• Wealthy parents spend less time with thier children due to having them down jobs
• So they are ‘cash rich and time poor’
• They therefore buy their children gifts to make up for not spending time with them to releive gulit

Question 33

Evans and Chandler (2006)

Answer 33

• Group interviews with 45 7 to 11 year olds who talked about neogatating with adults to obtain things: ‘pester power’
• 19 parents were also interviwed about this pester power and justified thier consumption as they saw it as good parenting
• Interpreted the giving of thing to be good communication and signs of love
• Giving them what they can’t have

Question 34

Palmer (2007)

Answer 34

Children now experience what she calls toxic childhood because children are being damaged by a diet of junk food, excessive exposure to computer games and a lack of love or discipline from parents forced to work long hours outside the home
Parents are too happy to use television, computer games and fast food to placate them.
Palmer suggests that, as a result, children grow up to be easily distractible, self-absorbed and less sociable.
Every year children becaome more self obessed and less able to learn and enjoy life as everything is done for them
This rise in pester power allows children to mainpulate theier parents into getting them things that cause a toxic childhood

Question 35

Palmer Evidence

Answer 35

The National Trust research showed that children are playing outside for an average of just over four hours a week. 8.2 hours for their parents when they were children.
A study by the UK government found that 10% of respondents have not even been in a natural environment such as a park, forest or beach for at least a year.

Question 36

Disadvantges of a Child-Centred Soceity

Answer 36

1) Helipcopters parents can be overbearing causing a lack of freedom and a socail life
2) Media creating moral panic of things like kidnappers
3) Children may grow up to be dependant on thier parents - rise of Kidults
4) Children may lack creativity and innovation as they are having verything done for them so are deskilled workers
5) Econmic burdens instead of the assests they used to be

Question 37

Who critises the Conventional Approach to Childhood

Answer 37

Marxism and Feminism

Question 38

What do they say about Childhood

Answer 38

The fact that childhood is a social construction means that it is expirenced differently around the world and is sometimes corrupted in child-centred societies.
The experience of childhood is negative
Feminists claim that children are controlled by adults, which is known as age patriarchy
Age patriarchy is a result of children being made to be financially dependent on adults. Marxists argue that children are simply taught to submit to the capitalist system rather than being encouraged to question the system creatively. Capitalist society results in the exploitation of children.

Question 39

Evidence for Critisms

Answer 39

1 in 20 children have been sexually abused and over 90 per cent of children who have experienced sexual abuse were abused by someone they knew.
Over 63,000 sexual offences against children were recorded by the police in the UK in 2016/17.

Question 40

Donzelot (1997)

Answer 40

New forms of surveillance by the state ensure that parents are being watched and checked, which represents a new way that the state controls adults and children alike.

Question 41

Sociologist aganist Protecting Children

Gill 2007

Answer 41

• Argued that paranoid parenting is often a result of the media and the moral panic created by stories about things like child kidnapping, peadophiles
• Given the rise of to ‘helicopter parenting’
• They oversee and control everything thier child does in order to create a ‘zero-risk culture’
• This can affect the childs freedom and social life from isolation, independance, and creativty as parents are often doing everything for them

Question 42

Two Examples of Case Studies that support that all Familes are Child-Centered

Answer 42

1. ) Baby P was a 17-month-old boy who died in London in 2007 after suffering more than fifty injuries over an eight-month period caused by his mother and her partner. Not all families are child centered.
2. ) Genie was locked in a cage in a room, never speaking to anyone and was fed like an animal and never being allowed to leave. This inhibited her ability to speak in later ;ife sue to not doing so during the development period.

Question 43

Children expirenced the Adult World earlier and earlier

Answer 43

Technology means the avilability of the media they’re exposed to the same issues as adults and so are less protected aganist them and soceity
The media presents a model image of how women should look which can lead to the sexulaisation of children (girls wearing make-up)
Children recevie pocket money from thier parents and often have part time jobs

Question 44

Childhood around the World

Answer 44

In the developing world Childhood is often Non-Existant

Question 45

Poverty and Childhood

Answer 45

Young children need to help the family so can’t go to school as working to provide money
In Pakistan in children work 6 days a week for 10 to 14 hours

Question 46

Conflict and Childhood

Answer 46

Poorer countries may have a less developed military due to finical straits stopping their funding and so will need to recruit as many people as possible.
Resorting to children leading to a lack of childhood and education.
In Sierra, Leone children are being kidnapped and made child soldiers to fight the civil wars
25,000 child soldiers in the world today

Question 47

Marriage and Childhood

Answer 47

African countries have the highest rates of girls marrying under 18 (UNICEF) and so have less childhood due to time being spent as a wife
This involves bearing and caring for children as well as supporting their husbands

Question 48

Education and Childhood

Answer 48

Children are often unable to afford school or don’t go altogether due to needing to start work to provide for families
This leads to a lack of literacy and mathematical skills that will ultimately lead to low paid low-skilled jobs
17 million children in the world will never attend school

Question 49

Education and Childhood Evidence

Jefferis

Answer 49

Found that children who experienced poverty had significantly fallen behind children from middle-class backgrounds in terms of maths and reading.

Question 50

Diversity in Childhood Experiences

Answer 50

Significant differences in Childhood Experiences dependant on factors like Social Class, Gender and Ethnicity

Question 51

Social Class and Childhood

Answer 51

• 4.5 million children are living below the breadline, with more than half trapped in poverty for years in 2018 according to the Social Metrics Commission.
• Margo and Dixon (2006), wealthier parents often spend considerable amounts of their income on activities such as dance or music lessons for their children and emphasise the need for children to attend organised activities such as sports clubs or Scouts. Poorer children are likely to have a much more restricted range of activities and may be forced to take part-time jobs to pay for the things they want.
• Joseph Rowntree Foundation states that children from lower income backgrounds are very aware of their disadvantaged position from a very early age.
• Womack (2007) argues that children who are poor often have very negative experiences of childhood. On the other hand, there is some evidence that children who come from more affluent backgrounds may experience ‘toxic parenting’ where good parenting is being replaced with technology, such as computer games.

Question 52

Gender and Childhood

Answer 52

• Socialisation continues to be very much a gendered process, and evidence suggests that girls continue to be far more prepared for school than boys by the time they are four.
• This is because girls are encouraged to be conformist and develop speaking skills, which prepares them better for school than boys’ activities, which tend to be very physical and based on competitiveness. This continues into later childhood and teenage years where girls develop a ‘bedroom culture’
• McRobbie and Garber (1975) A bedroom culture is a concept that describes the ways in which girls organise their culture at home in a way that reflects gendered socialisation. Girls see their bedrooms as private spaces free from intimidation by males that they feel elsewhere.
• Parents still tend to socialise children very differently in terms of gender, such as the toys that children are given, expectations about girls’ and boys’ contribution to household chores and the greater protectiveness and restriction on freedom that many parents show towards girls compared to boys.

Question 53

Ethnicity and Childhood

Answer 53

• The experience of childhood is affected by the ethnic background of the child, however, the patterns are complex.
• Bhatti (1999) observed that Asian children are generally more strictly brought up than most other ethnic groups. In most Asian families there is a strong emphasis on family honour, and bad behaviour by children is seen as reflecting on the whole family. Asian girls, in particular, are likely to be more closely supervised by parents.
• Barn (2006), black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi families in the UK are also likely to be associated with low incomes, unemployment and poor housing, which often leads to difficulties in raising children. However, among all minority ethnic groups, extended families appear to be an important source of support.

Question 54

Conclusion

Answer 54

Childhood is a social construct means it will change based on the culture.
Therefore this is why children in the West experience a safer and lengthier childhood than those in developing countries due to having the opportunities they don’t.