Childhood as a Social Construct

Question 1

Regarding the modern western notion of childhood, what do we generally accept that childhood and children are?

Answer 1

• a special time of life, and that children are fundamentally different from adults

Question 2

What do we regard children as?

Answer 2

• physically and psychologically immature and not yet competent to run their own lives

Question 3

Due to children’s lack of skills, knowledge and experience, what does this result in people believing?

Answer 3

• that they need a lengthy, protected period of nurturing and socialisation before they are ready for adult society and responsibilities

Question 4

Identify some ways in which the separateness of childhood and how it is a clear and distinct life stage is emphasised

Answer 4

• laws regulating what children are allowed, required or forbidden to do, differences in dress, products, services, toys, food, books, entertainment, play areas

Question 5

Relating to the separateness of children’s status, what is childhood often called?

Answer 5

• a ‘golden age’ of happiness and innocence

Question 6

Due to the fact that children are seen as vulnerable and in need of protection, ie. they need to be ‘quarantined,’ where do they live their lives and what happens in this sphere?

Answer 6

• in a sphere of the family and education where adults provide for them and protect them from the outside world

Question 7

Regarding cross-cultural differences in childhood, what are three ways in which children from other cultures are treated differently from western culture?

Answer 7

• they take responsibility at an early age, less value is placed on children showing obedience to adult authority, sexual behaviour is often viewed differently (with more tolerance and amusement)

Question 8

What do cross cultural differences demonstrate about childhood?

Answer 8

• it’s not a fixed thing found universally in the same form in all societies but is socially constructed and so differs from culture to culture

Question 9

Regarding the historical differences in childhood, what would some sociologists and historians argue?

Answer 9

• that childhood as we understand it today is a relatively recent ‘invention’

Question 10

In the Middle Ages, how long was the separate age-stage of childhood?

Answer 10

Short

Question 11

Soon after being weaned, what would the child enter?

Answer 11

• wider society on much the same terms as adults, beginning work from an early age

Question 12

Due to the fact that children were seen as ‘mini adults,’ what would they have the same to adults?

Answer 12

• rights, duties and skills

Question 13

Relating to the fact that there was often no distinction between children and adults, what happened when it came to punishment?

Answer 13

• children faced the same severe punishments

Question 14

How do paintings from the Middle Ages generally display adults and children?

Answer 14

• dressed in the same clothing and working and playing together

Question 15

What does Shorter comment that high death rates encouraged among parental attitudes?

Answer 15

• indifferences and neglect, especially towards infants

Question 16

Give three examples that demonstrate the attitude of neglect that parents from the Middle Ages had towards their children

Answer 16

• not uncommon to name a new child after a recently dead sibling, refer to the baby as ‘it,’ or forget how many children they had

Question 17

Identify the three elements of the modern notion of childhood that gradually began to emerge

Answer 17

• schools came to specialise purely in the education of the young
• growing distinction between children’s and adult’s clothing
• handbooks on childrearing became more widely available

Question 18

How did the Church’s view of children influence the development of schools specialising purely in the education of the young?

Answer 18

• the Church saw children as fragile ‘creatures of God,’ in need of discipline and protection from worldly evils

Question 19

What did the wide availability of childrearing handbooks demonstrate about family life?

Answer 19

• that it was becoming more child-centred

Question 20

How does Aries outline the shift in attitudes towards childhood in the world?

Answer 20

• that we have moved from a world that didn’t see childhood as special to a world obsessed with childhood

Question 21

Why have some sociologists criticised Aries?

Answer 21

• they say that Aries is wrong in arguing that childhood didn’t exist in the past but that it is more correct to say that the Middle Ages had a different notion of childhood

Question 22

Why is Aries work valuable?

Answer 22

• it shows childhood is socially constructed and demonstrates how ideas about children and social status have varied over time