Families and households - Childhood Flashcards
(23 cards)
Childhood is socially constructed? What does social construct mean?
Whereby society defines expectations
Cross cultural comparisons
Where in the world, your society, culture will determine how you view childhood and how you experienced it
Childhood in a western country
Parents can access child benefits
Free access to healthcare and education
Lots of policies and laws in place to protect children
Sociologists - children are most protected than they ever have been
Who collected data from 46 developing countries and what did they find?
Townsend found that 1/3 children suffer from absolute poverty
1/3 age 7-18 never been to school
Over 375 million using unsafe water resources
Children in developing counties are at a greater risk of catching an infectious disease due to
Lack of clean water
Poor waste disposal
Lack of medicine
How many die before 5th bday?
How many die from malaria?
1/5
3000 (3/4 children)
Joesph Kony’s Lords Resistance Army
Kidnapping children into LRA
Rebel army
Children abducted
Forces children to kill own parents
Girls - sex slaves Boys - forced into doing hideous acts
Benedict summaries the differnces in the way children are treated in simpler non industrial societies compared to their modern western counterparts
The three key differences were…
- take responsibility from much earlier age
- less value is placed on children being obedient to adult authority
- children’s sexual behaviour viewed differently
What do the differences demonstrate?
Much less of a dividing line between childhood and adulthood in non western areas of the world
Western notion of childhood is being globalised
2 benefical reasons for developing countires to have western notion of childhood enforced on them
Child’s physical and mental health protected - not being sexually exploited
Longer term - decrease in the levels of poverty
Negative reasons
Culture exploitated
Short term - families rely on children having an economic role - slip further into poverty
Pre industrial period
- sociologist
Aries studied paintings 15/16th century, find out what childhood was like during this period
C often difficult to spot, very little distinction between others (other than height)
C did not lead separate lives, no child assocation things i.e toys
Identify 3 problems with using paintings for 15/16th century?
High income families can afford to hire out to have these paintings done - small proportion of society
Studying paintings is very subjective
Staged/unatural
Industrial period
Child labour commonly practised and accepted
Most worked from the age of 7
Children expect to work as long and hard as adults
Boys - apprentices Girls - servants in large richer households but in poor households children were forced into prositution/street selling
Children saw little of their parents, low status in family, seen and not heard
1842 miners act banned women and children under 10 from working undergound in mines/1870 there had to be a school in every village/town/1880 all children aged 5-10 must go to primary school (at least receive basic education)
Widened gap between adults and children - became more dependant on parents, concept of childhood taken its place in society once and for all
Childhood today
Society has become increasingly child centered
Amount of time parents spend with child has more than doubled since 1960s, more likely to take an interest in their child’s activities, include them in important decisions, treat them more as equals
Major family priority, parents making scarifices i.e financial to ensure welfare of their children
Who is the minister for children families and wellbeing
Claire coutinho
Who is the child’s comissioner
Dame Rachel
Has childhood improved - 3 views
THE MARCH OF PROGRESS VIEW
Childhood has improved significantly, due to how children are now perceivedas vulnerable people who need taking care of. Inaddition, there has been an introduction of laws which improve the experience of childhood (Eg. laws banning child labour).
PALMER:
‘Toxic childhood’ -Rapid technological and cultural changes have damaged children’s physical, emotional and intellectual development. This is the result of intensive marketing to children, parents working long hours and testing in education.
GITTINS:
‘Age patriarchy’ -There is an age patriarchy of adult domination and child dependency. This may assert itself in the form of violence against children.
The future of childhood
-Postman
In modern society, childhood is ‘disappearing’. Children and adults have some of the same rights, children’s unsupervised traditional games are disappearing, children are committing ‘adult’ crimes.
The printed word created a hierarchy between adults, who can read, and children, who cannot - this gave adults the power to keep ‘adult matters’ private. However, TV blurs the distinction and information hierarchy; TV does not require special skills to access it.
Childhood in a Postmodern world
PM Jenks does not believe childhood is disappearing, but it is changing
Many relationships have become unstable due to rapid social change (increases in divorce) Generates feeling of insecurity - rely on their children for stability in their life, one aspect that remains stable
PM society - more fearful of childs safety and more concerned with protecting them from harm
New sociology of childhood
Smart - the study of divorce found that
Far from being passive victims, children were actively invloved in trying to make the situation better for everyone
New sociology of childhood
Carol smart says the new approach
Aims to include the views and experiences of children themselves while they are living through childhood
New sociology of childhood
Mason and Tipper show
how children activiely create their own definitions of who is family which may include people are not ‘proper’ aunts or grandfathers
