P2 Families and Households - Children as Social Construction

Question 1

What were the roles of children in the middle ages (tudor times)?

Answer 1

1. Dressed like their parents
2. Everyone worked together (apprentice from 8 years old)
3. Everyone was held responsible (7 year old could be hung for stealing
4. Children could not escape from the adult world

Question 2

What is social construction?

Answer 2

Ideas about childhood appear to differ between different societies and different historical periods.

Therefore childhood is socially constructed and not just a biological stage to life

Question 3

What does Aries argue about childhood in pre industrial society?

Answer 3

Aries argue that the nature of childhood today is due to social intervention and would not of existed in pre industrial society.

Children were seen as an economic asset.

Bonding involved:
- Toys and games
Emotional love was difficult according to Shorter

Question 4

What was emotional love like in pre industrial society?

Answer 4

Emotional love was still rare, especially in working class families:
- Children were needed to work in factories, mines and mills

But middle class attitudes began to change and there was a growth in marital and parental love as the infant mortality rate began to fall

Question 5

What were social attitudes like in pre industrialisation?

Answer 5

1. During the mid 19th century attitudes started to change
2. Concerns for juvenile delinquency, beggars and child prostitution as children were often on the streets
3. Some children were rejected from work in mines and factories due to a significant number of deaths

Question 6

What does Cunningham argue about the change in attitudes to social construction?

Answer 6

That the changes in attitudes lead to social construction of childhood by adults:
1. Opposite of adulthood
- Children were seen to be in need of protection, have the right to work and be dependent on adults
2. The two worlds were to be kept seperate
- Banned from pubs
Home and school were seen as ideal places
3. Happiness
-However there is still considerable evidence that children continued to be treated badly. For example child prostitution and child abuse.
- Sexual consent was not raised to age 16 until the turn of the 20th century

Question 7

What does Aires argue about the modern cult of childhood?

Answer 7

The notion of childhood began to emerge in the 13th century:
- Schools specialised in the education of the young, children were fragile
- Growing distinction between child and adult clothing
- By 18th century books on child rearing were widely available

Moved to a world that is obsessed with childhood, he described the 20th century as the century of the child

Question 8

What is the evaluation of Aires?

Answer 8

Positives:
- Evidence to support that childhood is socially constructed, a child’s social status has varied over time

Negatives:
- Pollock argues more correct to say that during the Middle Ages society had a different notion of childhood

Question 9

What are cross cultural differences?

Answer 9

Benedict argues children in simpler societies, treated differently in 3 ways:
1. They take responsibility at an early age
2. less value placed on obedience
3. Sexual behaviour is viewed differently

Question 10

What is childhood like in the 20th century?

Answer 10

1. Child centred society
   - Improved standards of living and nutrition leads to a significant decline in infant mortality rates
2. Children became more expensive
3. People could now choose to have fewer children, therefore parents could invest more love in the children they did have
4. Childhood had separated from adulthood and children were seen to be in need to special attention and protection

Question 11

What affect does globalisation have on western childhood?

Answer 11

International humanitarian and welfare agencies have exported and imposed in the rest of the world the notion of childhood. western childhood has become globalised for example:
- Child poverty campaigns
- Street children in developing countries

Question 12

What are reasons for the change in position of children?

Answer 12

1. Laws (restricting child labour, specifically protecting childhood)
2. Compulsory education
3. Child protection welfare
4. Growth in children’s rights
5. Declining family size/lower infant mortality
6. Medical knowledge

Question 13

What does research did Womack do?

Answer 13

He looked at the growing trends in unhappy children in Britain - he argues that British children are the unhappiest in the western world. Several things are attributed to this:
1. Family breakdown is an issue with 1/3 16 year old children not living with their biological fathers
2. UNICEF found british children are more prone to bad physical and mental health, failure at school, worst relationships with parents, greater deprivation
3. Teenage pregnancy is the highest in Europe - child poverty in the UK remains an issue with 3.7 million children seen as living in poverty