topic 2 childhood

Question 1

How is childhood socially constructed?

Answer 1

Childhood is defined and created by society
What is seen as childhood varies:
* Between societies – cross cultural differences
* Within societies
* Over time

Question 2

Modern Western notion of childhood

How does pilcher define childhood?

In what ways do kids have a different status from adults?

Answer 2

Childhood is a distinct, separate life stage. Children have a different status to adults

1. Children are fundamentally different from adults
2. They are physically and psychologically immature
3. They need a lengthy period of socialisation and nurturing before they take on adult responsibilities
4. Associated with happiness and innocence

Question 3

Examples that show childhood is separate, distinct life stage in Western Society

Answer 3

1. Laws
2. Expectations
3. Products and services
4. Clothing

Question 4

What does Wagg suggest about childhood?

Answer 4

there is not one single universal experience of childhood, because it is a social construct

Question 5

cross cultural differences in childhood

What are the three distinct differences childhood between societies

Answer 5

1. They take responsibility at an early age - Children take on responsibilities in the home and the local community. This is not questioned or challenged
2. Less value is placed on obedience to adult authority - Among the Trobriand Islanders, adults are tolerant and show interest to children’s sexual explorations and activities
3. Children’s sexual behaviour is viewed differently - Firth, 1970 found that among the Tikopia, doing what you are told by an adult is not a right that is expected, rather it is granted by the child

Question 6

• How are children seen in Western society?
• What are the western norms around childhood?

Answer 6

• children are seen as vulnerable, and unable to tend to themselves
• Separate life stage, nuclear family, education, innocent and vulnerable

Question 7

Define globalisation

Answer 7

the increased interconnectedness of the world in terms of time and space. There is a global society/culture, rather ones associated with individual countries

Question 8

What is meant by globalisation of Western childhood? Give an example on how this has been imposed.

Answer 8

• International humanitarian and welfare agencies
• e.g. there are campaigns around child labour and ‘street children’ in developing countries which reflect the western norm and how children ‘should’ be.

Question 9

historical differences in childhood

What does Aries suggest about childhood?

Answer 9

It has changed overtime

Question 10

Aries

what was childhood like in the middle ages?

Answer 10

• Childhood as a separate life stage did not exist
• They were seen as mini-adults
  Began working from a young age
• Law made no distinction between children and adults
• Infants were often neglected in multiple ways

Question 11

Aries

What was childhood like in durimg the modern notion of childhood?

Answer 11

• Schools began to specialise in education of the young
• Church saw children as fragile ‘creatures of God’ who needed to be protected from evil
• Growing distinction between children and adult clothing

Question 12

What is the significance of Aries work?

Answer 12

• Shows that childhood is socially constructed
• He shows that ideas of childhood and the status of children changed over time

Question 13

8 reasons for the changes in the position of children

Answer 13

1. Laws restricting child labour and excluding kids from paid work
2. declining family size and lower infant mortality rate
3. intro. of compulsory schooling
4. Kid’s development became the subject of medical knowledge
5. Child protection and welfare legislation
6. Laws and policies that apply specifically to children
7. Growth of the idea of children’s rights
8. Industrialisation

Question 14

disappearance of childhood

What’s happening to childhood and the status of children?
Examples

Answer 14

• Childhood is disappearing at a dazzling speed
• Children are becoming more like adults and the boundaries are becoming blurred
• There is a growing distinction in clothing, leisure and crime patterns
• Vaping, drinking, Greater pressure on children to have their lives decided and planned out than it was before

Question 15

How does the ‘information hierarchy’ describe the shift in childhood?

Answer 15

Childhood is disappearing because TV culture has replaced print culture

Question 16

What is print culture?

Answer 16

Children lacked literacy skills so they couldn’t access the information here
‘Adult’ content was kept separate from children

Question 17

What is TV culture?

Answer 17

Information is made more accessible to children. They view the same content as adults
Boundary is broken down
Less adult authority

Question 18

A03 to information hierarchy

Answer 18

• restrictions are implemted
• opie = childhood isn’t disappearing and that there’s a strong evidence of childhood existing as separate to adulthood –> western norms of childhood are spreading globally, **childhood isn’t disappearing but spreading **

Question 19

What is modernity?

Answer 19

Industrialisation and urbanisation started
Capitalism
Rise of scientific knowledge and rational thought

Question 20

What is postmodernity?

Answer 20

Globalisation and interconnectedness
Unstable, unpredictable
Rapid social change
Increasing importance of mass media

Question 21

How does Jenks describe childhood in postmodern society ?

Answer 21

• Childhood is not disappearing, but it is changing
  In postmodernity, there is more instability and unpredictability – e.g more divorce.
  Children need greater nurturing, protection and surveillance than they had in modernity, to face these changes
  There is more regulation of children’s lives

Question 22

A03 for Jenks

Answer 22

• Not always possible with instability so nurturing and protesting their children’s harder as there are more divorces and in increase in lone parent families
• cost of livinf – parents constantly working
• not all kids exp. instability
• different kids nee diff levels of care
• divorce isn’t a universal experience

Question 23

What is the M.O.P view ?

Answer 23

Position of childhood has improved and is better than it was in the past
* They are better cared for and protected = There are professionals for their wellbeing and psychological needs etc
* Receive better education =
Government spends money on this
* They have better healthcare and higher standard of living. This means they have better survival chances
* They have more rights =
Laws against child abuse and child labour

Question 24

cost of living crisis

How has the cost of livinf crisis affected the child centerdness of families?

Answer 24

• Less money to spend on children – tuition, toys, days out
• Both parents having to work – less time to spend with children

Question 25

A03 evaluation

What is Palmer’s argument?
What is meant by ‘toxic childhood’? Give e.g.

Answer 25

UK is experiencing a ‘toxic childhood
Rapid technological and cultural changes have damaged children’s physical, emotional and intellectual development
e.g. Junk food, Computer games ,
Long hours worked by parents,
Intensive testing in education,
Drugs and smoking, Self-harm

Question 26

Critisise the M.O.P view

Answer 26

• There are inequalities among children in terms of their opportunities and risks they face
• There are inequalities between children and adults like gender, ethnicity and class

Question 27

Describe how there are inequalities between children and adults?

Answer 27

There are power ineqaulities between kids and adults where adults use their power to oppress kids
Firestone and Holt = protecting kids from paid works a way of segregating them and making them powerless and depend on adult control – > A03 = child labour legislation

Question 28

How do adults exercise control over children?

Answer 28

1. space
2. bodies
3. time
4. access to resources

Question 29

Gittens

What is age patriarchy?

Answer 29

• describes inequalities between adults and children. Adult domination and child dependency
• Families tend to be run by the males, who have power over the women and children.
• Today, power can assert itself in the form of violence against children and women in the family.
• Humphreys and Thiara = 50/200 women left their abusive husbands because they feared for their children’s lives.
• This shows that patriarchy oppresses both women and children

Question 30

How do kids resist their youth and the pressures that come with this?

Answer 30

Acting up – act like adults and do ‘grown-up’ things
Smoking, drugs, drinking,swearing, under-age sexual behaviour

This shows that childhood can be an oppressive experience for some.
The idea of controlling children contributes to this idea of a toxic childhood

Question 31

New sociology of childhood

How are children viewed as ‘socialisation projects’?

(How fem. M.O.P & func. see children)

Answer 31

adults to mould and shape for what they want them to be in the future = passive beings who respond to social changes

Question 32

What are some examples of social changes that shape childhood?

Answer 32

1. industrialisation
2. laws
3. gov. policies
4. changes in social attitudes
5. social institutions = fam. education

Question 33

New sociology of childhood - Mayall

How does this perspective view kids?

Answer 33

Mayall, 2004:
This approach sees children asactive agentswho createtheir own childhood.
We need to focus on the ‘present tense of childhood’ to study a child’s everyday life from their perspective

Question 34

Mason and tipper / Smart et al

Why is it important to examine the child’s viewpoint?

Answer 34

Mason and Tipper, 2008 = children define who they see as ‘family’. They may regard other as ‘close’ rather than biological family members
Smart et al, 2001 = children of divorced are actively involved in making the situation better
By looking at children’s viewpoint it allows us to see the variety of childhoods that exist even in the same society