The Changing Social Value of Children - Literature review Example

How social, historical and spatial constructions of childhood and/or youth inform the design, practices and values of a selected institution of childhood or young people During the last two decades a body of research has come forward on childhood studies. Now considered as a recognized field of research, some publications have uncovered a number of hidden facets of social, historical and spatial constructions of childhood. The notable publications in this area of research are Stainton Rogers and Stainton Rogers Stories of Childhood: Shifting Agendas of Child Concern, and James and Prout Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood. The former was published in 1992 and the latter in 1997. Social construction Sociologists are of the opinion that children are different to adults biologically, but these differences are defined and perceived according to how the society defines them. In other words, social construction of childhood is the one which is an outcome of processes involving identification and labeling by the society. Aries (1962) is of the opinion that it was the 19th century industrialization that changed children’s position. This is because pre-industrialization children were seen as miniature models of their parents since they mimicked them in more ways than one. Post-industrialization children began to be seen as having a right of their own and adults started thinking about their moral and physical well-being. This meant taking up studies and other learning activities which, not many parents had done in their own time. Today children are seen as being developed socially with formal education being imparted to them and parents spending lot of time, labor and money of them to bring them up as good, social human beings. Marxist links children to bourgeoisie who they believe need skilled work force and better-educated lot to deal with complex machines and obey instructions. The families or the society pays for the expenses so that they can produce the next generation which can take up the task of being workers. Critics and scholars have long argued that children do not have their cognitive and emotional capabilities developed to the extent that they can make choices which are rational on their own (Purdy, 1992). As a result of this they need mentoring and the part of society which is in immediate contact of them are parents. This ideology has come under fire from time to time since it does not share any power with the children being socially brought up. Bickmore (2001) is of the opinion that this is not at all necessary. He adds that institutions like educational officials and schools are not required to share authority or power with children or youth being socially groomed. This is one reason why children have not been seen as participants in the decision-making processes in schools. Some scholars argue that such practices are important because they, in a way, protect children from certain processes which they should not be exposed to at a tender age. But some scholars highlight violation of children's rights in doing so and think they have a right to participate. Given these pitfalls in the social construction theory, it has begun to be accepted now that in western societies social construction of childhood has resulted in certain anomalies and the generations of young people who have been brought up are dependent and immature. Keeping this background in mind, Freeman (1998) has suggested to merge rights of children discourses with research on sociology in the field of children’s’ studies so that congruent understandings and overlapping interests that the two have can be explore din the right earnest. Freeman has further stated that in context of social construction sociological arguments unravel a number of assumptions that the society posses about construction of childhood. In this direction Philippe Ariès' contribution to this dynamics of social construct of children is of immense ideological importance. To make strong his point, Aries has gone back in history to middle ages; in which, according to him, childhood was not considered as an important phase of life. To prove some of his points, Aries has taken evidence from the representation of children in that period's art. Centuries of Childhood, one of his seminal works, depicts children as a miniature form of adults – painted as small characters – have expressions same as those of adults. He further reveals absence or dearth of affection for children in that period. This had a very deep-rooted reason which was linked to children's low life expectancy. Parents, according to him, did not prefer to get attached to "something" that they were ultimately going to lose. This claim by Aries, however, has been refuted by Cunningham (1995). He has argued that representation of children in the art cannot be construed as their developmental state; they tell more about the art and how it was transforming at that moment of time. That is the way, says Cunningham, how people perceived or looked at art and not how children were treated. All said, Archard (1993) has stated that irrespective of what Aries has stated and how Cunningham has refuted, it cannot be said that social construct of childhood was absent at that point of time. However, it could be that the concept that we have today of social construct of childhood cannot be said should have been essentially theirs. Given these arguments construct of childhood cannot be separated from the fact that it is historically and socially situated. It, thus, becomes important to look at it from more recent perspectives on society's perception and treatment of children. A number of literary works have shaped present day notion of this construct. Rousseau's Emile comes as a ready-reckoner. He was of the opinion that childhood was a phase of life that stands on its own and should be valued as a stand-alone entity. This notion of childhood was further supported by Blake and Wordsworth (Hendrick, 1997). The former termed it as a "source of innocence" and the latter a "source of virtue". In either case the dominant force that strengthens this social construct are schools, which provide children the first glimpse of childhood. Historical construction On a historical front, historical accounts about childhood and children provide a deeper insight into childhood of past and the present. Historical trajectories are considered to be important points which lead to unraveling of many of the issues pertaining to childhood. In UK, for example, it was late nineteenth century when childhood was reconceptualized. This was around the World War I; precisely its beginning. Some of the historical studies have delved deeper into psychoanalysis of childhood and in the process uncovered certain startling facts about this span of life. Some scholars have suggested that childhood helps mankind map and develop human interiority (Steedman, 1995) and some scholars have argued that children are perceived as according to a certain "value" which their parents pride in "inheriting" from them (Zelizer, 1985). If there is anything that could be attributed as having shaped modern childhood's landscape, it is the shift that led to Enlightenment Rationalism from Protestant Reformation from 16th till 17th century. This period marked the theological contraction between profane and scared, between earth's mechanics and heaven's motions. Human interiority became to be deciphered through the prism of virtue, reason and authority (Taylor, 1989). This movement led to what was then popularly known as 'the conditioned child', which evolved from Calvinist and Lutheran pedagogy (Luke, 1989). Complete constitution of this picture of childhood emerged when it was twinned with 'the authentic child', which was its opposition, but full of romanticism (Wishy, 1968; Reiner, 1996). How social, historical and spatial constructions of childhood inform the design, practices and values of a selected institution of childhood can be seen through the development of modern childhood which, in reality, has become more than a simple way of looking at how childhood is designed when individuals, over a prolonged period of time, know the art of watching themselves. There is an aura of inevitability surrounding this process. Philosophers as John Locke and Rene Descartes derived an opinion, which was often low, of childhood sourcing it from classical and biblical texts. In their opinion childhood stemmed from sensual irrationality, but as mentioned above, it was the 16th and 17th century that gave childhood a new meaning and attributed to it a new set of possibilities (Krupp, 2009). Locke was of the opinion that in order to determine how the institution of childhood flourishes, adults will have to subject children pliant to reason and obedient to discipline at a time when the child is most easier to be bowed or to be tendered (Locke, 1996; Brown, 1996; Schouls, 1992). Spatial construction Spatial pertains to space or places. Children have their own experiences of spaces or places and in this direction Hart (1979) is considered to be a pioneer. He studied children with respect to their interaction of places and called his research "eclectic-ecological-field approach". In this methodology he studied how children perceive their environment and also he they feel about it and how they perceive it. In order to analyze spatial construct of children, he conducted interviews with them - most of them one-on-one - and studied their photographs and drawings. Both were from their favorite places. Many research scientists who have studied spatial construction of children have used this combination of interview-drawing technique. This photographic technique specifically is the outcome of a research by Kim Rasmussen (2004) who pioneered the difference between "children's places" and "places for children". The latter are mostly designed by adults like schools, playgrounds, and after-school institutions. The former are interstitial in nature and include such locations as hidden dens, hedgerows, and alleyways. Rasmussen observed that children were drawn to places that they found are meaningful for them. He further observed that at one point of time children's differentiated spatial culture comes out when they discuss among themselves different settings and how meaningful the same are to them. The children, he observed, took interest in the places which were often undermined by adults. In this manner children exhibited their own mediation with special places. Cobb (1977) has observed that despite their differences children show almost identical affiliations with the environment that surrounds them. They demonstrate this in their place-making activities. This, adds Moore (1990), proves that children exhibit commonness in sharing and expressions the spatial attributes around them. This further reinstates that unless constricted by social reshaping, which includes resources and rules imposed by society, spatial construction plays an important impact on children. If this context is not constructively considered in the determination of the design, practices and values of a selected institution of childhood, it may well happen that one of the important factors of childhood development is undermined. References Archard, D. (1993). Children: Rights and childhood. London: Routledge. Ariès, P. (1962). Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. NY: Random House. Bickmore, K. (2001). Student conflict resolution, power “sharing” in schools and citizenship education. Curriculum Inquiry, 2, 138-161. Brown, S. (1996). The Childhood of Reason: Pedagogical Strategies in Descartes’s La recherche de la vérité par la lumière naturelle. Romantic Review, 87, 465-480. Cunningham, H. (1995). Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500. Edinburgh: Pearson Education. Cobb, E. (1977). The ecology of imagination in childhood. New York: Columbia University Press. Freeman, M. (1998). The sociology of childhood and children’s rights. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 6 (4), 433-444. Hendrick, H. (1997). Constructions and reconstructions of British childhood: An interpretative survey, 1800 to the present. In A.James and A Prout (Ed.) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood (pp.34-62). London: Falmer Press. Krupp, A. (2009). Reason’s Child: Childhood in Early Modern Philosophy. Lewisburg, NJ: Bucknell University Press. Locke. J. (1996). Some Thoughts Concerning Education and of the Conduct of the Understanding. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, Inc. (Original work published 1693 and 1706). Luke, Carmen. (1989). Pedagogy, Printing, and Protestantism: The Discourse of Childhood. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989. Ladd-Taylor, M. (1995). Mother-work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, 1890-1930. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Moore, R. (1990). Children’s domain: Play and place in child development. Berkeley, CA: MIG Communications. Purdy, L. (1992). In their Best Interest? The Case Against Equal Rights for Children. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Reiner, J. (1996). From Virtue to Character: American Childhood, 1775-1850. New York, NY: Twayne Publishers. Rasmussen, K. (2004). Places for children – Children‘s places. Childhood, 11(2), 155-173. Steedman, C. (1995). Strange Dislocations: childhood and the idea of human interiority, 1780-1930. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schouls, P. (1992). Reasoned Freedom: John Locke and Enlightenment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wishy, B. (1968). The Child and the Republic: The Dawn of Modern American Child Nurture. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Zelizer, V. (1985). Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children, Pinceton University Press. Read More