Childrens Participation in Work - Essay Example

Children's Participation in Work: A Critical Discussion (Fill in with your information etc Children's Participation in Work: A Critical Discussion The types of work that children participate in are seen as being in three particular areas: paid work, domestic work, and school work. The aim of this paper is to properly and fully discuss this subject matter; in order to come to a clearer, more understanding realization on this topic, the following question must be addressed: 1. What is the present consideration of children's participation in work By discussing this question, we can truly better understand the relevant subject matter. This is what will be dissertated in the following. "It is high time to reconsider work and children's participation in it." (Mayall, 2002). Regardless of how unknown it actually is to a vast amount of society, children's participation in essential in the work process. Children represent approximately a third of the world's population, "and can often provide adults with a different, valuable perspective on a range of issues." ("Plan", 2005). The work that children do is often ignored or sidelined, when in reality, children actually fill and create a large part of the overall work area. As David Oldman proposed (1994), children in work are a 'generational mode of production' for 'producing' human capital. His key claim is that "Children create child work, that is, work done by adults on the organization and control of children's activities." (ibid:155). This is to say that professions such as teaching, social work, child psychiatry, paediatrics, and so on, would not be available if it were not for children, which is a rather apparent and legitimate actuality. Children in our society are incredibly often seen as 'non-workers'; they are seen as having no responsibilities and this explains why so many people feel that discussing children and work in the same topic is rather odd. In Jens Overtrup's point of view, in the majority of the world (including Britain as a primary point), children are involved in work, but in Western societies (the minority), for the most part children do not work. David Oldman (Childhood as a Mode of Production, 1994) has a separate explanatory model which offers a means of going beyond to analyze the terms of exchange between adults and children where children are 'included in'. He primly applies his approach to youth departments, children's feeding schemes, education systems, raising initiatives, multi-lateral and even child rights agencies, analyzing where value is being made and added. The exploitation of children occurs when the relations of production governing children's work are sub-optimal for children and yet maximized for the adults. More specifically, a common and perfectly usable example situation would be a school having high student to teacher ratios, where central costs would be minimized and yet teachers' salaries would not be undermined. While the end result of this archetype might not seem positively bad for the children involved, it is clearly more effective towards them; the teachers remain virtually untouched while the children are forced to deal with an extra cramped environment. Additionally, according to the comments of the previously explained criteria, this example would therefore be exploitive, because it is not organized in a way that prioritizes the best interests of the child. There are three basic categories to which the types of work children do fall into: paid work, domestic work, and school work. One of the main areas which children work falls into the category paid work. While studies show that the main motive to work for children who participate in paid work is for consumer spending reasons (clothes, car, etc.), but for a small yet highly relevant number of children, the motive was to contribute to the family for economic reasons (rent, food, etc.). This is to say that although a high number of children work solely for their own accounts of explanations, there are still many who feel the need to work in order to provide assistance for their family or friends. Domestic work is considered to be the form of work which takes place in the home. While even today the woman is stereotyped as being the domesticated one in the family, it is crucial to realize what an impacting amount of time many children put into domestic work. In a study by Virginia Morrow (Mayall, 2002), which focused on work and employment outside of school in regards to children aged 11-16, 30% of boys and 50% of girls participated in domestic work (housework, childcare within the family - looking after younger sibling). This study goes on to fact that 26% of the children participated in marginal economic activities (irregular or short term work, i.e. babysitting, washing cars, or cutting the grass), while 10% were active in non-domestic labour (i.e. children who helped in running the family business). The examples and facts raised by this study are proof of the responsible tasks many children take on which are not truly recognized by society. In accordance to this survey as well as the other information we are given on children's participation in work, it is quite evident that children do have responsibilities in their life, and yet are seemingly rarely praised or credited for it. This is largely related to the fact that the social construction of childhood shows children to be incompetent and reliant on adults; which is obviously often untrue. The finding of this study by Virginia Morrow contradicts the popular notion that children and adults are in two separate spheres, and instead we should move away from the ideas that children are purely dependant and irresponsible, and attempt to approach the understanding that (many) children are responsible, productive, and self-reliant. Overtrup goes on to assert the importance of school work and how it is an essential part of society's maintenance and advancement. Overtrup says that children have in all actuality never stopped worked (as they did centuries ago), and that it is just the way (in regards to context and style) that they work which has changed. In 19th Century Europe for example, children worked as chimney sweeps, and their work was consequently recognized as economically valued. The society today is felt as not understanding or acknowledging to school work, and that school work (and the children who participate in it) is therefore not properly praised. Rather, schoolwork is today considered as one of the necessary activities that the economy demands. Harriett L. Rhiengold discusses children's participation in work in her book Little Children's Participation in the Work of Adults, a Nascent Prosocial Behaviour. In this particular piece of work, she defines two studies which "explored the possibility that a set of behaviours that could be characterized as helping would be exhibited by young children." (1982). Another author who thoroughly discusses the act of children's participation in work is Roger Hart, in his book Children's Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in Community Development and Environmental Care, in which he altercates on the topics of the environment, sustainable development, and children's rights. Hart points out that he is convinced that all children can play a central and lasting role in sustainable development if "their genuine participation is taken seriously and if communities recognize their developing competencies and unique strengths." (Hart, 1997). Berry Mayall argues that teachers are caught up in a system of essentially exploitative relationships that are a product of the interaction of the three types of stratification - employment, gender and generation. As he quotes in his book Towards a Sociology of Childhood - Thinking from Children's Lives, "The result is that, de facto, their working conditions and remuneration can only be salvaged to anything like a tolerable level through having to accept less than optimal conditions for the self-capitalization of children." (2002). A continuation of Mayall's argument shows that he considers much of the value of children's scholastic labour as being realized in the present by the child work it represents - work by teachers, ancillary staff in schools, educational administrators, and so on - "and in most educational systems this value is realized merely through the presence of a disciplined child in the classroom, and is relatively independent of the degree of success of the self-capitalization of the child through his/her school work." (Mayall, 2002). Mayall also considers the 'losers' to be children, in that the long-term value of their human capital as an end result will be less. As he points out, whether realized directly, in terms of their ability to trade credentials for wages, or indirectly, in that the overall success of the national economy is inherently at risk through 'undercapitalization' in the human sense. In Mayall's opinion, the commercialization of childcare is essentially exploitative towards children, and in fact believes that this exploitation hits children three times over by: capitalism, patriarchy, and generation. Mayall considers this as a severe form of exploitation upon children, and also insists that very few actions have - or are for that matter - been taken against this particular subject matter. Mayall, along with Overtrup, Morrow, and many others, argue that children are over-exploited in the matter of work, and that in all simplicity, work itself would truly not even exist if it weren't for children. A main focus of these writers is that children's participation in work is often ignored, whether in regards to paid, domestic, or school work. They believe that because such a large amount of goodness in relation to children's participation is obviously due to the children themselves, that as a society we should understand and realize this, and appreciate and reward them properly. Children's position in the workplace is obviously critical, and rather than viewing children as being 'free' and having no responsibilities, we should instead focus on the fact that they do in fact participate in a great amount of work, and that perhaps this participation of theirs was simply and subtly ignored somewhat due to a lack of ignorance. As a conclusion we must regard what Deborah Levinson pointed out in her work Children as Economic Agents: "Work is a fundamental part of the domain of economics, whether we care about meeting basic needs or maximizing productivity on ODP; yet most work of children has been invisible to economistschildren's lack of power has led economists to overlook the importance of their paid and unpaid work and thus to support policies which not only undermine children's well-being within their work contexts but also threaten their ability to be contributing and appreciated members of families, communities, and societies." (2000). References Hart, R. (1997). Children's Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in Community Development and Environmental Care. James & James/Earthscan. Levinson, D. (2000). Children as Economic Agents. Retrieved January 25, 2006, from http://64.233.187.104/searchq=cache:xDPVyXlsvnAJ:www.hhh.umn.edu/img/assets/3737/Levison%2520(2000)%2520Children%2520As%2520Economic%2520Agents.pdf+david+oldman+-children%27s+childhoods+childhood+work+&hl=en Mayall, B. (1998). Towards a Sociology of Child Health. Blackwell Publishing. Oldman, D. (1994). Childhood as a Mode of Production. London: Falmer Press. "Plan". (2005, July). Children's Participation. Retrieved January 24, 2006, from http://www.plan-uk.org/action/childrensparticipation/ Rhiengold, Harriett L. (1982). Little Children's Participation in the Work of Adults, a Nascent Prosocial Behaviour. 53, 114-25. Read More