A History of the Sociology of Childhood - Essay Example

Childhood Matters By + Childhood Matters Berry Mayall refers to the agency of children as either transformative or creative. She says that children have responsibilities that the society has ascribed to them, and that they fulfil these responsibilities. Childhood and children are embedded in the society in which they grow. Therefore, they face effects of factors such as culture, government and the economy. Berry shares that the society should not view the rights of children based on them having responsibilities (Mayall, 1994, 4). Rather, it is the recognition of these responsibilities that would help in the uplifting of their social status. Recognizing the responsibilities of children offers ground for the society to consider their rights with the seriousness that they deserve. The difference between adulthood and childhood becomes clearer as the life of a child separates from the life of an adult. With children taken from paid work, their role as contributors to the economy has largely been devaluated. This makes the status of children to be precious but burdensome because they have to depend on their parents for their basic and secondary needs. Children become restricted to protected and subordinate roles in the society. Berry posits that the conception that a child should be entirely dependent on the parent should be revised (Mayall, 2002, 52). Of importance is the fact that children today are less dependent on adults than ever before. Children have increasingly become responsible, especially with regard to their own affairs. In public spaces, a child is a threat of some sort, which is a matter of concern (Smith & Hart, 2011, 113). Along with the risks that children face in the society such as street danger and traffic danger, children are becoming more excluded from public places. A commonly held view is that children and young people get access to the cultural world of adults, therefore eroding the concept of childhood. With exposure to media that contain adult content, children have become creative enough to manipulate knowledge and media. However, these views are from the perspective of an adult (Mayall, 1994, 5). The traditional understandings regarding childhood have given impetus to other basic and major concept in the psychology of children. The matter of socialization has become an important part of understanding childhood, and the influence that adulthood has on childhood. As a child grows, they meet other people and other agents in the society that help them to learn, aside from attending school to get formal education (Mayall, 2002, 37). Traditions of social constructionism and interactionism have proved to be important in the shifting of arguments about childhood. Perspectives based on interactionism have brought considerable attention to the activities and creativity of children as they promote their own development and knowledge as well as the position that they occupy in the society. More people think of children as constructs of the society as opposed to natural phenomena (Mayall, 2013, 44). Berry’s works suggest that the child of today has transformed from being dependents of parents and other guardians. Parents and guardians exclude them from social forces by protection due to their status of children to becoming a considerable group making up a complete society. The recognition of the fact that children are integrated into society (Smith & Hart, 2011, 85). Therefore, the agency of children can be either transformative or creative. Children have become more independent when it comes to issues such as deciding how they plan and will spend their time and the profession that they wish to pursue (Mayall, 2002, 84). In this light, it is imperative to note that the child determines their own agency through the deductions they make concerning the society and the way the society influences their opinion and decisions. Subsequently, the transformative and creative agency of children has changed the nature of their relationships with adults (Mayall, 2013, 55). Anthony Giddens looks at agency from the same perspective, but puts it differently. He posits that as opposed to agency referring to several discrete acts put together, agency refers to a continuous flow in the conduct of an individual. This indicated that the actions of people in the society, especially children, take place in a temporal framework. Giddens points out that action involves a stream of either contemplated or actual causal corporeal beings’ intervention in the process of ongoing events in the society (Giddens, 1991, 18). By adding that the different knowledge forms borne by actors contribute to an individual’s action, and that the different knowledge forms contribute to their ways of tailoring their interventions, he seems to share the same school of thought as Berry. Giddens further wrote that structure, structuration and system are essential terms in the field of social theory, when appropriately conceptualized. He describes social structure as including to elements that have a close relationship (Giddens, 1991, 48). One concept is interaction patterning. This concept, according to Giddens, implies relations that exist between groups or actors. The second concept is continuity of interaction over a period. Giddens refers to the two concepts as ‘paradigmatic’ and ‘syntagmatic’ social structure dimension. Modernity has changed the way people relate, especially the relationship between children and adults in their environments. Children make use of the knowledge environments created technical specialists and lay actors (Giddens, 1999, 6). Giddens shares that the development of electronic communication, in particular mass communication, has made the interpenetration of social systems as well as self-development more pronounced. The world as it is now differs in many respects with the world as it was in history. There are new forms of dispersal and fragmentation created by the society that make people different in more than one way. This supports the fact that children have become more independent in thought, and therefore do not depend on their guardians as much as before (Smith & Hart, 2011, 126). Giddens writes about the demise of socialism (Giddens, 1999, 107). Socialism for long sought to address the issues that capitalism had, such as the creation of a divided society. In the West, social democracy dominated socialism after the Second World War. Social democracy brought about neoliberalism. With the advent of the new socialism, the role of people in the society transformed, including children and young people (Giddens, 1999, 131). They changed their way of doing things to become independent members of the society. References Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Giddens, A. (1999). The third way: the renewal of social democracy. Malden, Mass.: Polity Press. Mayall, B. (1994). Childrens childhoods observed and experienced. London: Falmer Press. Mayall, B. (2002). Towards a sociology for childhood: thinking from childrens lives. Buckingham: Open University Press. Mayall, B. (2013). A history of the sociology of childhood. London: Institute of Education. Smith, P. K., & Hart, C. H. (2011). The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood social development (2nd ed.). Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Read More