Sociology of Childhood - Social Construct

• Childhood is a Social Construct

  You could talk about how childhood only started to exist as a construct after the industrial revolution in Europe when a distinction between child" and adult' emerged. Before this time, children were 'mini-adults' and were not iterected from the harsh realities of adult life. Children lived and worked in the adult world and learned the skils for life as they grew up. After industrialisation, when the home and the workplace separated, the concept of 'child" as a distinct construct emerged.
• Childhood as a Social Construct

  This was mostly due to the creation of state education - a child now learned the skills necessary for life at school. Children were then protected from the adult world until they reached maturity, which changed from around the age of 13/14 at the start of the twentieth century to 15/16 during the middle of the century (1950/60s) to 18 and older in modern times.
• Childhood as a Social Construct

  You could also talk about how childhood is a social construct because it differs between cultures (use material on family life to support these claims, e.g. girls being married before puberty in some cultures. You could also discuss how childhood differs because of social class, gender and ethnicity meaning there is no one definition of experience of 'childhood.