Social construction of childhood

• Sociologists see childhood as a social construct: there is not an age agreed by everyone for every time and every society where childhood begins or ends
• Jane Pilcher (1995) sees childhood - in contemporary Western society - as distinctly separate from adulthood and characterised by a number of privileges and protections (including legal protections). It has its own set of rights and responsibilities
• It is unclear when childhood ends in the UK: Is it 16 (age of consent). 17 (driving age), 18 (drinking age), 25 (adult prison), etc. Childhood is. Dry different in some other parts of the world e.g. child soldiers, etc.
• Stephen Waugh (1992) argues there is no universal definition of childhood. It is not just biological immaturity; it is something that is experienced differently in each society and through different historical eras.