Has children’s position improved?

• March of progress view


  The history of childhood is steadily improving and is at its best today
• Mause (1924)


  • The history of childhood is a sigrare from which we have only recently begun to awaken
• Arks & Shorter


  • Today's children are more valued, better cared for, educated and have more rights than previous generations e.g. protected from abuse and labour, more investment in their education and healthcare
• Better healthcare and living standards mean babies are more likely to survive, with the mortality rate now 4/1000 instead of 154/1,000 in 1900
• Child-centred family


  Brought about by lower mortality rate, as people are having smaller families that they can better provide for
• Estimate says 1 child costs parents £227,000 by their 21st birthday
• March of progress view


  The family is child-centred - children are no longer 'seen and not heard' as in Victorian times, they are the family's focal point that parents invest in emotionally and financially
• Society as a whole is more child-centred e.g. a lot of media output/activities are made with the child in mind
• The march of progress view is based on a false/idealized view of children, ignoring inequality
• The march of progress view ignores children's inequality in the opportunities and risks they face, and the inequalities between children/adults
• Inequalities among children


  • Differences in status/experiences based on nationality (90% of low-weight births are from developing countries)
  • Gender differences (boys more likely to be allowed to play out alone, girls do more domestic chores)
  • Ethnic differences (Asian parents more strict on daughters)
  • Class differences (children of unskilled manual workers more likely to experience conduct disorders, poor families more likely to die in infancy, fail in school, be on child protection register)
• Toxic childhood


  Today children are experiencing a toxic childhood, where rapidly improving tech and cultural changes have damaged their physical/emotional/intellectual development e.g. junk food, computer games, more testing at school, parents working long hours
• The UK has above average rates for children's engagement in self-harm, drug/alcohol abuse, pregnancy
• Age patriarchy


  Inequalities between adults and children, with adult domination and child dependency
• There's evidence that children find childhood oppressive and use strategies to resist the status of child e.g. acting up by doing adult things, acting down younger than their age
• Criticism that some control over children is justified as they can't always safeguard themselves and act rationally
• Firestone (1979) argues that things the march of progress sees as care/protection are just a way of controlling and oppressing children, like excluding them from paid work
• Neglect/abuse is an extreme form of adult control, in 2013 43,000 were deemed at risk of abuse and put on child protection plans
• Adults control children's space, time, bodies, and access to resources
• New sociology of childhood

  Looking at children through laws, industrialisation, the family, etc is an adultist viewpoint. Instead, new sociology sees children as active agents who create their own childhood
• The new approach includes the views/experiences of children going through childhood to explore the diverse, multiple childhoods that can exist in just one society
• Children were actively involved in trying to make the situation better for everyone in divorce, and create their own definitions of family including non-blood relationships