Childhood

• Pilcher


  Most important feature of the modern idea of childhood is separateness (distinct life stages)
• Punch - cross-cultural differences in childhood


  Study of children in Bolivia found that children at the age of 5 were taking on work responsibilities
• Postman's view of childhood


  Disappearance of childhood - fall of print culture and rise of tv has led to the breakdown of the information hierarchy blurring childhood innocence
• informational hierarchy


  division between adults who can read and children who cannot. Means that parents have control over the information consumed by their children
• Jenk's view of childhood


  Childhood in postmodernity - society is becoming child centered. With adult relationships becoming more unstable, their only stability is based on their children so become helicopter parents
• Philippe Aries


  Proposed "childhood" is a social construct that has changed over time and in the Middle Ages childhood didn't even exist as they worked and wore the same clothes as adults
• Compulsory schooling


  1880
• Industrialisation


  Modern industry needs an educated workforce which means people stay in education longer, elongating the period of childhood
• Lower infant mortality rate

  Encourages parents to invest more in the fewer children they have because more are likely to survive
• Aries and Shorter


  Children have become more valued and protected through law and welfare and living standards so there are now child-centered families
• Sue Palmer


  Toxic childhood - Tv and tech damages children physically and psychologically. UNICEF Survey in 2013 ranked the UK 16th out of 29 for children's wellbeing
• Inequalities among children of different nationalities

  90% of low birth weight babies are born in developing countries
• Inequalities among children based on gender

  Boys more likely to be allowed to go out unaccompanied

  Girls do more domestic work
• Firestone and Holt


  Many things that are seen as care or protection are actually forms of oppression and control of children which makes them powerless and dependent
• childhood neglect and abuse

  In 2013, 43000 children were subject to a child protection plan due to risk of harm
• Conflict view of childhood

  - neglect/abuse

  - control over bodies

  - control over resources (economically dependent)

  - control over space (travelling etc.)

  -c control over time
• Age Patriarchy


  Gittins' concept for idea that adults have power and control over children and can even use violence as a form of control
• The 'new sociology of childhood'


  Theory that argues children create their own childhoods and are not 'socialisation projects' for adults