Exploring Childhood and Youth

Victoria Cooper, Naomi Holford, Victoria Cooper, Naomi Holford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000166217
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

This exciting new book illustrates and analyses the complexities of children's and young people's everyday lived experiences throughout childhood. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it provides theoretical frameworks and case studies to critically examine assumptions in the field and explore emerging perspectives. Considering different stages throughout childhood and youth, chapters cover key topics such as eating practices, gender, play, digital media and the environment.

Drawing upon insights from cultural studies, sociology, social anthropology, psychology, health and education, this book focuses on four key areas:

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• Bodies and minds

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• Space, place and belonging

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• Inequalities and inclusion

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• Childhood in the past, present and future

Essential reading for students on childhood and youth and education courses, Exploring Childhood and Youth is an important resource for practitioners working with children and young people, and for parents, communities and legislators who have influence over children's and young people's lives.

1 Childhood identities and materiality

Victoria Cooper

Introduction

A well-worn blanket that has lived with a child since birth; an ageing teddy-bear which arrived as a gift and continues to remind a growing child of home; a wooden box full of ‘stuff’, including pictures, a party invitation, letters, doodles, photographs and drawings – are these things important? If so, how – and what might they reveal, if anything, about childhood identity?

Identity is not fixed or singular but fluid and multifaceted, and reflects a range of social, cultural, economic and political influences. Identity formation is recognised as a dynamic process in which children negotiate, construct and reconstruct multiple identities throughout their lives (Cooper and Collins, 2008). Some aspects of children’s identities reflect distinct social markers, such as age, gender and ethnicity and family and group membership. Yet there is more to identity, which appreciates the dynamic and fluid quality of children’s everyday lives, including how they play, places they go and how they engage with the material world. A growing body of research calls for a broad understanding of identity which considers how children interact with physical, material things (Cross, 2004; Horton and Kraftl, 2006; Horton, 2008; Jones, 2008; Grube, 2017) to communicate aspects of self. Materials not only leave traces of where children go, the people and places that are part and parcel of their lives – but also the things they enjoy and produce, as well as how they project their own unique identities. However, the materiality of childhood has been somewhat overlooked and is a relatively recent focus of research across childhood studies and children’s geographies (Edwards and Hart, 2004; Jones, MacLure et al., 2012; Cooper, 2017). These research developments recognise that material things not only take on social meanings, but that humans interact with and use materials in a variety of ways which provide order, structure, meaning and a sense of self.

This chapter is structured to look, first, at identity and what this concept means, before introducing ideas about materiality. The remaining sections discuss how materiality is a useful medium for exploring childhood identity; first, in relation to how objects such as toys, games and pictures are marketed, selected and often used in ways which reveal how childhood identities are shaped within social and cultural systems; and second, how children themselves engage with and use material things to narrate their individual and unique sense of self.

What does the concept of identity mean?

When we talk about identity, what exactly do we mean? Is identity an ‘it’ – something that can be located, grasped and easily understood?

Identity is a complex term, synonymous with notions of self, me, I, self-image and self-concept (Harter, 1999; Sani and Bennett, 2004; Guerin and Tatlow-Golden, 2019). It is infinitely nuanced and subjective due to its ‘slippery, blurred and confusing’ features (Wetherell, 2010, p. 3). Concepts of identity in relation to childhood hover around subjective ideas about who children are and how they feel about self, as much as how they relate to and are seen by others as part of communities, societies and cultural groups.

In a small-scale research project I carried out with a colleague, a group of 18 children (eight boys aged between five and 11 and ten girls aged between four and 11) were asked during focus groups to talk about identity: what it means and the different ways to describe who they are. The children talked about many different aspects, for example:

‘It’s about who you are.’

‘It’s what makes us different.’

‘Our attitudes and behaviour.’

‘How you think.’

‘We can be different at school and different at home.’

‘Your feelings about yourself.’

‘We do change as we get older.’

‘I am more confident.’

(Cooper and Collins, 2008, p. 12)

While the descriptions here are different, they each offer some insight into the intricacy of identity. In the extracts above the children focused on the uniqueness of a person’s identity and the potential difference between how children think about self and how they behave and are seen by others. The emphasis on difference presents further complexity, as it places the child within a social arena where comparisons can be made, and indicates how aspects of identity can change, not only in response to a space or setting but also as children mature. Identity can therefore be seen as socially contingent. Social contingency refers to the way in which social behaviour occurs through intersecting relationships between individuals and contexts and is a central theme within symbolic interactionism. Associated with the work of American sociologist George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), symbolic interactionism is a theory which focuses on the relationships among individuals and explores the distinct way in which people make sense of their social worlds.

When talking about identity children draw upon socially constructed definitions of themselves – they use language, images and behaviour that reflect the social norms rooted within any given culture. When asked ‘Who are you’ children typically describe themselves in relation to others, particularly their family and friends, and use markers such as age, ability, likes and dislikes to communicate aspects of self (Cooper and Collins, 2008, pp. 14–15), as the following extracts from the same focus group illustrate:

I am Amy. I am a girl. I am me. I like playgroup. My friend is Chantelle. She plays duck, duck goose. I have long hair. Chantelle is pretty.

(Amy, aged 4)

I am Berty. I am a boy. I like Pokemon. I play with Joseph, Edward and Aiden. I like running. I like jumping. I like climbing. My brother makes dens. I do karate. I am good at maths. I live in my house. I live in Stroud.

(Berty, aged 5)

I am Layla. I am a girl. I have a pink room. I squabble with my brother. I play with him as well. I am a human. My teacher is called Miss Sullivan. She teaches us and me as well. I help my Mum cook. Berty is my little brother. I live with him. I love him. We live happy in this house. Josie is my best friend. I play with her a lot.

(Layla, aged 6)

These extracts show how notions of self are relational, insofar as they reflect the social relationships that are important to children. Furthermore, they reveal how descriptions of self are often ‘tied to bodies’ (Weigert et al., 1986, p. 93) and draw upon physical aspects of identity, including gender and ethnicity (Harter, 1999) as well as ideas about perceived attractiveness (Weedon, 2004). It follows, therefore, that a child’s identity derives in part from these socially constructed meanings (Weigert et al., 1986) and attributed labels (Hudak, 2001; Hudak and Kihn, 2001). Throughout this chapter the self is not viewed as a concrete, static form but as an ever-changing, fluid, multi-dimensional representation that weaves in and out of social life (Cooper, 2017). This emphasis on fluidity is important. Researchers have explored how identity is constantly evolving (Kelleher and Leavey, 2004; Layder, 2004). This is not to suggest that children are continually revising their sense of self but implies that changes can and do occur through the interaction of social circumstances, life events and an individual’s reactions to them.

William James (1890, 1893), a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century psychologist, first distinguished between I and me as aspects of identity, reflecting the contrast between how children view themselves as individuals – I – and in relation to others – me – and further reflects the distinct aspects of childhood identity: the individual and social. Children are born into families, communities and societies as embodied beings, with a physical sense of self which develops, grows and changes throughout life and within a social context. Embodied identities can fuse a host of markers, including age, gender and skin colour as well as gait, physicality and ideas about beauty (Robinson and Jones Diaz, 2016). Thus, while many of these markers can be bestowed through biology, they can also be enhanced and modified. Children can make decisions as to how they choose to represent their gender, for example, which may be in contrast to their biological sex (Capous Desyllus and Barron, 2017) – this is covered in more detail in Chapter 3. How children relate to their embodied self, which will develop and change to some extent throughout life, owes much to how they feel about themselves at particular points in time and reflects how children become who they are through their relationships with others; their emotional and social experiences (Bion, 1952) and affective qualities, such as their motivations and interests as well as their aversions. The concept of identity therefore incorporates many different aspects which are embodied, affective (a term that means relating to moods, feelings or emotions) and socially contingent. Clearly, the concept of identity can mean many different things and, as a consequence, is notoriously difficult to research.

The various ways to describe children in research have often drawn upon well-versed conceptualisations typically used by adults, which mark transitions, developmental milestones and categorisations. These describe, for example, the infant, young child and adolescent – as well as qualities such as confident, shy, sporty and clever, which can be used to identify children at particular points in their lives (Cooper and Collins, 2008). Much of identity research has characteristically used observational studies of how children behave within the social world, and also self-reported accounts where children are asked to define and describe themselves and how these accounts change over time in a developmental sequence (Harter, 1999; Sani and Bennett, 2004). Psychologists have also applied attitudinal scales in an attempt to locate traits and characteristics children use to describe themselves in comparison with others. However, not only have observational accounts of children been critiqued for their capacity to only gauge a small aspect of identity, namely that which is social and observable (Cooper, 2014), but children’s descriptions of self, much like adults’ descriptions, are limited (Thrift, 2005). Erving Goffman (1959), a Canadian-American sociologist and social psychologist, addresses such limitations and has argued that there are many parts of identity. He highlights the difference between what he termed performed self – the ‘on-stage’ self that people present to others – and private self, which children, much like adults, may prefer (consciously or unconsciously) to keep hidden. Goffman uses the analogy of the theatre performance to explore how human beings present themselves to the world, much like an actor on stage presenting a role to an audience.

The vast majority of developmental theories about childhood identity within child psychology have drawn heavily upon adult interpretations (Brooks, 2006). Work in some other social sciences has promoted participatory approaches which acknowledge the value of children as collaborators within research (Christensen and Prout, 2005; Kellett, 2009; Clark, 2011) who can provide insight into the complex worlds they inhabit. So, rather than rely on adult versions of ‘knowing and telling’ (Jones, 2008, p. 199), participatory studies provide opportunities for children to share their views, contribute to, and in some cases take a leading role in research about their lives. Participatory studies have utilised multi-modal methods,¹ including pictures, photographs and map making, for example, as research methods which enable children to collaborate, and include research which examines how children come and go, play and relate to people, places and things (Einarsdottir, 2005; Flewitt, 2008; Plowman and Stevenson, 2012; Kullman, 2012; Cooper, 2014, 2017). Horton and Kraftl (2006) focus on how meaning is communicated through the material things that children choose, such as preferred toys and clothes along with a variety of artefacts such as bags and pictures, looking at how things hold affective connotations and may trigger strong feelings and emotions which can reveal different aspects of identity. The focus on materiality in shaping children’s social experiences and contributing to their developing identity has recently been examined in a variety of different ways from exploring the materials that children select and interact with daily (Jones, 2008); how children learn from and with materials within the home and school (Jones et al., 2012) and how children choose different material objects to talk about and so narrate their identities (Cooper, 2014, 2017).

Materiality

Material objects matter to children in so many different ways. Not simply ‘the stuff of the world’ (Law and Hetherington, 2000, p. 52), materials are imbued with memory, imagination, language and culture (Dale and Burrell, 2008) and as Latour (2005, p. 20) states, ‘consider things and you will have humans’. And yet materials have so often been overlooked. Law and Hetherington (2000) describe how materials have typically been thought of as fairly meaningless inert stuff, taken for granted and regarded as somewhat incidental to what is really going on in one’s social life. Dale and Burrell (2008) note how this is further reflected across academic disciplines where the study of materiality has traditionally been positioned within the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Editors’ acknowledgements
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Childhood identities and materiality
• 2 Becoming a child
• 3 Children and young people negotiating gender in context
• 4 Food, eating and identities
• 5 Everyday violence and everyday places
• 6 Getting ready for school: who’s playing?
• 7 Children and young people’s experiences of school: do we listen hard enough?
• 8 Poverty, place and learning
• 9 Inequalities in access to further and higher education
• 10 Normal ways for normal days: building our practice upon the exploration of people’s preferences
• 11 Children, young people and voluntourism
• 12 Eugenics and the lives of disabled children
• 13 Psychiatrising children
• 14 Children in the digital world: privacy and autonomy in surveilled digital lives
• 15 Changing environments
• Index