Childhood in Society for the Early Years

Rory McDowall Clark

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526480002
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

To understand childhood, you need to understand all of thesocial factors which surround it. If you are studying Early Years orEarly Childhood Studies then this book is for you. Itgives youan introduction to the study ofchildhood andthe different contexts within which childhood exists.Itencouragesyou to re-think childhood and exploreitfrom different perspectives, whether looking at the child within the family, global perspectives or the child?s own view point.This helps youunderstand childhood in relation to society and to develop the skills to look at childhood from a critical standpoint.

1 The context of childhood: social understanding of childhood

Through reading this chapter, you will:

• consider the difficulty of defining ‘childhood’ and how we determine who is considered to be a ‘child’;
• examine the conflict and ambiguities that are raised by these questions;
• understand why the social context is so critical to an understanding of childhood.

The chapter introduces Bronfenbrenner’s model of development as a useful way of theorising the child within society.

Introduction

Until the final decades of the twentieth century the idea of childhood as a distinct and separate social category had been paid very little attention. Ideas about children have abounded throughout history (and will be explored further in Chapter 2) but children themselves were rarely considered important enough to warrant deliberate study. By the eighteenth century scientists, philosophers and educators had begun to systematically study children and build up knowledge about them. Since then, ideas about how children grow, the developmental stages they go through and different theories of how language is acquired have emerged as subjects of study within such fields as psychology, education and health. Thus, there is now a well-established body of knowledge known as child development which is studied by all those interested in working with children. Until the last few decades, the existence of a stage in human lifespan, called ‘childhood’, was simply taken for granted, however, and the concept itself was rarely examined or questioned. Today, a distinct interdisciplinary field called ‘childhood studies’ exists, uniting different approaches from diverse academic disciplines to bring the spotlight to bear, not only on children themselves but also on childhood as a unique social category.

What is childhood?

Every adult was once a child; it is the one defining characteristic that each of us has in common regardless of the myriad differences that make us unique individuals. This ought to make it a fairly simple matter to understand exactly what childhood is and what the term signifies. However, the more we try to pin down and identify what we mean by childhood, the more slippery a concept it turns out to be. The difficulties this presents help to illustrate why childhood is a cultural and social invention and why it is so important to understand the context of childhood.

Activity 1

Take a moment or two to try to define the concept of ‘child’ yourself. Complete the following sentences:

• A child is …
• Childhood is …

Write down your definitions on a piece of paper before continuing with this section.

The following are examples of some of the answers students have come up with when completing this exercise. Perhaps you thought of something similar?

• A child is a small being who has not yet fully grown.
• A child is someone who is still learning.
• A child is a young person who is developing socially, emotionally, physically and cognitively.
• A child is someone in the vulnerable stage of life when they are still developing.
• A child is someone who needs to be nurtured and cared for until they are mature enough to look after themselves.

It is noticeable that definitions such as these are primarily based on concepts of growth and development – they imply a being who is still incomplete and unfinished. This is a frequent theme that underpins the way in which children are understood and treated within contemporary society and will be explored in later chapters. Another idea apparent here is that of vulnerability and the need for care and nurturing – this is also something we can recognise as an underlying concern and is key to understanding adult responses to children. Although nobody would wish to argue against the care and nurturing of young children, the notion of them as vulnerable and incomplete, which these views suggest, are frequently used to justify the regulation and control of children.

None of these definitions in themselves can help to identify a child; indeed, some could just as well describe any young creature from a kitten to a tadpole. Definitions which do recognise that there is something essentially human about the category ‘child’ are nonetheless dependent on prior understanding of the finished product – in other words, the adult. This demonstrates how it is essential to have an appreciation of human culture and society to begin to recognise the categories we apply to society and, importantly, the expectations which arise from them.

Ideas of development also suggest that once children have grown, they are no longer regarded as children, and yet a moment’s thought can easily bring to mind discrepancies which undermine this view. Young people are frequently fully grown and could be viewed as perfectly capable of looking after themselves at some stage during secondary school, and yet our society still considers them immature and labels them children. (This view of children has not always been the case and will be explored further in Chapter 2.) Nowadays, we also have different ideas about learning and think of it as a lifelong project, certainly not something that can be regarded as complete at a particular stage of life. Consider also the situation of children in less economically developed countries where often very young children are expected to take on responsibilities, such as caring for younger siblings or earning money to support the family. (Global perspectives of childhood are considered more fully in Chapter 9.) Street children in Brazil living on the street and fending for themselves at an age when a British child would not yet have started formal schooling similarly disturb our cosy and comfortable ideas of the child and challenge us to think more broadly. Now look again at how you defined a child earlier on – are you satisfied that your definition is convincing or can you see problems with it?

Childhood as a social construction

If it is hard to determine precisely what we mean when we use the term ‘child’, then even more difficulties occur with an attempt to define ‘childhood’. Turning to a dictionary for an answer, you are likely to be confronted with something along the lines of childhood: the state of being a child (this is from Chambers but any dictionary will give similar suggestions). But although such a definition might at first seem unhelpful, it does actually hold the clue to the problem by demonstrating that no agreed definition of childhood can be established in itself, without reference to the social perceptions within which it is experienced. In other words, there is no meaningful definition of childhood that could hold true for all societies and cultures; it will always vary according to cultural norms and expectations. This is what is meant by the claim that childhood is a social construction, as Steve Wagg explains:

Childhood, like so many other vitally important aspects of social life – gender, health, youth and so on – [is] socially constructed. It [is], in other words, what members of particular societies, at particular times and in particular places, say it is.

(1992, p.10)

This means that childhood isn’t ‘natural’ and should be carefully distinguished from biological immaturity (James and Prout, 2015). Therefore, it is evident that there can be no single universal childhood which everybody experiences.

Wagg’s assertion is an important one. The emergence of the sociology of childhood during the 1980s and 1990s firmly established the social institution of childhood as separate from the natural biological unfolding of the infant – a perspective which had previously dominated understanding. Although there are clearly universal characteristics of childhood – for instance, the development of emotional bonds and the fact that infants are dependent on others for physical care such as food and shelter – the ways in which these basic human needs are met are infinitely variable. As James and Prout put it:

The immaturity of children is a biological fact but the ways in which that immaturity is understood and made meaningful is a fact of culture.

(2015, p.7)

The idea that childhood is socially constructed should not be confused with the fact that children are the product of their social experiences. It is a statement about the category of people we understand as children rather than about individuals. So although your own experience of childhood is unique to you alone, most readers of this book will nonetheless share the experience of a late twentieth-century childhood in a Western post-industrial economy. That shared childhood is quite different from that experienced by, for instance, a Victorian child, a Japanese child or a refugee child.

Theory Focus

What is the difference between social construction and social constructivism?

The apparent similarity between these two terms means that they are often confused, but they actually refer to quite separate and distinct ideas.

‘Social construction’ is a sociological term that refers to the way in which social ‘reality’ arises through is determined by the meanings that people give to actions and situations. These meanings arise as a result of specific cultural expectations. Gender is a prime example of social construction – what are deemed to be ‘natural’ traits of males and females have varied throughout history and across the globe. As a result, we can see that what it means to be feminine is not a universally established way of behaving, but only what is expected of people in any given society at a specific time in history. Childhood is similarly a social construction because the expectations and understanding of what it is to be a child are not universally fixed but are culturally specific and vary across time and location.

‘Social constructivism’ is a term from psychology and child development that refers to the way that a child actively constructs knowledge for themselves within a social context through interaction with others. So Vygotsky is familiar to us as a social constructivist theorist; he drew attention to how children’s learning is mediated through interaction with culture as well as the importance of more knowledgeable peers and adults to support a child’s cognitive development.

In summary, social construction refers to the social institution of childhood whereas social constructivism is used in connection with the child as an individual.

Classifying the social category of childhood

Understanding the reasons why childhood is such an uncertain concept is one thing, but translating these ideas to everyday life is quite another. As there can be no universally agreed definition of childhood, then who is regarded as a child varies considerably within different contexts, and is dependent on social, cultural and economic factors. Exploring the situations that arise as a result clearly demonstrates the socially constructed nature of childhood. Although we may all feel that we recognise a child when we see one, without some clear guidelines about who should be treated as a child and who notions of childhood apply to, it would be difficult for a modern, complex society to function. There are two main ways in which younger members of society are classified as children: biological (i.e. related to their physical development) and legal (in terms of laws and regulations which apply to specific ages).

Legal classification of childhood is the main way that society attempts to regulate and order its youngest citizens. There are many events in life which are age dependent – for instance, the age when people may marry, vote or go to certain categories of film. For this reason many people try to define children according to their chronological age.

Activity 2

Think about as many activities as you can that are governed by laws related to age – for instance, learning to drive, getting married, going to the cinema …

Is there any logical development between these different ages?

Do they represent things that you gradually develop the appropriate skills and judgement to undertake? Or do they seem to be just arbitrary decisions?

Find out what age limits apply to some of these actions in other countries. What do you notice about the differences? Do you agree with any of them? Do any of them surprise you?

There seems to be little logic about the varying definitions of legal age because laws have developed over time and been made to fit the social norms and expectations of a given period. As a result, there is often no systematic logic behind legal stipulations; they are all the result of human decision making. For instance, the age of consent (that is, the age at which people are deemed competent to agree to sex) is 16 in Britain and at that age young people may also marry, as long as their parents give consent. However, they cannot legally watch an ‘X’-rated film which depicts sexual acts until they reach 18. This demonstrates the way that different legal systems develop over time and are grounded in the social attitudes of the period.

An example of how the boundaries of childhood and adulthood can be legally challenged is the fact that the age of consent has only applied to all young people since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Prior to 2001, it was an offence for gay men to have sex until the age of 21. The difference in the age of consent arose as a result of the Victorian belief that young boys were more vulnerable to the unwanted attentions of older men than young girls were. This view stemmed from ideas about class and gender that seem completely outdated to contemporary minds but remained enshrined in British law throughout the twentieth century. The law was successfully challenged by a 16-year-old boy who took his case to the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• The author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The context of childhood: social understanding of childhood
• 2 The historical context: the emergence of childhood
• 3 The philosophical context: the early years tradition and evolution of early years provision
• 4 The context of the family: first experiences
• 5 The context of partnership: children in transition
• 6 The context of the setting: childhood institutions
• 7 The community context: children as citizens
• 8 The national context: children and social policy
• 9 The global context: international perspectives
• 10 The child’s own context: the child’s voice and agency
• 11 The future context: the twenty-first century child
• 12 The virtual context: children in a digital world
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Index