Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Childhood as a social construct - Coggle Diagram
Childhood as a social construct
CULTURE DIFFERENCES IN CHILDHOOD
Anthropologist
Ruth Benedict (1934)
argues that children in simpler, non-industrial societies are generally treated differently from their modern western counterparts in 3 ways.
1. They take responsibility at an early age.
Samantha Punch's (2001)
study of childhood in rural Bolivia found that once children were about 5 years old, they were expected to work and take responsibilites.
Lowell Holmes' (1974)
study of a Samoan village found that 'too young' was never an excuse for not permitting a child to undertake a task.
2. Less value is placed on children showing obedience to adult authority.
Raymond Firth (1970)
found that among the Tikopia of the Western Pacific, doing what you're told by an adult is regarded as concession to be granted by the child, not a right to be expected by the adult.
3. Children's sexual behaviours may be viewed differently.
Among the Trobriand Islanders of the south-west Pacific,
Bronisław Malinowski (1957)
found that adults took an attitude of 'tolerance and amused interest' towards children's sexual explorations.
Benedict argues that in many non-industrial cultures, there is much less of a dividing line between the behaviour expected of children and that expected of adults.
Such evidence illustrates the key idea that childhood is not a fixed thing found universally in the same form in all human societies, but is socially constructed and so differs from culture to culture.
HISTORICAL DIFFERENCES IN CHILDHOOD
Many sociologists and historians argue that childhood as we understand it today is a relatively recent 'invention'.
Historian
Philippe Aries
(1960) argues that children in the Middle Ages 'the idea of childhood did not exist'. Children were not seen as having a different 'nature' or needs from adults.
Soon after being weaned, children would enter wider society on very similar terms to adults. They would work from an early age, often in households of other families.
Children were seen as 'mini adults' with the same rights, duties and skills as adults.
Aries
would use works of art from the period.
In these, children and adults would be depicted much the same, working and playing together. They were even wearing the same clothes.
THE MODERN WESTERN NOTION OF CHILDHOOD
In today's society, we have accepted that childhood is a special time in life and that children are fundamentally different to adults.
Children are regarded as physically immature and not yet competent to run their own lives.
There is a belief that children's lack of skills, knowledge and experience means that they need a lengthy, protected period of nurturing and socialisation before they are ready for adult society and it's responsibilities.
Jane Pilcher (1995)
noted that the most important feature of the modern idea of childhood is separateness. Childhood is seen as a clear and distinct life stage, and children in our society occupy a seperate status from adults.
Differences between children and adults: dress/clothes, laws and regulations, products and services.
The idea of childhood as a 'golden age' of happiness and innocence.
This innocence means that children are seen as vulnerable and in in need of protection from the dangers of the world. As a result, children's lives are lived largely in the sphere of the family and education, where adults provide for them and protect them from the outside world.
THE GLOBALISATION OF WESTERN CHILDHOOD
Some sociologists argue that Western notions of childhood are being globalised. International humanitarian and welfare agencies have exported and imposed on the rest of the world, western norms of what childhood should be - a seperate life stage, based in the nuclear family and school, in which children are innocent, dependant and vulnerable, and have no economic role.
Campaigns against child labour, or concerns about 'street children' in developing countries reflect western views about how childhood 'ought' to be.
such activity by children may be the norm for the culture and an important preparation for adult life.