child from an adult the sociological definitions use childrens nature and their

characteristics as a distinguishing feature.1

Different sociologists have defined child differently:
kay Sambell and Sue Miller defines child as a fact of human life, with biological
determining dependency on others to provide care. 2
According to Sidney Mintz childhood is not an unchanging biological stage of life
but is, rather, a social and cultural construct 3
In the words of Woodrow Childhood is seen as a time of passivity, where children
receive knowledge and experiences chosen and provided for them by their adult
caregivers.4
Thus it can be interpreted from the above definitions that child is a phase of human
lives where they are dependent on others to provide care, where they learn new
experiences, receive knowledge and is not only a number in ones life.

Social construction of a child:Social construction is a sociological approach which sees the child as the outcome
of the societys construction. According to Jenks to describe childhood, or indeed
any phenomenon, as socially constructed is to suspend a belief in or a willing
reception of its taken-for-granted meanings. Thus, quite obviously with our current
topic, we all know what children are and what childhood is like but this is not a
knowledge that we can reliably draw upon.5
1 Infra 6
2 Studying childhood and early childhood, kay sambell 4th edition pg 22
3

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/12/28/child-labor-and-the-social-

construction-of-childhood/ on 16-9-16 at 2.00 pm

4 https://extranet.education.unimelb.edu.au/LED/tec/pdf/journal_sorin.pdf on 16/91/16
at 12:00pm
5 Chirs jenks Childhood 2nd edition pg 98

Social construction of childhood:In society various concepts have different origins childhood is not a natural,
biological state, rather childhood is a social role and the norms attached to
childhood vary across societies.
The term idea that childhood is socially constructed is a belief that the way we think
about childhood is drawn from the society we live in, the time we grew up, and the
culture we are a part of. The idea differs through time periods, and from culture to
culture.
According to Stephen wagg children everywhere go through the same stages of
physical development but cultures construct these stages differently.6
Aries is considered to be the pioneer who formed the belief of childhood as a oncept
different from adulthood. According to him the idea of Childhood was not around in
feudal times (around the 1700s). Childhood did not exist children were regarded as
a younger member of the society they were not given any special or distinctive
social status. They participated in the society according to their abilities, just as the
adults.7 The feudal family was looked at as a production unit, with every member
working so the family could survive; obviously babies could not work, so they were
looked at as inadequate adults. Parents were also very distant with their offspring,
not attaching themselves to them emotionally. This is due to the high infant mortality
rates; an example of this is that children were usually not given names until they
reached their 5th birthdays. Children were looked at as economic assets rather than
a symbol of peoples love for one another. By the time children got to the age of
seven, they were looked at as little adults, this is because they would take part in
the same activates as full grown adults. They would do the same types of work, and
the same leisure activities, such as smoking and drinking, regardless of age. By the
ages of 11 and 12, children were looked at as full grown adults, and would usually
have been arranged marriages and moved. Gradually, bourgeois (middleclass) boys
were singled out for special treatment in the form of education, and this was eventually,
6 ibid
7 Preventive approach for wellbeing of a child, Murli Desai 5 th edition Springer
publications pg 12

over the course of two or three centuries, extended to middleclass girls, then to working
class children.

Around the 1780s, Industrialization was introduced to the world which changed
things in the socities, and things got much worse for children. Families moved into
the city as society became urbanised. Children had to go into adult work before they
were even teenagers, and unlike working in feudal times when they were with their
families. Children were exposed to brutal working conditions; there were 4 main
types of jobs that children went into, Miners and Factory workers both girls and
boys, and domestic servants just for girls, and chimney sweeps just for boys. 8
The 18th century philosopher Rousseau is credited with inventing the modern notion
of childhood as a distinct period of human life with particular needs of stimulation
and education. This model upheld the innocence of the child and their freedom of
contamination with the ugly lesson of civilization.
Sociologist noted that modern childhood and youth that emerged at the then of the
last century in Europe and the world had strong links to the anxieties of a growing
middle class in western industrialization nations. The rise of industrial capitalism
required a shift in strategies of social reproductions towards an increasingly
educated as the path into clerical and managerial work was directed increasingly
through the classroom and away from the shop floor. With the advent of compulsory
education, a separation was realized between environment of child and that of
adults. Thus the position of children has evolved from a strong social participation
with minimal protection during the 18 th centuries, to a strong protection with minimal
participation during the 20th century. As a result children spend most of their time
among themselves, secluded from the rest of society.9
The most important and distinguishing factor for childhood that has changed the
social life of a human is education. The society with education has made a growing
emphasis on lifelong learning. Learning no longer exclusively belongs to the domain
of the school and no longer is restricted to the youth phase. It is changing the
classic relation between the children who need to learn and the adults who need to
teach.

8http://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/Social-Construction-Of-Childhood-362390 .html
visited on 14/9/16 on 11:30 am
9 ibid

According to Lavalette and Cunningham, the New Sociology of Childhood has

developed an approach based on post-modern perspectives, which comprises of
four central claims:
1. Childhood is not merely a biological phenomenon, but a social construction,
affected and shaped by wider social and cultural elements, within concrete,
historical circumstances.
2. Children occupy and conduct themselves in worlds that are full of meaning for
them, but about which adults are, at least partially, ignorant. It has led to an
emphasis on listening to children's voices.
3. Politically children are powerless and disadvantaged. The new sociology is a
theory of advocacy, sociology for children rather than sociology of children. This
approach has closely tied into children's rights agenda.
4. Children are an identifiable social group. It is a universal category, as a result of
which, children have a common set of needs and rights. 10
In this perspective, children are not the passive output of child-rearing practices nor
their social development envisaged as the product of a simple biological
determinism, but as social agents in shaping their own childhood experiences 11
Childhood Studies provides an interdisciplinary approach to the study of children
and childhood, meaning that it crosses traditional boundaries between disciplines,
drawing together diverse theories and ideas to better understand the experience of
childhood.
Berry Mayall and Leena Alanen argue that it is possible to identify three key insights
about children that arise from the sociology of childhood and help us to think more
critically about children and childhood:-

1. The first such perspective understands children as agents and as active

participants in constructing knowledge this perspective focuses on studying
children in their own right and from their own perspectives.
10 https://extranet.education.unimelb.edu.au/LED/tec/pdf/journal_sorin.pdf visited on
16/9/16 at 12.00am
11 ibid

2. The second approach is what Alanen refers to as the deconstructive sociology of

childhood. This emphasizes how childhood is socially constructed and that ideas
about childhood change through time and space.
3. The third insight is the structural sociology of childhood, in which childhood is
understood to be a permanent social category in society which focuses on Its
members change, but childhood, in its relations with the other major social group
adulthood continues as an essential component of a social order where the
general understanding is that childhood is a first and separate lifespan whose
characteristics are different from the later ones12

12 Ibid