THE SOCIOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD IN RELATION TO CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

Abstract

Children’s welfare in the last 100 years has been inextricably woven into women’s welfare and women’s social condition; to an extent, children’s welfare has been subsumed under the composite concept ‘women-and- children’. It is hard to peer beyond the tangle of adults who pronounce on children’s ‘needs’ in the context of mother-child relations, and to look clearly at children themselves. It is still more difficult to listen to children seriously. And it is yet more difficult to include children into society rather than excluding them. But these are essential enterprises: we must extricate children, conceptually, from parents, the family and professionals. We must study the social condition of childhood and write children into the script of the social order. Essentially the interlinked reasons for doing this are two- fold. Proper understanding of the social order requires consideration of all its members, all social groups. And children, like other minority groups, lack a voice and have a right to be heard and their views taken into account. It is through working towards better understanding of the social condi- tion of childhood that we can provide a firm basis for working towards implementation of their rights. to study children as a social group and childhood as a social phenomenon. The proper study of the social order has to include the social condition of childhood, and the contributions of children to it. The sociological project is to work initially on the task of extracting children theoretically from the family in order to study their social positioning as a social group. A next step is to replace children in reciprocal relations with adults, and childhood with adulthood. Thus the sociological enterprise aims to locate study of childhood in study of societies Childhood as social status is defined within the generational order as inferior to adulthood. How children live their childhoods looks heavily structured by what adults want of childhood. A case in point is schooling, where children’s days are largely controlled by adult agendas. Furthermore, adults justify their control over children through a naturalisation of the condition of childhood: it is for the good of children that their school-days are as they are; if children do well at school, the argument goes, jobs, security and happiness lie ahead. How Children Think Children think sociologically. They divide the social order into two groups of people, adults and those whom adults define as non-adults, that is, children. Children regard childhood as relational. That is, they see that the character and quality of their childhoods is structured through their intergenerational relationships – most importantly with parents and teachers. Children’s accounts forcibly indicate that they are moral agents, who carry out important activities, both in the structuring and progressing of their own lives within relationships, and in making and remaking relationships within the family and with friends. To define children as incompetent, inadequate versions of adults, to individualise childhood and to propose childhood as politically neutral is itself a political act. Further, to do so risks damaging children and childhood. The history of knowledge-acquisition about children exposes political goals and interests. An example is linkages between assessment, including intelligence testing, and social goals. It was to suit the demands of the economy that children were to be sorted by intelligence levels and trained accordingly many children identify conflicting notions about their moral status. Though they act as moral agents, they note that their moral status and in particular their participation rights are constantly in question. Adult conceptualisations of children as incomplete people and adult assumptions that their own agendas matter more than children’s lead to them downgrading children as moral agents. Children are regarded as adult responsibilities in public places, further serves to solidify adult views that children are moral incompetents. In turn, children’s own subordination to adults leads them to adopt whatever tactics they can in order to assert their rights; these tactics include wheedling, lying, demanding, refusing; and these tactics themselves reinforce adult prejudices. We can see here the working through of historical processes whereby this generation of children has been progressively excluded from social participation and, in complement, progressively identified as incompetent. children make important points on issues of autonomy and interdependence. Whilst Western liberal thinkers have regarded the autonomous, independent moral agent as the highest form of life, children regard relationships as the cornerstone of their lives. It is of crucial importance to them to work with and through family relationships, to care about those who live elsewhere as well as those they live with. Children’s accounts centre on such matters; on the health, well-being and problems of those they love. And for them the best thing about school is friends; for whilst the formal school agenda is dictated by national curricula and time-tables managed under teachers’ authority, relationships with friends provide the forum that allows children to make sense of school, to help each other, to put up with it and even to enjoy it. Thus any account of how the social order works, in terms of values ascribed by varying social groups to dependence, independence, and inter-dependence, needs to take account of children’s views. Children see that they are positioned in social relationships, not just as individuals but as group members. They understand that they are required to operate through inter-generational relations – with parents, with teachers. It is through these child-adult relations that they learn. And the character of their daily lives is structured through the goals, control, permission and affection (and sometimes anger) of adults. An important pa

Özet

Son yüzyılda çocukların huzuru, kadınların huzurundan ve kadınların sosyal durumundan ayrılmaz bir hale geldi; bir bakıma, çocukların huzuru 'kadınlar-ve-çocuklar ' kavramı altında toplanıldı. Anne-çocuk ilişkileri bağlamında çocukların ihtiyaçları hakkındaki fikirlerini açıklayan yetişkinlerin karmaşasının ötesine dikkatle bakmak ve çocukların kendilerine açıkça bakmak zordur. Çocukları ciddi bir şekilde dinlemek hala oldukça zordur. Ve fakat onları dışlamaktan ziyade topluma dâhil etmek daha zordur. Ama bunlar gerekli girişimlerdir: biz çocukları profesyonellerden kurtarmalıyız. Biz çocukluk döneminin sosyal durumunu çalışmalıyız ve toplumsal düzenin senaryosuna çocukları dâhil etmeliyiz. Aslında bunu yapmak için birbirleriyle bağlantılı sebepler iki yönlüdür. Toplumsal düzenin doğru anlaşılması, tüm üyelerin, tüm sosyal grupların göz önüne alınmasını gerektirmektedir. Ve çocuklar, diğer reşit olmayan gruplar gibi, bir söz sahibi değillerdir ve duyulmak ve görüşlerinin dikkate alınması gibi bir hakka sahip değillerdir. Bizim onların haklarının uygulanması yönünde sağlam bir altyapı sağlayabilmemiz için çocukluk döneminin toplumsal durumunun daha iyi anlaşılması yönünde çalışılmaktadır.çalışması, çocukluk döneminin sosyal durumunu ve onun için çocukların katkıları içermelidir. Sosyolojik proje, bir sosyal grup olarak sosyal konumlandırmayı incelemek için aileden kuramsal olarak çocukları çıkarma görevi üzerinde ilk olarak çalışmak içindir. Bir sonraki adım, yetişkinlik ile çocukluk dönemini ve yetişkinlerle karşılıklı ilişkilerde çocukları değiştirmek içindir. Böylece sosyolojik girişim toplumların yerleştirmeyi amaçlar