Sociology of Childhood
- LAST REVIEWED: 29 October 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 October 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0011
- LAST REVIEWED: 29 October 2013
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 October 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0011
Introduction
The sociology of childhood developed quite rapidly in the 1990s and 2000s as a critical discipline within the field of childhood studies. It has become a growth area in undergraduate teaching and learning, researchers are finding more innovative ways of working with children in the research process, and arguably, the new insights from within the field have informed policy and practice with children at national and global levels. One key area is sociological theory. Child scholars have provided a number of critical approaches that challenge the conventions in researching and theorizing on children and childhood but have also contributed more broadly to sociological analyses of social structure and agency by reworking the concepts of generational difference and power. The sociology of childhood is mature enough now to provide a range of general works and undergraduate textbooks. It has also diversified. There is a core of theoretical debate and material as well as important statements on the politics, the ethics, and the methodological aspects of researching children, one of which is the focus now on viewing children as both research subjects and collaborators. The diversity of research on children and childhood is illustrated in this bibliography through the discussion of the global dimension, the importance of children’s cultures, the role of the media, and the changing nature of family relations.
General Overviews
Two key edited collections on childhood were published in the early 1990s. Both attempted to establish a new conceptual and empirical field for the sociology of childhood. The first, James and Prout 1997, emphasizes the socially constructed nature of childhood, whereas Qvortrup, et al. 1994 focuses more on macro-structural approaches. A slightly later text, Hutchby and Moran-Ellis 1998, discusses empirical research emphasizing more micro-constructionist approaches. A second group of edited collections discusses the political and cultural dimensions of children and childhood. From a mainly UK perspective, Pilcher and Wagg 1996 explores the impact of neoliberal policies associated with Thatcherism on children and childhood. Stephens 1995 explores the political dimensions of childhood from a more global context. Christensen and James 2008 is a collection of articles regarding research approaches to children and childhood. Finally, Qvortrup, et al. 2009 provides a more up-to-date coverage of conceptual and empirical themes and issues.
Christensen, Pia, and Allison James, eds. Research with Children: Perspectives and Practices. 2d ed. London: Falmer, 2008.
Covers a range of topics related to the research process by researchers working in the field with children. It explores epistemological, methodological, and ethical issues as well as examines the role that children themselves can play within the research process. First edition published in 2000.
Hutchby, Ian, and Jo Moran-Ellis, eds. Children and Social Competence: Arenas of Action. London: Falmer, 1998.
Written by experienced researchers, this text explores how children in their everyday lives in small-scale settings demonstrate their social competence. The theoretical focus is children’s social action and agency and how this unfolds in a range of different settings, including the home, the street, the classroom, and institutional care.
James, Allison, and Alan Prout, eds. Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood. London: Falmer, 1997.
A classic book, widely cited within the field and setting out a new paradigm for the study of childhood. Its theoretical focus is social constructionism, offering a range of readings on children’s agency, policy-related themes, and challenges for professionals working with children in a range of distinctive settings. First published in 1990.
Pilcher, Jane, and Stephen Wagg, eds. Thatcher’s Children? Politics, Childhood and Society in the 1980s and 1990s. London: Falmer, 1996.
Explores the political context of children’s lives as they grew up through the period of Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s. It draws on a range of policy-related themes including child protection, the education marketplace, child labor, child poverty, and children and the media.
Qvortrup, Jens, Marjatta Bardy, Giovanni Sgritta, and Helmut Wintersberger, eds. Childhood Matters: Social Theory, Practice and Politics. Public Policy and Social Welfare 14. Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1994.
Based on the Childhood as a Social Phenomenon project involving researchers from sixteen countries in Europe and North America. It takes a macro approach to children’s lives, drawing on themes including age and gender relations, children’s position within political and economic structures, and children’s use of space and time.
Qvortrup, Jens, William A. Corsaro, and Michael-Sebastian Honig, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2009.
Up-to-date collection of articles from key thinkers within the field. It sets out key concepts such as agency, structure, and generation. There are chapters on historical, economic, and global aspects of childhood. Also includes topics such as the body, leisure, the media, and the everyday world of children.
Stephens, Sharon, ed. Children and the Politics of Culture. Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
In this seminal text, authors from different countries discuss the political and cultural significance of childhood through the themes of globalization, rights, and risk. Among others, there are key articles on children’s cultural identity; childhood and national reconstruction; children and the free market; and children, school, and the state.
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Article
- Abduction of Children
- Aboriginal Childhoods
- Addams, Jane
- ADHD, Sociological Perspectives on
- Adolescence and Youth
- Adolescent Consent to Medical Treatment
- Adoption and Fostering
- Adoption and Fostering, History of Cross-Country
- Adoption and Fostering in Canada, History of
- Advertising and Marketing, Psychological Approaches to
- Advertising and Marketing, Sociocultural Approaches to
- Africa, Children and Young People in
- African American Children and Childhood
- After-school Hours and Activities
- Aggression across the Lifespan
- Ancient Near and Middle East, Child Sacrifice in the
- Animals, Children and
- Animations, Comic Books, and Manga
- Anthropology of Childhood
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Ariès, Philippe
- Art History, Children in
- Attachment in Children and Adolescents
- Australia, History of Adoption and Fostering in
- Australian Indigenous Contexts and Childhood Experiences
- Autism, Females and
- Autism, Medical Model Perspectives on
- Autobiography and Childhood
- Benjamin, Walter
- Bereavement
- Best Interest of the Child
- Bioarchaeology of Childhood
- Body, Children and the
- Body Image
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Boy Scouts/Girl Guides
- Boys and Fatherhood
- Breastfeeding
- Bronfenbrenner, Urie
- Bruner, Jerome
- Buddhist Views of Childhood
- Byzantine Childhoods
- Child and Adolescent Anger
- Child Beauty Pageants
- Child Homelessness
- Child Mortality, Historical Perspectives on Infant and
- Child Protection
- Child Protection, Children, Neoliberalism, and
- Child Public Health
- Child Trafficking and Slavery
- Childcare Manuals
- Childhod, Agency and
- Childhood and Borders
- Childhood and Empire
- Childhood as Discourse
- Childhood, Confucian Views of Children and
- Childhood, Memory and
- Childhood Publics
- Childhood Studies and Leisure Studies
- Childhood Studies in France
- Childhood Studies, Interdisciplinarity in
- Childhood Studies, Posthumanism and
- Childhoods in the United States, Sports and
- Childism
- Children and Dance
- Children and Film-Making
- Children and Money
- Children and Social Media
- Children and Sport
- Children and Sustainable Cities
- Children as Language Brokers
- Children as Perpetrators of Crime
- Children, Code-switching and
- Children in the Industrial Revolution
- Children with Autism in a Brazilian Context
- Children, Young People, and Architecture
- Children's Humor
- Children’s Museums
- Children’s Parliaments
- Children’s Reading Development and Instruction
- Children's Views of Childhood
- China, Japan, and Korea
- China's One Child Policy
- Citizenship
- Civil Rights Movement and Desegregation
- Class
- Classical World, Children in the
- Clothes and Costume, Children’s
- Collective Memory in Latin America, Childhoods and Collect...
- Colonial America, Child Witches in
- Colonialism and Human Rights
- Colonization and Nationalism
- Color Symbolism and Child Development
- Common World Childhoods
- Competitiveness, Children and
- Conceptual Development in Early Childhood
- Congenital Disabilities
- Constructivist Approaches to Childhood
- Consumer Culture, Children and
- Consumption, Child and Teen
- Conversation Analysis and Research with Children
- Critical Approaches to Children’s Work and the Concept of ...
- Crying
- Cultural psychology and human development
- Debt and Financialization of Childhood
- Disability
- Discipline and Punishment
- Discrimination
- Disney, Walt
- Divorce And Custody
- Dolls
- Domestic Violence
- Drawings, Children’s
- Early Childhood
- Early Childhood Care and Education, Selected History of
- Eating disorders and obesity
- Education: Learning and Schooling Worldwide
- Environment, Children and the
- Environmental Education and Children
- Ethics in Research with Children
- Eugenics
- Europe (including Greece and Rome), Child Sacrifice in
- Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
- Family Meals
- Fandom (Fan Studies)
- Fathers
- Female Genital Cutting
- Feminist New Materialist Approaches to Childhood Studies
- Feral and "Wild" Children
- Fetuses and Embryos
- Filicide
- Films about Children
- Films for Children
- Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and
- Folklore
- Food
- Foundlings and Abandoned Children
- Freud, Anna
- Freud, Sigmund
- Friends and Peers: Psychological Perspectives
- Froebel, Friedrich
- Gangs
- Gay and Lesbian Parents
- Gender and Childhood
- Generations, The Concept of
- Geographies, Children's
- Gifted and Talented Children
- Globalization
- Growing Up in the Digital Era
- Hall, G. Stanley
- Happiness in Children
- Hindu Views of Childhood and Child Rearing
- Hispanic Childhoods (U.S.)
- Historical Approaches to Child Witches
- History of Childhood in America
- History of Childhood in Canada
- HIV/AIDS, Growing Up with
- Homeschooling
- Humor and Laughter
- Images of Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age in Children’s ...
- Infancy and Ethnography
- Infant Mortality in a Global Context
- Innocence and Childhood
- Institutional Care
- Intercultural Learning and Teaching with Children
- Islamic Views of Childhood
- Japan, Childhood in
- Juvenile Detention in the US
- Key, Ellen
- Klein, Melanie
- Labor, Child
- Latin America
- Learning, Language
- Learning to Write
- Legends, Contemporary
- Literary Representations of Childhood
- Literature, Children's
- Love and Care in the Early Years
- Magazines for Teenagers
- Maltreatment, Child
- Maria Montessori
- Marxism and Childhood
- Masculinities/Boyhood
- Material Cultures of Western Childhoods
- Mead, Margaret
- Media, Children in the
- Media Culture, Children's
- Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Childhoods
- Menstruation
- Middle Childhood
- Middle East
- Migration
- Miscarriage
- Missionaries/Evangelism
- Moral Development
- Moral Panics
- Mothers
- Multi-culturalism and Education
- Music and Babies
- Nation and Childhood
- Native American and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood
- New Reproductive Technologies and Assisted Conception
- Nursery Rhymes
- Organizations, Nongovernmental
- Orphans
- Parental Gender Preferences, The Social Construction of
- Parenting
- Pediatrics, History of
- Peer Culture
- Perspectives on Boys' Circumcision
- Peter Pan
- Philosophy and Childhood
- Piaget, Jean
- Play
- Politics, Children and
- Postcolonial Childhoods
- Post-Modernism
- Poverty, Rights, and Well-being, Child
- Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica Childhoods
- Premodern China, Conceptions of Childhood in
- Prostitution and Pornography, Child
- Psychoanalysis
- Queer Theory and Childhood
- Race and Ethnicity
- Racism, Children and
- Radio, Children, and Young People
- Readers, Children as
- Refugee and Displaced Children
- Reimagining Early Childhood Education, Reconceptualizing a...
- Relational Ontologies
- Relational Pedagogies
- Rights, Children’s
- Risk and Resilience
- Russia
- School Shootings
- Sex Education in the United States
- Sexuality
- Siblings
- Siblings, Learning Disabilities and
- Social and Cultural Capital of Childhood
- Social Habitus in Childhood
- Social Movements, Children's
- Social Policy, Children and
- Socialization and Child Rearing
- Socio-cultural Perspectives on Children's Spirituality
- Sociology of Childhood
- South African Birth to Twenty Project
- South Asia
- South Asia, History of Childhood in
- Special Education
- Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
- Spock, Benjamin
- Sports and Organized Games
- Street Children
- Street Children And Brazil
- Subcultures
- Sure Start
- Teenage Fathers
- Teenage Pregnancy
- Television
- The Bible and Children
- The Harms and Prevention of Drugs and Alcohol on Children
- The Spaces of Childhood
- Theater for Children and Young People
- Theories, Pedagogic
- Tourism
- Toys
- Transgender Children
- Tweens
- Twins and Multiple Births
- Unaccompanied Migrant Children
- United Kingdom, History of Adoption and Fostering in the
- United States, Schooling in the
- Value of Children
- Views of Childhood, Jewish and Christian
- Violence, Children and
- Visual Representations of Childhood
- Voice, Participation, and Agency
- Vygotsky, Lev and His Cultural-historical Approach to Deve...
- War
- Welfare Law in the United States, Child
- Well-Being, Child
- Western Europe and Scandinavia
- Western Literature, The Urban Child in
- Witchcraft in the Contemporary World, Children and
- Work and Apprenticeship, Children's
- Young Carers
- Young Children and Inclusion
- Young Children’s Imagination
- Young Lives
- Young People, Alcohol, and Urban Life
- Young People and Climate Activism
- Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Co...