Introduction

A UNIVERSAL CHILD?

CONCEPTS OF CHILDHOOD AND THE REALITY OF CHILDREN

Lorraine Fox Harding

This forthcoming book is contracted to be written for Palgrave Publishers Ltd. (formerlyMacmillan) with a target date for submission of January 2005. The book explores concepts of

childhood and childhood’s reality, addressing the extent to which notions of a ‘universal childhood’ are sustainable: that is, the extent to which some continuity across time and space is detectable in the variety of concepts of childhood and experiences of actual children. The book attempts to offset a current emphasis on fragmentation, difference and diversity, and perhaps an assumption of infinite flexibility and variety, by re-evaluating a possible universality of concepts

and experience which may underlie difference. Implicit in the approach is a suggestion that while ‘childhood’ and ‘actual children’ may be distinguished, concepts of childhood draw on

empirical knowledge of actual children, while conversely such concepts of childhood themselves shape the treatment and experience of children.

Below is the draft first chapter of the book. The section ‘Structure of the book’ (pp. 15 – 20) gives an outline of the book’s contents, although currently the outlines for Chapters 2 - 6 are not

finalised.

Biographical note:I have been researching and teaching in the area of child care policy, children’s rights, and child and family issues, for over 20 years. The current book is a development of my thinking on ‘children’s rights’ in law and policy and the ideas about children and childhood which underpin such law and policy.

Introduction

This book is about childhood. By this word I mean both the actual characteristics and

experiences of children, the lived state of childhood that children inhabit, and the way

that these things are commonly perceived. The general intellectual background from

which I approach this topic – social science, broadly defined – would usually make an

important distinction between these two topics, that is actual children/their actual

childhoods, and the construction of these by those who observe and define and describe.

Indeed, commentators from other disciplines, social historians for example, may make a

similar distinction. Cunningham (1995), who wrote a scholarly work about childhood in

Western Europe from 1500 to 1800, makes it clear that his book is based on a distinction:

‘between children as human beings and childhood as a shifting set of ideas’ (p.1). That is

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Introduction

why both ‘children’ and ‘childhood’ appear in his title, although a history of childhood is

easier than a history of children because evidence is more easily accessible on how

people thought about childhood than on the lives of children themselves (as opposed to

the lives of their parents). Those who espouse a recent school of thought which may be

characterised as supporting ‘children’s rights’, would not only make a distinction of this

kind between children and notions of childhood, but would see something actively

oppressive to real children in the idea of ‘childhood’ commonly held and acted on in

western societies. ‘Childhood’ may disadvantage actual children; for Holt (1975),

writing in a 1970s liberationist context, it was like a prison to be escaped from, while

Franklin (1995), a later children’s rights advocate, referred to childhood as a social

construct often mythologized as a ‘golden age’. Yet the modern conception of childhood

can stifle and oppress; it has excluded children from the world of adults and made

schooling the major focus of their lives. This is in fact no ‘golden age’, as Franklin’s

edited collections (1986, 1995) aim to make clear. Sociological writings in the 1990s,

while expressing things rather differently, essentially took a similar view: ‘childhood’ as

popularly constructed is a different matter from living, observable children with their

needs, behaviour and experiences. So recent sociologists of childhood James, Jenks and

Prout (1998) celebrate the emergence of children as social actors and individual beings in

their own right in the sociological literature and elsewhere (although noting that this was

developing in parallel with increased control over children as ‘different’). They

challenge the link between discourses and the reality of childhood: ‘While everyday

discourses of childhood seek to explain the “truth” of childhood’, the authors say, they

themselves aim: ‘to explain and deconstruct those very discourses that have established

taken-for-granted “truths’ about childhood’ (p.9). Presumably these ‘discourses’ have

got it wrong. Concepts of the child that are not sociological (termed ‘Presociological’)

are relegated to ‘the dustbin of history’ (p.9). The critical analysis of ways of defining

and understanding children tends to predominate in sociological writings on childhood.

It is implied that these definitions, adult/child distinctions and so on, have little objective

base. So Stainton Rogers (2001), commenting on the social construction of childhood,

says that: ‘the “realities” that we take for granted ……. are not things-out-there-in-the-

world that we merely observe. Rather, they are constructed by human meaning-making’

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Introduction

(p. 26). The (non-sociological) dominant framework for understanding childhood may be

counter-posed against some deeper insight that sociological writers claim to have.

In this approach, then, actual individual children and their lives, feelings and

experiences are one thing, while (adult) concepts, constructions, representations,

perceptions, attitudes, indeed stereotypes, concerning childhood (and its different-ness)

are another. The latter concepts, on an extreme reading, may have little connection with

actual children and may serve perhaps to distort and harm them, rather as racist, sexist,

ageist, homophobic and other characterisations – or caricatures – are thought to inflict

injustice and pain on those groups who are on the receiving end. Thus children’s reality

and received ways of thinking about childhood are thought to diverge, usually to the

child’s detriment. Actual childhood, or childhoods in the plural, only loosely connect

with common social concepts of ‘childhood’.

But is it like this? Are concepts of the child and childhood as abstract, arbitrary

and disconnected from empirical observations of real children, as is surely being implied?

Is childhood nothing more than: ‘a variable of social analysis’ (James and Prout, 1997, p.

8), or: ‘a social construction which is both culturally and historically determined’

(Goldson, 1997, p. 2), ‘a category’ (Stainton Rogers, 2001, p. 8), or: ‘a structural concept

……. alongside other structural forms and divisions within society’ (Goldson, p. 20)?

Or, are there some features of what it is to be a child and adolescent which are commonly

observed, which may be characteristically found across human societies both present and

historical, and which do broadly (although not in every detail) support the various

societal concepts of what childhood ‘is’? Are there, in fact, frequently observed patterns

in the state of being young, which in general differentiate the young from older people,

and which lend some validity to the social constructions surrounding childhood as a

guide to what children are like; are there patterns on which those social constructions

may in fact have been built? That is, social constructions may be not merely social but

might reflect something observed and general, even universal, about human childhood,

something which may, furthermore, have a developmental and a biological base. For

example, many cultures recognise a distinct shift in childhood at around age seven and

again around age twelve (Thomas, 2000, p. 11). Is this based on characteristic

developmental shifts that occur at these ages? So, while it may be acknowledged that

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Introduction

social constructions of childhood do exist and do affect how children are seen and

treated, these same constructions may in some sense be produced by the character of

childhood, as well as helping to produce it. In other words, perhaps children and

‘childhood’ influence each other in mutual interaction.

These are large questions. This book has no definitive answers but attempts to

raise some questions about childhood which are downgraded by accepted social science

assumptions that imply, too often, that all is explained by what is ‘social’ and that the

biological, including the genetic, has no place.

However in this chapter I will first consider as context a possible ‘crisis’ in

childhood and child-adult relations around the turn of the millennium, interrogating

briefly the ‘newness’ of crises of childhood in societies. The chapter will then move on

to introduce some characteristics of social science writings on children/childhood,

including the argument that childhood is structured by society and the more recent

insistence on children as ‘social actors’, and will consider some challenges to the social

science approach based on an argument for developmental universality in

children/childhood alongside difference and diversity. The debate will be returned to in

subsequent chapters. The introduction will then make a basic point about universal and

majority patterns. Lastly it will outline the content of the rest of the book.

Millennial concerns

Around the turn of the twentieth and twenty first centuries – which is also of course the

cusp of the second and third millennia – there has seemed to be an unusually high level of

concern surrounding children, youth and childhood. One piece of evidence for this is that

books like this one, on childhood, have become much more common! The latter years of

the last century and the first few of the new one saw a proliferation or academic texts in

the social sciences in this area (see bibliography), while both influencing and being

influenced by this tide of writing, presumably, were the numerous courses in higher

education on a childhood theme (including whole programmes on childhood studies).

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Introduction

One theme in this concern is of deleterious change and loss. For example, Foley et al’s

‘Foreword’ to their edited collection Children in Society (Foley et al, 2001) comments

that the authors are struck by changes affecting children and the current sense of a ‘loss’

of childhood, with children thought to be too close to the world of adults, including its

commercialization and the mass media. They refer to a ‘crisis’, as does Scraton (1997),

but it must be noted that for some the crisis is in quotation marks, it is a perception held

by others, an image – ‘of disintegration, or even disappearance, rather than change’

(Foley et al, 2001, p.1); a picture which has ‘masked the structural and material realities

which oppress young people’ (Scraton, 1997, p. xiii). It is, perhaps, a distraction from

the real problems surrounding childhood.

Major strands in the alarmist re-conceptualization of children signalled by various

authors are: a perceived undesirable erosion of child-adult boundaries, a shift in the

balance of power between adults and children, and the loss of childhood’s separate space.

Growing up too fast in the world of sex and drugs was the sub-title of one book (Winn,

1984), and Growing up in the age of electronic media was Buckingham’s (Buckingham,

2000), his main title being: After the death of childhood. However Buckingham himself,

while recognizing significant change in the meaning of ‘childhood’ and in children’s

lives, sees boundaries as eroded in some areas but strengthened in others, and is positive

about media and new technologies. Writing almost two decades earlier, Postman (1983)

was not – his book The Disappearance of Childhood expressed fears about the

homogenization of child and adult lives, largely thanks to television!1 He wrote before

the age of the internet but: ‘attributes a determining significance to technologies’

(Buckingham, 2000, p. 26). In the age of television as opposed to print, adult control was

thought to be inexorably weakened. There has also been particular anxiety surrounding

the children of parental separation and divorce, which is a whole area of debate and

research in itself (see, for example, Smart et al, 2001). It is possible to be positive –

Foley et al (2001) note that ‘other voices’ indicate change for the better in childhood

(p.1). Idealizations and nostalgia concerning the past get in the way of the perceptions of

today; less demarcation of ‘childhood’ might in fact be better for children. The growth of

the children’s rights movement is perhaps a progressive sign (p.4). It may be noted that

1 See Buckingham (2000) for other sources which express anxiety at changing adult-child relations.

5

Introduction

demands for children’s rights may call on the similarity of children and adults for part of

their justification; the competence of children can be advanced as support for their claims

– or the claims put by adults on their behalf – for more autonomy, to be consulted, to

participate in systems and decisions that affect them, and so on (for a recent example, see

Franklin, 2002; see also Archard, 1993; and, much further back, Holt 1975). Less

demarcation may lead to more empowerment. (It is another question whether

‘empowerment’ is a ‘good thing’).

Nevertheless – children are also under attack and condemnation. The same

authors comment on this development in millennial times. Scraton refers to a perception

that: ‘“Childhood” is in “crisis”, children lack appropriate discipline, parental control or

professional guidance’ (Scraton, 1997, p. vii). Buckingham, in summarising the

complexity of changing childhood, notes that children have been subject to greater

surveillance and control (p. 79); they are threatening as well as threatened, seen as a

danger to others, and childhood: ‘acts a focus for broader concerns about social change,

“indiscipline” and moral collapse’ (p. 76). A particular popular discourse about

children’s antisocial behaviour may be identified with the 1990s. The hideous torture

and murder, in early 1993, of a toddler, James Bulger, by two ten year old boys, may

have been a defining moment in the perception of children in the UK. There are many

sources on this notorious case (see, for example, Hay, 1995; King, 1997, Chapter 5); and

the particularly vindictive reaction of the British press and public has been much

commented on (see, for example, Franklin and Petley, 1996; Davis and Bourhill, 1997); a

similar (though by no means identical) case in Norway attracted a far less punitive media

response (Franklin and Larsen, 1995). Within Scraton’s collection Davis and Bourhill

(1997) devote a chapter to the recent ‘demonization’ of children; and while the Bulger

case was not the only factor in this, it: ‘unleashed a moral outrage unprecedented in its

emotive force’ (p. 45). Goldson (2001) also writes in strong terms about the

demonization of children and the contribution of the Bulger case to this. Thus in some

respects children were being construed as dangerous and out of control, as showing

increasingly unacceptable, and indeed criminal, behaviour, as potentially monstrous, and

suitable for adult punishments; all this recalling the co-existence of evil and innocence in

notions of childhood as developed from at least the Reformation/Renaissance period and

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Introduction

described by Aries (1962) (Aries’s work will be returned to in Chapter 1). It was perhaps

not so much that the ‘end’ of childhood innocence took place in the 1990s (Scraton,

1997) as that its innocence faltered in the presence of ideas suggesting much darker

qualities.

Concern was developing that state policy in relation to children had been too

sympathetic and tolerant (see, for example, Davis and Bourhill, 1997). Conservative

politicians’ alliterative calls for ‘Victorian values’ and ‘back to basics’ may be cited in

the context of the move to more punitive responses (Scraton, 1997, p. vii) – all

supposedly reflecting a yearning for the restoration of traditional authority, seen as part of

a New Right agenda. But the perception of children as threats led to some increased

regulation and control by the state under both Conservative and Labour governments:

measures such as Secure Training Orders under the Criminal Justice and Public Order

Act 1994; Child Safety, Child Curfew and Antisocial Behaviour Orders and other new

orders under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998; tagging for persistent offenders and

greater use of secure accommodation; the abolition of the ‘doli incapax’ (‘incapable of

evil’) presumption which had long been held with regard to those over the age of criminal

responsibility but under 14; stronger action on truancy, school exclusions and teenage

pregnancy (Social Exclusion Unit, 1998, Social Exclusion Unit, 1999); and a plethora of

educational measures.

However the response was not straightforwardly punitive. The reversal stood

alongside continuing ideals about how best to protect children and serve their welfare,

and, in line with the UK’s ratification in 1991 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the

Child, some official acknowledgement of children’s adult-like self-determination and

participation rights (on the Convention, see, for example, Newell, 1991; Children’s

Rights Development Unit, 1994; Fortin, 1998; Lee, 2001; Freeman, 2002). The boys

who killed James Bulger were themselves tried in an adult court and given long

sentences. But, while these sentences were subsequently increased by the Home

Secretary of the time, the Home Secretary’s intervention was also later found unlawful by

the European Court of Human Rights (Guardian, 13 March, 14 March 2000), and the

young men were eventually released at 18 rather than be transferred to an adult prison

(Guardian, 27 October 2000). While orders for child curfews were made possible by the

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Introduction

1998 Crime and Disorder Act, they were not initially used (Hunter, 2001 – there were

none applied for by February 2001), and Antisocial Behaviour Orders had a low take-up

(Jerrom, 2002).

The social reaction to childhood, and the state’s response to it, were in fact mixed,

while the ‘newness’ of this anxious focusing on the child at the turn of the millennium

needs to be re-examined: are ‘crises’ of childhood recurrent and common in history,

perhaps especially likely under particular historical conditions or political climates?

Pearson’s (1983) work, Hooligan A History of Respectable Fears, showed that previous

British generations had experienced nostalgia for a past ‘golden age’ apparently free of

‘hooligans’; Pearson comments in his conclusion on the reverse historical journey

undertaken in his book, that it revealed: ‘a seamless tapestry of fears and complaints

about the deteriorated present’ (Pearson, 1983, p. 207). There have also been phases of

awareness of child abuse and neglect, and child welfare more generally, at different

periods (see, for example, Hendrick, 1990; Ferguson, 1990, for the 1890s), while Corby

(2000) notes that although child abuse concern is not a new phenomenon, a sense of

‘newness’ accompanies fresh attempts to deal with the problem. It may be that waves of

perception of children and youth as troubling, problematic, as threatened and threatening,

are commonplace in history. Going somewhat further back, Corby (2000) gives us this

intriguing cameo from Sommerville (1982): ‘in Mesopotamia in 1800 BC parents were

expressing the same sort of concerns about their children as parents are now, that is that

they were not obedient and that they were not working hard enough at school. Concerns

about children, therefore, seem to be perennial ones’ (italics added) (p. 11). The social

historian of childhood Cunningham, in introducing the period 1830-1920, recalls that in

fact: ‘Governments and philanthropists ….. had for centuries formulated and operated

policies towards children’ (Cunningham, 1995, p. 134). Is the ‘new’ anxious awareness

of childhood in the west historically unique or part of a repetitive cycle? The question

should at least be asked.

Social science writing on childhood

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Introduction

Social science, and in particular sociological writings on childhood, will be discussed

more fully in Chapter 2, which focuses on diversity in childhood in different social

contexts and the socially determined character of childhood, and Chapter 4, which

develops the examination of social perspectives further in comparing them with

developmental perspectives and exploring the social critique of those perspectives. A

few points will be made here. One is that, for social science, childhood in some respects

is highly variable, and a major source of its variability is social/societal/cultural. That is,

different societies and social groups ‘construct’ childhood differently and surround it

with different kinds of social structures and institutions; thus there are many

‘childhoods’, both in terms of the perceptions, representations, or definitions of

‘childhood’ commonly held in a society, and in terms of what childhood is actually like

for children themselves. For much of social science, there is nothing intrinsic or naturally

distinct about being a child – it is not biologically determined.

While psychology, social work and social policy have long been interested in

children, the ‘newness’ of specifically sociological interest in childhood is often pointed

to (see for example, Corsaro, 1997; James et al, 1998; Thomas, 2000); awareness of

children had hardly been wholly absent from sociology in the past, but a new paradigm

appeared in the 1990s (perhaps linked with the ‘crisis’ of childhood). This new approach

is seen as challenging a (previously) ‘dominant framework’ in the study of childhood

(see, for example, Lee, 2001, Chapter 3, citing James and Prout, 1997) that had made

much of the concept of socialization and had viewed children chiefly as incomplete

‘social becomings’ – as adults-in-training, in effect. By contrast the ‘new’ sociology of

childhood argues that children should be seen as beings in their own right, with an

emphasis on lived experience in the here and now. It may even be questioned to what

extent adults themselves are ‘beings’ rather than ‘becomings’ – being and becoming may

converge (see Lee, 2001). James et al (1998) outline four ways in which the child is

‘constituted sociologically’ (p. 26) (the ‘socially constructed child’, the ‘tribal child’, the

‘minority group child’, and the ‘social structural child’), seen as characteristic of the new

approach (p. 33). And among other aspects, they consider the diversity of childhood:

‘leading to a deconstruction of childhood’s conventional, singular and reductive form’ (p.

34). While the main point about sociological analyses of childhood is that childhood is

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Introduction

socially constructed (so that anything ‘universal’ or ‘essential’ is rejected), a second

major point to take from this approach is an emphasis on children’s ‘agency’ – children

as actors rather than passive subjects. Thomas (2000) (referring back to Prout and James,

1990) usefully summarizes on agency: ‘Children are and must be seen as active in the

construction and determination of their own social lives, the lives of those around them

and of the societies in which they live. Children are not just the passive subjects of social

structures and processes’ (p. 17).

Thus the essential points to bear in mind are childhood as a social construction,

and children as active in their own lives and worthy of consideration as such. As Corsaro

(1997), puts it, two central concepts of a new sociology of childhood are: that children

are active social agents creating their own cultures and contributing to the adult world,

and that childhood is a socially constructed period and a structural form (a category like

social class). This sociological approach: ‘presents a challenge to the dominant view of

childhood in modern Western society’ (Thomas, 2000, p. 19).

The social perspective, the complexities of which will be explored further in

Chapter 4, in essence stresses diversity, malleability, the provisional and contingent

character of childhood and the fluidity of the boundaries that separate it from the adult

world. It is opposed to any kind of (as its proponents see it) essentialist, psychologically

or biologically reductive characterisation of childhood. The social approach itself

challenged an earlier understanding of childhood heavily influenced by cognitive and

developmental psychology. However, recent developments in psychology and biology

may give rise to a return challenge, in that they may suggest some elements of

universality in human childhood after all, that not everything about it is ‘social’. Such a

developmental perspective will be sketched briefly here, and will be returned to for fuller

discussion in Chapter 3.

A universalistic challenge to social science?

Developmental psychology’s perspectives on childhood are longer established than ‘new’

social or sociological perspectives, as the sociologists of childhood readily acknowledge

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Introduction

(see for example James et al, 1998, Chapter 1 on the ‘presociological’ child). Such

psychological perspectives basically see an unfolding process as intrinsic to childhood

itself. As Thomas (2000) pinpoints: ‘The concept of development underlies most

psychological theories of childhood. Borrowed from biology, it implies that the

characteristics of an organism change over time according to a pattern’ (p. 21). This may

translate into a notion of ‘stages’ - not necessarily fixed or solely genetically determined,

but reflecting the development of the brain which: ‘sets some parameters for the

operation of both cognitive and emotional processes’ (Ibid, p. 22).

Famous names in the history of developmental psychology are Vygotsky, and

Piaget, whose main work was carried out in the 1920s. Such theorists have to be seen in

the context of their time and its state of scientific knowledge; for example, expanding

knowledge of the human brain has rather changed the intellectual landscape of

psychology since their day (there are of course a multiplicity of sources here, but see, for

example, Gazzaniga, 2002). Nevertheless these developmental theorists are often

referred to in discussions of childhood. Piaget may have had more in common with

recent perspectives than is sometimes believed: his ideas on cognitive development:

‘embody a respect for children’s attempt to understand the world’ (Thomas, 2000, p. 22),

and he saw the child: ‘as an active participant in the creation of their own understanding’

(Keenan, 2002, p. 36). But this understanding as Piaget saw it was essentially immature,

and moved through specific qualitatively different stages of cognitive ability – for

example, the ability to perform ‘concrete operations’ from age seven, ‘formal’ or

‘logical’ operations from eleven/twelve. So, as Corsaro (1997) notes, Piaget’s view was

that intellectual development is not simply an accumulation of facts or skills. There is a

progression through distinct cognitive stages (Corsaro, p. 12). (It is conceded by Corsaro

- as perhaps it would not be by many contemporary ‘children’s rights’ writers - that, in

line with Piaget, children perceive their worlds in ways that are qualitatively different

from adults (p. 12). Corsaro, interestingly, while a sociologist himself, lets Piaget off the

charge of being ‘a biological determinist’ (p. 13), and concedes that sociological theories

of childhood do need to consider level of cognitive development.)

Piaget also wrote on the child’s developing awareness of others, but it is

Vygotsky (1935) (cited by Keenan, 2002, p. 37) who is associated to a greater extent with

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Introduction

social learning, as is Mead (1934) (cited by Thomas, 2000, p. 26). For these theorists,

social interaction is integral to personality and cognition; cognitive development is in fact

a social process where the role of others in a child’s learning is crucially important. So

learning occurs in a social context; knowledge and skills are acquired in interaction with

more experienced members of society; the individual internalizes or appropriates, and

then reproduces, culture, language being crucial to this process. Vygotsky like Piaget

identified natural ‘stages’, but for him: ‘human activity is inherently mediational in that it

is carried out through language and other cultural tools’ (Corsaro, 1997, p 16). This

obviously militates against seeing development as merely an inherent process. Vygotsky:

‘sketched out a psychology in which many aspects of development would be treated as

the taking-in of a culture’, thereby offering: ‘a sociohistorical framework for the study of

human development’ (Morss, 1996, p. 12). Morss (1996) writes usefully on Vygotsky

and his analysis will be explored in Chapter 3 (N.B. Also 1990?).

Such approaches draw our attention to the developmental impact of interpersonal

and other social factors that are an essential part of a child’s environment, although these

may be considered at different levels. Attachment theory, another area of developmental

psychology, has focused on early primary relationships with carers as the foundation of

personality and its characteristic patterns of attachment (Thomas, 2000, p. 27, citing

Bowlby, 1953, 1975, Ainsworth et al, 1978, and Rutter, 1981). Styles of parenting are

another influential variable, as are other adult figures and indeed other children; and

again, change is observed with age (Thomas, pp. 27-28). Emotional development with

age has also been studied and charted (Thomas cites psychoanalytic accounts, Erikson,

1950, Harris, 1989, and others).

Reception of the ideas of developmental psychologists has, to say the least, been

not uncritical over the years. Attention has been drawn to the cultural specificity of

Piaget’s ‘stages’, for example, and it has been argued that he underestimated childhood

ability or conceived of it too globally (Thomas, 2000, p. 23), and that he overlooked the

importance of context (Donaldson, 1978, cited by Thomas) or of social and cultural

factors (Rogoff, 1998, cited by Keenan, 2002). Corsaro (1997) sees both Piaget and

Vygotsky as examples of a ‘constructivist’ model which, although it certainly has its

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Introduction

positive points, is still too individualistic, offering: ‘an active but very lonely view of

children’ (p. 17). It is also too geared to what the child will become, an adult.

As mentioned, such theorists themselves occupied a particular social context

including the contemporary state of knowledge. More recent developmental theory

informed by later scientific understanding may be more relevant for the understanding of

childhood today; recent information processing models of development, for example, are

based on the structure of the human brain (Keenan, 2002, p. 40). Gazzaniga (2002) has

already been cited for recent brain research. The growing field of evolutionary

psychology is also of interest in understanding childhood, and will be explored further in

Chapter 3. Bjorklund and Pellegrini (2000) argue that an evolutionary approach can be

valuable in understanding individual development, and, more specifically, that:

‘individuals must survive through infancy and childhood before reproducing, ….. natural

selection has acted as much upon the early portions of the lifespan to promote survival as

it has upon adulthood’ (p. 1687). Keenan (2002) observes how the evolutionary

approach sees development as governed by the interaction of the genetic and the

environmental (epigenetic processes) (p. 28). He also draws our attention to the fact that

Piaget himself borrowed from evolutionary biology and saw cognitive structures as

adaptations enhancing survival chances. A central insight from applying evolutionary

biology to developmental psychology would seem to be that some childhood

characteristics: ‘were selected in evolution to serve an adaptive function at that time in

their life history rather than to prepare individuals for later adulthood’ (Bjorklund and

Pellegrini, 2000, p. 1687) (sociologists might appreciate this acknowledgement of the

child’s present being!), although some evolved characteristics are not always adaptive in

contemporary conditions.

The general area of developmental psychology will be returned to and examined

further in Chapter 3. For now, Thomas’s summarizing comment on cognitive

development seems useful: ‘Perhaps the best that can be said is that there may well be

inherent limits on capacity related to maturational processes, but that it is not clear what

they are…’ (p. 24). Over-rigid assumptions (in either direction) about capacity and age

would be unwise. But the consideration of psychological development suggests that

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Introduction

there would be a degree of childhood universality and continuity, at different childhood

ages, across space and historical time.

Two camps?

To simplify somewhat, from the foregoing, two ‘camps’ may be distinguished in recent

academic discussions of childhood, and to some extent in wider discussions as well.

These are perhaps further apart than merely different ‘approaches’, because to a large

extent they draw on different areas of knowledge. They may be crudely characterized as

stances which seek to minimize the essential differences (if any) between children and

adults, while visualizing many socially conditioned ‘childhoods’, with nothing

‘essential’, certain, predictable or ‘natural’ about being a child; and on the other hand

those which maintain that childhood is in part inherently a distinct developmental state

(or set of states) distinguished from later stages of life. Thus the first position suggests

difference, diversity, plurality among childhoods, but a deep continuity with adult life;

the second suggests some continuity and universality across childhoods, but

distinctiveness from adulthood. This divide - between social science arguments broadly

defined and a universalistic challenge to them from psychology and biology – relates

back to a well-established controversy, that between the advocacy of ‘learning’ and social

factors versus the advocacy of ‘biology’ and innate tendencies or programmes, or

between ‘nurture’ versus ‘nature’, as it has often been put, or ‘environment’ versus

‘inheritance’, or ‘non-essentialist’ social concepts versus those which are ‘essentialist’ or

‘reductionist’, as explanations of human society and behaviour. These are simplistic (and

sometimes pejorative) ways of describing a dichotomy which should perhaps not be seen

as such at all, but it is a thesis of this book that such an intellectual divergence and failure

to connect different fields of knowledge persist, with regard to children as to many other

aspects of human life and society. This failure of synthesis is detrimental to our full

understanding (or so I would argue).

These issues will be revisited in Chapter 5, which examines how far the notion of

a ‘universal’ childhood is tenable.

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Introduction

Common and universal patterns

A last preliminary point will be made before concluding this introductory chapter

by outlining the structure of the book. It concerns the distinction between absolutely

universal patterns and patterns found in the majority of cases. It may be argued that the

elusiveness of truly universal characteristics invalidates any generalizations that may be

attempted concerning ‘the child’ (of any given age). The argument goes along the lines

of: ‘The appearance of one black swan invalidates the hypothesis that all swans are

white’. It does, of course, but may not invalidate the hypothesis that most swans are

white, that swans are characteristically white. Thus it is not the case that the appearance

of one genius or prodigy invalidates general hypotheses about cognitive ‘stages’ found at

particular chronological ages.2 An exotic exception does not invalidate statements about

the bulk of the child population. Patterns commonly found in children’s treatment,

behaviour, thought and experience, and in popular ideas held about childhood, may be

argued to tell us something important about children and childhood, even when they are

not found absolutely identically across human societies (or groups within those societies).

That is, the existence of diversity and the concomitant elusiveness of absolutely universal

patterns do not mean that important generalizations cannot be made. Diversity is not

necessarily chaotic but may have structures and limits. So, developmental patterns will

vary between individuals, but a general trend may still tell us something important about

‘childhood’ at given ages and possibly vindicate commonly held conceptions of it. An

awareness of the usefulness – as well as the limitations – of a broadly statistical approach

and of generalization is needed. This general methodological consideration does, of

course, apply to many other topics.

Structure of the book

Chapter 1 will focus on childhood and children across time, in different historical periods

for which there is some evidence. As a single chapter in the book, this sortie into the past 22 See Pollock’s (1983) discussion of Aries’ account of the life of the young Dauphin who later became Louis XIII (p.???).

15

Introduction

will inevitably be selective in terms of historical period and place. It will utilize the

work of well-known historians of childhood and the family who have examined

contemporary historical evidence of childhood in the past directly and made

generalizations about it, including: Aries (1962) (and the debates which this author in

particular has generated), Pollock (1983), Shahar (1992), Hanawalt (1977(?), 1993),

Davin (1996), and Orme (2001), as well as well-informed but mostly secondary sources

such as Cunningham (1995). The topic is approached bearing in mind the problem of

sources of evidence and their representativeness and reliability, and the crucial difficulty

of interpreting what evidence there is, across chronological and therefore cultural

distance. The aim will be to examine what, if anything, can be learned about change

from, and continuity with, societies of the past, in terms of both childhood as a concept,

and the experience, behaviour, treatment and relationships of actual children.

Illustrations will be used with respect to what we do seem to know of childhood in the

past, and there will be a discussion of variations found within historical periods. For

example, differences may be found relating to class, locality and other social factors

during any one period, also in relation to children with different characteristics (such as

gender, (dis)ability), and the idiosyncrasies of individual families. Some account will be

taken of massive social change external to childhood, and its apparent impact on children

and their relationship with adult society. The chapter will conclude by assessing how far

the obvious variations in childhood and children’s experience over time might enable, or

alternatively cast doubt on, the construction of a ‘universal’ childhood.

Chapter 2 will also consider variations in childhood, but ‘across space’ as it were,

rather than ‘across time’: children and childhood in different societies, cultures and social

groups. Again, it will inevitably be selective in terms of the societies/social contexts

discussed. Drawing on the work of writers from various disciplines who have examined

children in different societies and groups within societies, and the generally social nature

of childhood (authors such as Mead and Wolfenstein, 1955, Eriksen, 1977, Jenks, 1982,

1996, Mayall, 1994, Qvortrup, 1994, Corsaro, 1997, James and Prout, 1997, James, Jenks

and Prout, 1998, and Lee, 2001), the chapter will examine the socially determined nature

of childhood. As with childhood of the past, it will highlight problems of evidence and of

how that evidence is understood. It will nevertheless attempt to examine major

16

Introduction

differences in societal images and treatment of childhood and in children’s lives, in

different social contexts such as different cultures, religions(?), classes, regions and

ethnic groups, and among different groups of children. Account will be taken of broader

factors which vary between societies and which appear to impact on childhood/children,

producing many different ‘childhoods’. Essentially, then, variation ‘across space’ will be

highlighted, and illustrations will be given of culturally different ‘childhoods’. However

the chapter, like Chapter 1 with respect to change and continuity across time, also begins

to address what many childhoods might have in common. How far do variations found in

childhood and children’s experience across different social contexts show limits and

common patterns, and how far might a ‘universal’ childhood be argued for from this

data?

Chapter 3 will then explore, in broad terms, an understanding of childhood based

on developmental perspectives (biological or psychological) which emphasize cognitive,

emotional and social development through childhood as a relatively (though not wholly)

intrinsic process grounded in the development and maturation of the brain, albeit in

continuous interaction with its (physical and social) environment. Sources drawn on

include Corsaro (1997), Smith, Cowie and Blades (1998), Bee (1999), Keenan (2001); for

evolutionary psychology, Bjorklund and Pellegrini (2000) inter alia, and for a critical

perspective on developmental psychology voiced from within psychology (?), Morss

(1990, 1996). In the developmental literature, general differences between individuals of

different ages (as much between earlier and later childhood as between ‘childhood’ and

‘adulthood’ as global categories) are emphasized, as well as features common to children

in different social contexts, reflected in societal perceptions of children as ‘different’.

Such genetically, physiologically and/or psychologically based perspectives suggest

some core characteristics in development, and therefore some limits to cultural diversity.

Evolutionary psychologists may be seen as recent contributors to this type of theory, and

may constitute a significant challenge to social science understandings of childhood.

However, the importance also accorded to environmental (often social) stimuli in the

developmental perspective should not be underestimated. Nevertheless development

perspectives tend to be stereotyped by social science writers as ‘naturalistic’,

‘biologically essentialist’ or ‘biologically determinist’ (see, for example, James et al,

17

Introduction

1998), and inclined to see children as ‘human becomings' rather than 'human beings'

(Lee, 2001).

Chapter 4 will develop the approach of Chapter 2 further to consider social

perspectives which understand children’s behaviour and experience, and the

conceptualization and treatment of childhood, as the outcome of social processes and

actions which give rise to great variety in childhood. While Chapter 2 was largely

empirical in the sense of considering descriptive material on variations between

childhood in different social contexts, the approach in this chapter will be more

theoretical, exploring the general arguments of social science writers, and sociologists in

particular, concerning children/childhood. The perspective encompasses themes such as

the socially structured nature of childhood; constructions, representations and images of

childhood commonly held in society; children as actors or agents; and other constitutions

of children and childhood in the social science view. It emphasizes (at least implicitly)

social learning in childhood, social determinants of what it means to be a child, the social

institution of ‘childhood’, and difference (between societies, cultures, social groups,

individual families and so on). In this type of perspective, social factors always impinge

in a major way on childhood (and therefore cause variation), while there are many

socially constructed ‘childhoods’, with perhaps no obvious limits to what childhood ‘is’

and almost infinite possibilities for what it might become. So for this approach there is

no clear state of being ‘a child’ that is distinct from being an adult or a human being in a

general sense. The recent emphasis on children as actors/agents in their own right is

important: they are not simply passive objects of adult understandings and actions, or

adults in the making; they are (or should be seen as) ‘beings’ rather than ‘becomings’.

This agency of children also militates any ‘essentialist’ understanding of the ‘nature’ of

childhood; in a sense children choose what to be. Thus these social science approaches

seek to minimize the overall differences between children and adults (tending to see these

as arbitrarily created) while visualizing many ‘childhoods’.

This leads on to the question of whether a coherent, consistent idea of ‘what

children are like’ is either feasible or desirable, a central theme that will be explored in

Chapter 5.

18

Introduction

Thus Chapter 5, ‘A universal childhood?’, will draw on the foregoing three

chapters, to address the question: How far can the notion of a ‘universal’ childhood be

sustained? It will begin by summarizing what has emerged from the three preceding

chapters on the variation and similarity between childhoods across time and space, and

the biological/psychological and social science views. With regard to these latter two

viewpoints, it will be stressed that their understandings of childhood and children should

not be treated as mutually exclusive. Indeed it is a central thesis of the book that these

two schools of thought are interdependent (not irreconcilably in conflict) and ‘need’ each

other if a fuller understanding of childhood is to be achieved. The intention is thus to

seek an integration of traditions which sometimes fail to understand or communicate with

each other, through a consideration of areas of divergence between them, possible areas

of convergence, and the reasons for their failure to connect. For example, those

espousing developmental perspectives may seriously lack awareness of the existence,

extent, complexity and importance of social factors, while conversely ignorance of the

developing human brain among some social scientists who write about childhood appears

to be total. The chapter will then consider whether a coherent, consistent idea of ‘what

children and childhood are like’ can ever be sustained. To what extent is there some

universal ‘core’ to human childhood (and perceptions of it) across human societies,

which is constant despite gross variations in economic and social conditions and in

family life? Even if such a universal concept can to some degree be established, is it

helpful in actually understanding childhood, or does it so oversimplify large bodies of

complex data reflecting diversity and change, that it proves of limited usefulness or may

actually mislead in specific situations?

19

Introduction

Chapter 6 will focus on childhood and the state, again attempting to integrate the

social science and developmental approaches in doing so, thus relating different concepts

of the child and the universality debate as explored in Chapters 1 – 5 to state law and

policy that concerns children. It will briefly consider the recent history of state actions

towards children in western countries, and the developing concepts of children and

childhood explicitly or implicitly present in such actions over periods of considerable

external change. It will examine an apparently increasing preoccupation with children in

the last century or so, and the contemporary notions of children and childhood inherent in

law and policy at different times. This will be done with reference to divergent, and

possibly inconsistent and conflicting images and ideas of the child implicit in policy: that

is, ways in which the state and its legal and policy systems variously ‘see’, construct or

think about children (as explored by, for example, King and Piper, 1990). For example,

systems set up to care for children and protect child welfare may embody very different

concepts of childhood and children from those set up to respond to the child as a social

order problem or as an object of national investment. Children themselves may be active

participants to a greater extent in some areas of policy than others. The chapter will also

suggest reasons for differences in state systems over time and between societies. To

illustrate the argument, case history material from a number of countries will be used.

The chapter does not constitute a detailed account of policy in particular countries, but an

attempt will be made to deploy examples of ‘the child’ in state policy from a variety of

western countries and, to a lesser extent, the developing world. The chapter will then

refer back to the question of a ‘universal’ childhood as explored in Chapter 5, and will

relate this to the state. It will consider to what extent the concept of a ‘universal child’ is

helpful in understanding or indeed formulating the interaction between child and state.

To what extent are divergent images of the child in policy problematic, remembering that

actual individual children may be on the receiving end of more than one state system; to

what extent are notions of children as integrated ‘wholes’, and of a universal ‘core’ to all

childhood, feasible or desirable when applied to the actions of the state? In other words,

how can law and policy best reflect the complex ‘reality’ of childhood?

Lastly, the Conclusion will attempt to summarize and bring together the themes of

the book and relate them to current concerns about childhood. The discussion will inter

20

Introduction

alia return to the question raised in the introduction as to what extent there is in fact

anything ‘new’ about the problems presented to government and society by childhood

and children, and about the response to these perceived problems. The Conclusion will

attempt to move the discussion of childhood and the state forward by summarizing and

evaluating the concept of a ‘universal child’ and its possible implications.

21