Assess sociological explanations of cha

During early modern Europe, children were viewed in many different ways which changed how parents chose to raise their children. During the 1500’s, the mortality rates for children were high, therefore children were viewed as if they were adults and very precious if they survived, many people believed that they needed to treat children harshly to make them strong. In the 1600’s, children were raised tenderly as they were rational beings that could use reason. Children were viewed in many ways during early modern Europe to be rational, precious, and in need of guidance where these views determined the parents’ choice in child rearing to behaving harshly to kind guidance.

Modern society now especially since 1997 have tried putting children first such as committing to meeting children’s needs. There are still problems such as school truancy, adolescents not in education or training and also child protection as there have been tragic deaths including baby P and Victoria climbie, which her death was largely responsible for the formation of every child matters inactive plus a lot of other changes in different systems,

Child-rearing from the 16th to the 18th century changed because the child death rate went up during this time period. This caused parents to distance themselves from their children until they grew into adulthood because they just did not know if they were going to survive. Adults did not want to invest that much time and get to emotionally attached to something that was going to die. These distancing views caused adults attitudes towards children to change, they began to have such views as severely disciplining children, wet nursing, and that kids were taught evil or taught to be bad.

In the opening of the article, the author criticizes that children of the 21st century have lost

2.2 Describe with examples the importance of recognising and responding to concerns about children and young people’s development

Different discourses of childhood have different ideas of childhood which has different implications on the way in which children are treated. Within the social constructionist theory there are 3 main discourses - romantic, puritan and tabula rasa. This essay will look

Starting with an overview of social constructionism in very general terms leads to build more explicit an understanding of child and childhood in a social world. The notion of social constructionism is defined in diverse disciplines and instead of generating a single description there are a number of thoughts. “It is sometimes called a movement, at other times a position, a theory, a theoretical orientation, an approach; psychologists remain unsure of its status” (Stam 2001, p. 294)”. Vivien (1995, p. 10) points out that the origin of social constructionism stems from two to three hundred years ago in the period of enlightenment, modernism and postmodernism. Berger and Luckmann’ (1966) book The Social Construction of Reality as the first book to have the title of “social construction”, has made an influential contribution in recent studies (Hacking, 1999). In this book, questioning everyday life realities and giving examples from it, shows the importance of social relations and the language that we used. Hacking’s (1999) The Social Construction of What? offers up-to-date and logical instances which enable us to comprehend these aspects. He lists a number of things that can be

Conflict theory began with Karl Marx and his belief that capitalist societies are powered and controlled the conflict between social classes. Those who possessed a means of production, called the bourgeois, and and those that had to work for the bourgeois, called the proletariat. He felt that all elements of society were based around this struggle for control and for resources (Kendall 2014: 12 ). Conflict theorists believe that all humans behavior, all our social norms, all our systems of government, our employment, and our systems of education are the result of conflicts between competing groups. All of society is shaped by this great power struggle. Conflict theory depends on an unequal power balance, one group controls the other group, using their social power to keep the other group subjugated. Conflict theory has evolved past just considering class and has began to consider other competing groups. The struggles between men and women, rich and poor, whites and people of color, and LGBTQIA individuals and straight people are now taken into consideration by conflict theorists. Society is constantly changing because of the battles between conflicting interests (Kendall 2014: 17).

According to Aristotle’s Conception of childhood, children are “tiny, immature, humans.” Aristotle believed they had the potential to become a mature specimen of a human. He thought that with the normal guidance of an adult and the correct biological and psychological structures, the child would mature (Lewin, 1963). Whether people would like to admit it or not, adults today think similarly about their children as Aristotle’s view. Adults know they have the responsibilities to raise their child at the best of their abilities. This is similar to Aristotle’s idea understanding the importance of child bearing.

The sociology of childhood is a theoretical approach that has been increasingly used within the field of childhood research studies. Previously, research about childhood focused largely on telling stories about children, treating them as objects. Conversely, the sociology of childhood involves children as social agents and active contributors to research (Grieshaber, 2007). As stated by Grieshaber (2007), the sociology of childhood is guided by six major tenets. These include that childhood is a social construct, childhood is a variable of social analysis, childhood is closely connected to other variables such as class and gender, children’s relationships and cultures are worthy of study in their own right, children are considered active, rather than passive agents in their daily lives and are competent and knowledgeable about their own lives (p. 871). The fundamental goal of the sociology of childhood is to develop an approach that integrates children’s perspectives with those of their caregivers. Advocates for the sociology of childhood are committed to the view that children are more capable and independent than they may seem, and hope to develop a greater understanding of children’s abilities by researching them as social agents (Albanese, 2009). Because the sociology of childhood is relatively new, there has been little analysis on the six tenets that form the basis of it (Kay, Tisdall, & Punch, 2012). It is also important to note that with an increased amount of research being done with children, rather than to children, will come a number of ethical issues (Christensen & Prout, 2002). Therefore, the sociology of childhood has been used to study some of the ethical responsibilities of involving children in research. For example, it has been used to investigate a range of circumstances such as the power differential between a child research participant and an adult researcher (Dockett & Perry, 2005)

The aim of this paper is to analyse three short abridgments about education and child rearing in the 19th century. In the course of the essay it is to be examined who the writers were and how the texts were written and published.

215 chapter 8 Sociology In Our Times: The Essentials) this is to suggest that the different classes in society are in conflict because the more powerful groups maintain and control the distribution of resources, rewards, privileges and opportunities by exploiting the less powerful. They also believe that inequality is a result of profits being generated from the cost of labour being less than the cost of the goods and services being produced from that labour, also known as the surplus value. Conflict theorists do not believe that stratification is functional for society, or that it serves as a source of stability. Rather, they believe that stratification will lead to instability and social change.

In an adult-centric society, children are constantly marginalized and persecuted. The continued oppression of children as a collective social category persists and has had little change compared to other oppressed groups. The victimization of children is a widespread phenomenon that persists due to deeply-ingrained, government-sanctioned societal norms that strip children of their agency and autonomy, thus perpetuating an authoritarian and dehumanizing system and way of thinking that applies exclusively to them.

The child, in the United Kingdom, is categorised within a legal framework as anyone under the age of eighteen years of age. Thorne, (2009) suggests that childhood follows a pattern

As recently acknowledged the UNCRC is a powerful facilitator for action on behalf of young children and from this has a major role on the development of our children today. Within the lengthy list of rights, there is one in particular which this paper intends to aim focus on is “Children have a right to live and develop to their full potential” (Woodhead, 1998). The importance of distinguishing this policy as a key area above all others is an essential requirement within a developmental aspect as, the significance of having this law in place is endless. The key aspects which this law promotes are: the future generation to become all that they can be; encouraging future education and social development and due to this, the benefits of which are excessive. (Woodhead, 1998). Since the late 1800’s the law states that “children have the right to development to their full potential” was put in place. It provided teachers, parents and also caregivers with the understanding that a child is unique and an