Assess the Sociological Reasons for the Change in the Social Position of Children and the Consequences of These Changes for the Family and Society (24 Marks)

The other part of item 2B talks about the New Right’s view on social policy. The new right argue that social policies interfere with the family too much, they stop it from being self-reliant. As they argue that the nuclear family is the natural family, supported by the idea of the biological gender division of labour, if the roles of this family type are carried out accordingly, then the family is able to be self-reliant and not need the government to support it. This idea was mainly highlighted by Murray who created to proposals about social policy. The first one is the ‘dependency culture’. This is the idea that social policies are making people assume the state will provide for them, in forms such as providing houses for pregnant teenagers or assuming that the state will look after children. Therefore,

A description of the social, economical and cultural factors that will impact on the lives of children and young people.

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,

Childhood is a social construct that has been weaved together by societal norms and domineering perspectives. Childhood is not a physical or mental state but an abstraction that has been melded by society as time has progressed. In Karen Sanchez-Eppler’s excerpt titled “Childhood” from the novel Keywords for Children’s Literature, she explains how the attitudes and atmosphere surrounding childhood have vastly changed throughout history to yield the general, modern conception of childhood. Children have been deemed adults in the Middle Ages and childhood has been a vaguely regarded concept. However, as society has become more progressive and developed, an interest in distinguishing the young from the older individuals

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

1.describe the social, economic and cultural factors that will impact on the lives of children and young people (unit 7)

Accordint to the author Gonzalez-Mena, “The Status—that is, the family’s position in society—affects socialization and can in turn affect expectations as well as where children find themselves” (p.126). That is, children socialization is greatly affected by the status of the family due to, the different expectation between children belonging to rich families and that children living in poverty.

Essay Title: Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess sociological explanations of changes in the status of childhood (24 marks)

1. – Describe how social, economical and cultural factors can impact on the outcomes and life chances of children and young people.

As time goes on the aspects and views of individuals change, which is usually caused by their surroundings. These aspects can generally be displayed in various physical forms and actions . During the duration of the 1500’s to the 1700’s major events lead to many to Europeans alter their religious and cultural views which can clearly be seen through their techniques of childrearing. The techniques displayed the mindset of the individuals as views based on the corrupt church transformed into new ideas of enlightenment.

One of the main features of childhood studies is the idea that childhood is socially constructed. This means that not all childhoods are the same and that it may differ depending on the time in which it is taking place, as well as the social environment or the place that it is taking place. This can be seen at the Museum of Childhood, and how different times have shown changes in the way children act, play, dress, or ultimately are treated in society. Additionally it draws on key differences in the human societies affecting different childhoods in any given period or place, and can examine how the childhood in that given period is constructed. Furthermore a social constructionist looks at the consequences of any given factor and the impact it has on children.

Many children died at an early age because of poverty, and lack of medical treatment, while the others lived in bad conditions, uneducated. It was a desperate situation for low-income families all over the nation.

One of the most controversial books in the history of childhood, Philippe Aries’s Centuries of Childhood argues that childhood as a concept did not exist in the medieval society. This thought-provoking argument invites us to take a similar close look at Roman art to examine its validity in ancient Rome of whether childhood is simply an extension of adulthood or a distinctive phase of its own. Children and childhood as a subject matter can be commonly found in Roman iconography, as could be seen from the terracotta sculpture of Anchises, Aeneas and Ascanius, the procession relief on Ara Pacis, and the Amiternum relief depicting funeral cortege. This paper intends to explore the representation of Roman children primarily through a single marble portrait, a statue of a young boy from the 1st century AD, from the Art Institute of Chicago. Through visual analysis of the face and the hair, we could find evidence that childhood is treated prominently and delicately as a distinctive transitional period rather than as a phase that mimics miniature adults.

As one the few exceptions of children’s literature in the 17th century, Les Jeux et Plaisirs de L’Enfance, or The Games and Pleasures of Childhood is marked by its relatively small focus on religion, grammar, and courtesy. Instead, it was produced for children as shown by fifty engravings of various children’s games (The Games and Pleasures of Childhood (1657)). Interestingly, many of them are still familiar to us today, including tennis, fencing, and swinging. Nevertheless, the unnatural depictions of children’s body, especially muscles and positions, suggest the attitude that children are miniature adults. The style of the engravings also reflects the background of the book, the Renaissance, as the artist was clearly influenced by Roman classicism:

Consequently, expectations of the male and female children, who have been raised 10 to 20 years ago are reflected their parents` social status, majority of which were not part of the market economy.