How Childhood Is Viewed And How Children Themselves Are Seen

This takes action to ensure children and their families know what their rights are and how to put this entitlement into practice. Children are empowered to secure their rights and make their voice heard. Young children can be represented by an advocate to speak and interpret on their behalf.

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement. Rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to legal systems, social convention, or ethical theory.

There is little evidence of what it was really like in the past so it is difficult for a lot of people to re-construct the life of a child, however from what I have researched, and in my own opinion I am going to summarise the historical changes in childhood experience and relate these changes to childhood development and rights.

Childhood itself is a slightly ambiguous term, and is not a fixed definite period of life. The book “AS level sociology” written by Rob webb, Hal Westergaard, Kieth Trobe and Liz Steel defines childhood as “ a socially defined age status” going on to say that there are major differences in how childhood is defined, both historically, and culturally, similarly, Stephen Wagg says of childhood;

But children are a special case they cannot always stand up for themselves. They therefore need a special set of rights which take in to consideration their vulnerability and which ensures the adults that surround them take responsibly for their welfare, protection and development.

REFERENCESBook 1 Understanding Childhood,Chapter 1Block 1 Study Guide and Audio-Visual Notes, Unit 1Video 1 Band 3 "Representations of Childhood"

Empowering children means making them aware that they have the right to live in a safe and supporting environment and teaching them how to make responsible decisions about what is good for them and what is not. It is important that children are aware of information that recognises them as individuals and that respects their views and opinions. They should feel empowered by knowing that they have rights which are internationally recognised under the UNCRC.

rights to not be harmed or discriminated by other people. One protects us from violence and

The concept of childhood, is not a natural state, but it has been socially constructed through society and can only exist in a society that understand the term this has been reinforced through history. Another issue is how much of ‘childhood’ has been socially constructed (created and

Discuss the basic tenants and evaluate the utility of the new sociology of childhood in gaining a better understanding of young people.

Children and young peoples personal choices and experiences have a huge outcome to their life and life chances. So to make sure that the make the best choices for the best outcome there is proof that sharing is a big key skill and choice that is good for a child to make as they will use this skill to contribute and given a voice to make choices. For these services to work and actually reflect the needs of the children they actually need to practice these services and participate. The voice of children and young people was first championed in the United Nations Convention on the rights of children (UNCRC). Here is the article that was championed;

a right is an entitlement to act or to have others act in a certain way.

Childhood has its own ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling which are proper to it/ child’s mind considered as a blank state to be inscribed by experience: the infant is often compared to a ‘white paper’ to be written over or to a plastic substance (wax) to be molded

To start with an overview of social constructionism in very general terms leads to build understandings of child and childhood in a social world more explicitly. Notion of social construction is defined in diverse disciplines and instead of generating a 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 the origin of social constructionism stems from two to three hundred years ago in the period of enlightenment, modernism and postmodernism. By all means, Berger and Luckmann’ (1966) book The Social

Human rights are universal rights that we are entitled to. It is a freedom that is guaranteed based on the principle of respect for an individual. As mentioned in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights are a “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all member of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world” (Kent, page 80). When asked what our rights are, we tend to get different answers and meanings. Some people recite the rights that they know; but let’s face it, not everyone knows all of the rights that they truly have. The rights we have consist of many things such as the right of having an adequate food supply. The right to