Childhood Flashcards
What happened to the view of children after industrialisation?
In the middle of the 19th century campaigners became concerned for children and children were excluded from mines + factories and education was made compulsory in 1880
What was the view of children in the 20th century?
The modem notion of children had been constructed and had three main characteristics
1) children were regarded as being fundamentally different from adults - seen as both psychically and mentally immature
2) adulthood and childhood seen as opposites
3) different worlds
What are some examples of policies that have been passed since 1945 aimed at protecting the rights of chidren?
-Social services
-Child benefits
-reducing child poverty
The 2004 children act-focused on well being of children
The collation government 2010-focused on Education
What’s the march of progress view towards children?
- Status of children has steadily improved over the last century
- family has become much more child centred
What’s the conflict view towards childhood?
Don’t agree that children’s lives have improved for two reasons:
1) inequalities among children e.g social class’ & less developed counties - some children still experience daily risk of death due to work
- experiences of childhood may differ due to gender
2)inequalities among children and adultse.g control of what children wear,where they go,routines,abuse
What’s the functionalist/New Right View on childhood?
- childhood is under threat from modern trends such as divorce and homosexuality
- successful child rearing requires two parents of the opposite sex
What does postman argue is happening to childhood?
-it’s disappearing due to the disappearance of the difference in clothes and access to adult content online and the TV
What’s the postmodernist theory of childhood?
Jencks argues that wives and husbands have become disposable but children haven’t,intensifying the feel to protect children
What was life like for children in pre industrial western society?
Philipe Aries-What we experience today as childhood is a recent social invention
- children were ‘little adults’ experiencing the same punishments,work and activities as adults
- Children were regarded as a form of ‘cheap labour’ and the high infant mortality rate means parents kept mourning to a minimum
what were children seen as in pre industrial society?
Aries explains that childhood today is a recent social invention and children used to be regarded as
- ‘little adults’ who took part in the same work and play activities as adults
- toys and games didn’t exist for children
- they were regarded as economic assets rather than a symbol of peoples love
what did the cogitation policy involve?
- free school
- further move towards academies
- increased parental choice
