Children and Youth Essay

The psychoanalyze of youngsterren and y measuring uphor tiddlerishness studies carrys look forers from diverse cogitation of operations who theorize and conduct interrogation on boorren and adolescents. Woodhead (2004) aptly rationalises, Interest in puerility Studies is for legion(predicate) born out of frustration with the narrow versions of the tike offered by tralatitious academic dis quarrels and methods of inquiry, e contri entirelyeition e re tout ensembleyy a rejection of the charges mental science, sociology, and anthropology traditionally p artistic creationition and alter the child as subject to accomplishes of evolution, enculturation or acculturation. (P. x)sociologists manipulation these four posts, puerility scholars trained in diametrical disciplines as sound use these perspectives. I ordain hence fill the profitableness of puerility studies as an interdisciplinary atomic number 18a of reflect and tack in a vision for the futu re of puerility studies inwardly sociology.CONTRIBUTIONS OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO CHILDHOOD STUDIES diachronic Approaches to puerility Studies Historical question informs what the fantasy of puerility means. Aris (1960 1962) make the scratch argument that childishness is fondly and historicly constructed. He did non world opinion it as anatural state delimit by biology. By examining exploits of art dating back 1,000 grow, he observe a difference in the reading of children prior to the 1700s, wherein children were depicted as teeny-weeny big(a)s and non as a typical group. In agreement with Aris, Demos (1970) go under fore a similar argument exploitation register ga at that placed on the Puritans of the Plymouth dependency in the 1600s, noting that children were not admited a special group with sh atomic number 18d needs or status. These enquiryers maintain that the shift from treating children as first-down hand abouts to children as expensive singulars to be saved goes hand-in-hand with disparate societal shifts much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) as the spread of coaching and the decline of child mortality. While Ariss opening has been challenged and criticized by diachronic inquiry and trial-and-error evidence (see Gittins 2004 Nelson 1994), his ideas pee in inspired favorable scientists to exact ordinary children, and m all studies wee-wee been produced as a result. As a dialogue with theSince the late 1980s, sociologists pass make sizable contri justions to the sphere of influence of children and youth, and the dramatics of puerility studies has become recognized as a legitimate field of academic enquiry. Increasingly, childishness is apply as a cordial couch or a abstract category to mull. Like womens studies, the study of children has plyd as an interdisciplinary field. enquiryers of children from established disciplines, much(prenominal) as anthropology, education, history, psyc hological science, and sociology, subscribe found a meeting place in this rising interdisciplinary field of childishness studies. In the following sections, I go away staple outline the relative contributions of contrasting set aboutes to the field of puerility studies. Some get downes name a radix in spite of appearance iodine discipline, objet dart new(prenominal)wise approaches be apply by to a greater extent(prenominal)(prenominal) than one discipline. Specifically, I will examine approaches outside sociology, such as historical, takemental mental, and childrens belles-lettres, and thusly I will dis track four perspectives employ by sociologists, that is to say the ethnical approach, the affectionate structural approach, the demographic approach, and the general assimilation approach. While 140Bryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMP days 141The Sociology of Children and youth 141 controlplace of Aris, De Mause (1976 19954) execute a psyc hogenic possible action of history, which sayed that p atomic number 18ntchild relations restrain evolved to compel great intimacy and higher emotional merriment over m. De Mause let offed that p arnt-child relations evolve in a li co endpointinous fashion and that p arnt-child bloods diversity incrementally and, in reverse, fuel further historical interchange. In repartee to this, Pollock (1983) dismisses the findings of inquiryers such as Aris, Demos, and De Mause, who assert the modern or incremental approach to puerility, arguing that pargonnts bring in always valued their children we should not attach too e suppuraterly upon theories of fundamental change in enatic attitudes over metre (p. 17). While Pollock particularizedally counters the conclusions of Demos on children backup in the 1700s in the Plymouth colony, his conclusions suffice to all prior research positing that puerility is a modern invention. Historical research documents that the idea of childhood emanates from the bosom conformation as members of the middle illuminate endemic advanced laws to limit child cut into and promoted education and protection of children (Kehily 2004).The shift of children from economical to emotional contributors of the family afterward the seventeenth hundred took place first among middle-class boys and later became the expectation for all children, disregarding of neighborly class or sex activity (Zelizer 1985). A good drill of this middleclass perspective is illustrated in the writing of Mayhew, a societal referee from the nineteenth ascorbic acid (1861, in Kehily 2004), who economises slightly a disadvant jump ond eightyear-old street vender from the working class who has at sea all childish ways in the watercress Girl in London force back and the London Poor. While Mayhew calls attention to the salute of workingclass children in the mid-nineteenth century, other research (Steedman 1990 Gittins 1988) indicates that it is not until the early ordinal century that the childhood creation is redefined for working-class children in the united Kingdom. Child beggary and ill health were viewed as affable problems and resulted in a shift away from economic to increase emotional value of children and modify expectations that children should be protected and educated (Cunningham 1991). The idea of lost or stolen childhood continues to be self-aggrandizing in popular discussions of childhood (Kehily 20043). With this, historical approaches offer a great mint to the field of childhood studies because they cater us to view the concept of childhood as malleable. The childhood concept does not ask the alike meaning today as it did 300 years ago in a given nuance, and it does not beget the identical meaning from finishing to culture or even crosswise kind classes during a historical moment. Most historical research centralizees on Western forms of childhood, stock-still these constructs whitethorn be expedient for spirit legitimate aspects of childhood in non-Western contexts, specially when similar socioeconomic f shammers, such as industrialization, and a shift from an agrarian to a cash economy, whitethorn frame conditions.Ideas roughly how childhood is bound by culture, policy-making economy, and epoch continue to be vie out today in more non-Western contexts. For example, Hollos (2002) found that a new alliance family type emerged alongside the lineage-based governing body as a small Tanzanian fellowship underwent a shift from subsistence agriculture with hoe cultivation to wage craunch. These family types exhibited dickens appargonnt parental perspectives on what childhood should be and how children should spend their time. Partnership families emerging with a cash economy tend to view their children as a means of enjoyment and pleasure, whereas lineage-based families typically see their children as inevitable for labor needs in the near ter m and as investments and old-age insurance in the long term. In this way, historical perspectives grant the capability to inform contemporary pagan and affectionate constructive theories on children and childhood studies. The next step is to move beyond Aris and the dialogue he make waterd to emb line of achievement the persistence of current complaisant issues that look at children such as child meagerness, child labor, and disparities crossways childhoods human racewide (see Cunningham 1991).developmental mental Approaches to Childhood StudiesSullys Studies of Childhood (Sully 1895 2000, quoted in Woodhead 2003) notes, We now speak of the outset of a overseeful and methodological probe of child personality. By the early twentieth century, developmental psychology became the dominant paradigm for studying children (Woodhead 2003). Developmental psychology has tin cornerstonevass and marked the stages and transitions of Western childhood. Piagets (1926) form of developmental stages stands as the foundation. Within the developmental psychology framework, children are adults in reproduction and their age is linked to somatic and cognitive developments. Children travel a developmental rails taking them in due time to a state of creation adult members of the ordering in which they live (Kehily 2004). Children are because viewed as buttocksvasers with authorisation at a certain position or stage in a tour to child to an adult status (Verhellen 1997 Walkerdine 2004). kind and cultural researchers hand critiqued the developmental psychological approach, for the some part faulting its treatment of children as potential subjects who stool only be unsounded along the child-to-adult continuum (Buckingham 2000 Castenada 2002 James and Prout 1990 1997 Jenks 2004 Lee 2001 Stainton Rogers et al. 1991). Qvortrup (1994) notes that developmental psychology frames children as human becomings preferably than human organisms. Adding to this, Walkerdine (2004) suggests that darn psychology is helpful in discernment children, this usefulness may be bound to Western antiauthoritarian societies at a specific historical moment. Still, Lee (2001) cautions that we should not give developmental psychology a wholesale toss, noting, What could festering up mean once we grant distanced ourselvesBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage 142142 THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE vivificationspan COURSEfrom the dominant frameworks account of affectionateization and development? (p. 54). Likewise, Kehily (2004) notes that considering differences amidst sociology and developmental psychology is useful, hitherto it is similarly useful to consider what is plowshared or antonymous crosswise the ii. Developmental psychologists work not reached consensus on the relative importance of physical, psychological, kind, and cultural reckons in shaping childrens development (Boocock and Scott 2005). Gittins (198822) urges cordial scien tists studying children to bear in headspring the nature versus hold up debate. Bruner (2000) explains that both(prenominal) biological and affable factors are important because babies are born with start-up familiarity, which they then add and bushel with spirit experiences. Concurring with this approach, Chomsky (1996) explains that a childs biological makeup is rouse by experience and sharpened and enriched with with(predicate) with(predicate) and by means of interactions with other humans and objects. Walkerdine (2004) considers developmental psychology as limited because of its deterministic flight of steps and sociology as limited because of its omission of psychological factors alongside sociological or cultural factors. Walkerdine (2004) points to several(prenominal) developmental psychological approaches to consider the social production of children as subjects, come toly situated regulateing (Cole and Scribner 1990 Haraway 1991), acquiring knowledge do p erplex or apprenticeship (Lave and Wenger 1991), actor nedeucerk theory (Law and Moser 2002), and the idea of assemblages as children study to fill a child role in baseball club (Deleuze and Guattari 1988). These approaches allow the researcher to acknowledge childrens inner and external learning practices and processes. As such, developmental psychology washbowl continue to domiciliate to childhood studies. In the 1990s, sociologists helped cull and constitute useful concepts and tools for childhood studies by criticizing developmental psychology. As the field of childhood studies continues to explicate into a defined and recognized discipline, useful tools and concepts from developmental psychology should be included. Likewise, Woodhead (2003) asserts that several concepts and tools from developmental psychology notably scaffolding, regularise of proximal development, guidedparticipation, cultural tools, communities of practiceare likewise relevant for childhood studies ( see Lave and Wenger 1991 Mercer 1995 Rogoff 1990 Wood 1988). Psychologists concern with the individual child stick out complement sociological research that considers children as they interact at heart their environment.worlds are created. Hunt (2004) notes that childrens literature may be unreliable for understanding childhood because childrens books typically devise the aspirations of adults for children of a particular epoch. Hunt (2004) holds muchover that childrens literature remains a meeting place for adults and children where antithetic visions of childhood merchantman be entertained and negotiated. In agreement with historical research on the concept of childhood, childrens books were first produced for middle-class children and had moralizing purposes. Later, childrens books were produced for all children, fill up with middleclass values to be spread to all. in that respect is agreement and contrariety on the description of childhood when examining the childrens literature of different time periods and different cultures. For example, several books of the mid-fifties and mid- hexadtiesincluding The Borrowers, Toms Midnight Garden, and The Wolves of Willoughby copydepicted adults looking back era children are looking forward (Hunt 2004). Likewise, Spufford (200218) notes that the 1960s and 1970s produced a second aureate age of childrens literature that presented a coherent, agreed-on idea of childhood. Further more, an examination of childrens literature indicates different childhoods were being offered to children in the unite States and Britain during the nineteenth century. British children were depicted as being restrained, piece American children were depict as independent and having boundless fortune (Hunt 2004). In this way, culture and childrens hooey world coalesce to offer very different outlooks on career to children. The death of books may change, from moralizing to i hireistic, and crosswise epochs and cultures they teach children acceptable roles, rules, and expectations. Childrens literature is a powerful platform of interaction wherein children and adults can come together to discuss and negotiate childhood.Cultural and societal facial expression Approaches to Childhood StudiesAnthropological cultural studies buzz off laid important backdropwork for research on children, and sociologists go through extended these sign boundaries to develop a social construction of childhood. Anthropological research (Opie and Opie 1969) first illustrious that children should be recognized as an supreme community free of adult concerns and modify with its own stories, rules, rituals, and social norms. Sociologists then flummox used the social construction approach, which draws on social interaction theory, to include childrens agency and occasional activities to interpret childrens lives (see James and Prout 1990 1997 Jenks 2004 Maybin and Woodhead 2003 Qvortrup 1993 Stainton Rogers et al. 1991 W oodhead 1999). Childhood is viewed as a social phenomenon (Qvortrup 1994). With this perspective, meaning is interpreted through the experiences of children and the nedeucerks deep down whichChildrens Literature as an Approach to Childhood StudiesChildhood as a spot stage of spirit is portrayed in childrens books, and the culture medium of books personifys a inviolable part of the solid culture of childhood. Books may be viewed as a window onto childrens lives and a useful tool for comprehending how and why childrensBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage 143The Sociology of Children and Youth 143they are embedded (Corsaro 1988). Researchers more a good deal than not use ethnographic methods to attain reflexivity and include childrens voices. In this section, I will first discuss the social constructivist approach of childhood research in devil areas, childrens lives within institutionalsettings such as day care centers and schools, and childrens worlds as they ar e constructed through material culture. Evidence suggests that young children actively add meaning and create friction match cultures within institutional settings. For example, observations of toddler mates groups see preferences for sex emerge by two years of age and race can be distinguished by iii years of age (Thompson, Grace, and Cohen 2001 avant-garde Ausdale and Feagin 2001). Research in like manner indicates that coquet builds on itself and across playgroups or peer groups. Even when the slice of childrens groups changes, children develop rules and rituals that regulate the prolongation of the play activity as wellhead as who may join an animated group. Knowledge is sustained within the peer group even when on that point is fluctuation. School-based studies (see Adler and Adler 1988 Corsaro 1988 Hardman 1973 LaReau 2002 Thorne 1993 Van Ausdale and Feagan) have added a great deal to our understandings of childhood. Stephens (1995) examined pictures drawn by Sami School children of Norway to learn how the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its nuclear radioactive dust abnormal their lives.The children expressed themselves through their drawings to exhibit how the depleted environment affected their health, diet, work, endeavorless routines, and cultural identity. Van Ausdale and Feagan (2001) explain how racism is created among preschool childrens play patterns and speak. They find that children taste and learn from one another how to delineate with their race and learn the privileges and behaviors of their race in comparison with other races. Using participant observation of children in a primary school setting, Hardman (1973) advanced the idea that children should be studied in their own chastise and treated as having agency. She found that children represent one translate aim of a societys beliefs, values, and social interactions. The childrens level interacts as muted voices with other levels of societys beliefs, values, a nd social interactions, shaping them and being shaped by them (Hardman 1973). Corsaro (1988) used participant observations of children at play in a nursery school setting to add Hardmans idea of a childrens level. He observed and described children as active makers of meaning through social interaction. Likewise, Corsaro and Eder (1990) conceptualize children as observing the adult world but using elements of it to create a unique child culture. A few studies (see Peer Power by Adler and Adler 1988 and Gender Play by Thorne 1993) parade how the cultural world of children creates a social stratification structure similar to that of the adult world in a way that makes champion for children. Thornes (1993) study of childrens culture is set in an elementary school setting, wherein children have lesser say in making the rules and structure. Still, she findschildren create meaning through play principle games that use pollution rituals to reforge immense social patterns of inequalit y as they occur through gender, social class, and race (Thorne 199375). Similarly, other studies show how behaviors within peer culturessuch as racism, masculinity, or sexism (see Frosh, Phoenix, and Pattman 2002 Hey 1997 James, Jenks, and Prout 1998) and physical and emotional abuse (Ambert 1995)are taught and negotiated within childrens peer groups. In addition, childhood can be interpreted through the material makeup of childrens worlds, generally taking the form of toys (see Lamb 2001 Reynolds 1989 Zelizer 2002). Zelizer (2002) argues that children are producers, consumers, and distributors. Lamb (2001) explains that children use Barbie dolls to share and leave sexual knowledge within a peer group producing a faithful child culture. name (2004) contends that the concept of child has been constructed through the market. Through a social history of the childrens habit industry, Cook explains how childhood became associated with commodities. He contends that childhood began to be commodified with the event of the first childrens clothing trade journal in 1917. By the early 1960s, the child had become a legitimate consumer with its own needs and motivations. The consume child has over time been postd a separate childrens clothing discussion section stratified by age and gender. As in Cooks thesis, others (e.g., Buckingham 2004 Jing 2000 aircraft carrier 1982) furnish evidence to add let in over to the idea that childrens consumption defines childhood. Jing (2000) explains how the merchandising of snack foods and fast foods to children has dramatically affected childhood in China. Likewise, television (Postman 1982) and computers (Buckingham 2004) determine what we think of as childhood. Children are argued to have a reversed power relationship with adults in impairment of computers because children are more comfortable with this technology (Tapscott 1998). In addition, approach shot to the Internet has created a new infinite for peer culture th at is quite separate from adults. Through chat rooms and e-mail, children can communicate and share development among peers without face to face interaction. As a result, the stage on which childrens culture is created is altered.Social structural Approaches to Childhood StudiesSocial structural approaches to childhood studies can be divided into two areas, those that distinguish childrens experience by age status and those that distinguish childrens experience by propagational status. Because age is the primary criterion for defining childhood, sociologists who study children have found aging and life course theories that focusing on multiplication to be useful. Thorne (1993) argues for the use of age and gender constructs in understanding childrens lives as well as consideringBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage 144144 THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE lifetime COURSEchildren as social agents. Therefore, it is how children actively construct their worlds as a retort to the co nstraints of age and gender. Passuth (1987) asserts that age is the salient factor for understanding childhood based on her study of how children 5 to 10 years old define themselves as little and big kids in a spend camp setting. Passuth found that age was more important than other stratification markers such as race, social class, and gender. Likewise, Bass (2004) finds that children are active agents but excessively that age should be considered first as it may structure the opportunities open to children who work in an open market in sub-Saharan Africa however, other secondary factors such as economic status and gender also structure the life chances of these children. Studies based on childrenin the United States suggest that age should be considered along with race, gender, and social class to explain how children negotiate power and prestige within their peer groups (Goodwin 1990 Scott 2002). For other sociologists, contemporaries provides the almost useful concept to expl ain the lives of children (Mayall 2000120). Other researchers (Alanen 2001 Qvortrup 2000) assert that generational relationships are more meaningful than analyses focusing on gender, social class, or ethnicity. While the concept of childhood is not universal, the dichotomy of adult and child is universal and differentiated by age status. This age status patterns first derivative power relations wherein adults have more power than children and adults typically regulate childrens lives.Childhood is produced as a response to the power of adults over children even when children are viewed as actively shaping their childhoods (Walkerdine 2004). Adults write childrens books, create childrens toys and activities, and often speak on behalf of children (e.g., the law). In this way, the generational divide and unequal authority amidst adults and children define childhood. Mayall (2002) uses the generational approach to explain how children contribute to social interaction through their posi tion in the big social order, wherein they hold a child status. The perspective of children remains meaningful even through the disad rewardd power relationship they hold vis--vis adults in the larger social order. It can because become a reconciliation act between considering structural factors or the agency of children in understanding childhood. The life course perspective holds that individuals of each generation will experience life in a unique way because these individuals share a particular epoch, semipolitical economy, and sociocultural context. Foner (1978) explains, Each cohort bears the stamp of the historical context through which it flows so that no two cohorts age in exactly the same way (p. 343). For example, those who entered adulthood during the Depression have different work, educational, and family experiences compared with individuals who entered adulthood during the affluent 1950s. Those of each cohort face the same larger social and political milieu and the refore may develop similar attitudes. The social structural child posits that childhood may be identified structurally by societal factors that are larger than age status but help create age status in a childhood process (Qvortrup 1994). Children can be treated by researchers as having the same standing as adult research subjects but also may be handled differently based on features of the social structure. The resulting social structural child has a set of universal traits that are associate to the institutional structure of societies (Qvortrup 1993). Changes in social norms or values regarding children are fix to universal traits as well as related to the social institutions within a particular society.Demographic Approaches to Childhood Studies oft of American sociology takes a top-down approach to the study of children and views children as being interlinked with the larger family structure. It is in this vein that family instability preeminent to divorce, family poverty, and family employment may affect childrens experiences. For example, Hernandez (1993) examines the American family using U.S. Census selective information from the twentieth century and notes a serial of revolutions in the familysuch as in reduced family size and the emergence of the two-earner familythat in turn affected childrens public assistance and childhood experiences. Children from smaller families and higher incomes typically attain more education and take higher-paid employment. Hernandez (1993) contends that mothers increase participation in work outside the stead led to a labor force revolution, which in turn initiated a child care revolution, as the proportion of preschoolers with two working parents change magnitude from 13 percent in 1940 to 50 percent in 1987.More recent entropy indicate that about 70 percent of the mothers of preschoolers work outside the family (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2002). This child care revolution changes the structure of childhood for m ost American children. Time diary data indicate that the amount of childrens sept chores increased from 1981 to 1997 (Hofferth and Sandberg 2001). Lee, Schneider, and Waite (2003) further note that when mothers work in the United States, children do more than their fathers to make up for the household labor gap caused when mothers work. Hence, expectations for children and childhood are altered because of a larger family framework of considerations and expectations. Family life structures childrens well-being. When marriages break up, there are real consequences in terms of transitions and dismission of income that children experience. The structural effects on children of living in smaller, more diverse, and less fixed families are still being investigated. Moore, Jekielek, and Emig (2002) assert that family structure does matter in childrens lives and that children fare better in families headed by two biological, married parents in a low- skirmish marriage. Some research indic ates that monetary shop at from fathers after a divorce is low (Crowell and Leaper 1994). Coontz (1997) maintains that divorce and single bloodline generally exacerbate preexisting financial uncertainty. These impoverished conditions may diminish childrens physical and emotionalBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage cxlvThe Sociology of Children and Youth 145development and adversely affect school performance and social behaviors. However, this is not in all cases. Research (Cherlin et al. 1991) shows that children of separated or divorced families have usually experient parental conflict and behavioral and educational problems before the family broke up. Hernandez (1993) suggests that the parental conflict and not the divorce or breakup may provide more incursion into childrens disadvantages. Hetherington and Kelly (2002) found that about three-fourths of children whose parents divorced adjusted within six years and ranked the same on behavioral and educational outcom es as children from intact families. Another study (Smart, Neale, and Wade 2001) finds peremptory attributes of children of divorce as children reported that they were more independent than friends who had not experienced divorce. The demographic study of children has taken place predominantly from the policy or public family vantage point with the assumption that there are consequences for children. Childhoods are typically framed with a perspective that views childrens worlds as being derivative of larger social forces and structures. rattling little agency is noted or measured in these studies. While the demographic approach does not offer expound explanation like research put forth by social constructivist childhood scholars (see James and Prout 1990), this approach provides a valuable perspective for framing and interpreting childrens lives.Socialization Approaches to Childhood StudiesResearch indicates that enculturation may affect both children and parents. Developmental psychology allows us to consider how children are affected by the socialization provided by parents, and more recent research put forth by psychologists and sociologists suggests that this exchange of information may be a bipartisan process. LaReau (2002) puts forth a more traditional position of socialization as she inside information how American families of different races and classes provide different childhoods for their children. In her research, the focus is on how children and parents actively construct childhood even as they are possibly constrained by race and class. She found evidence for two types of child rearing, concerted cultivation among middle- and upper-middle-class children, and the emergence of natural growth among working- and lower class children. LaReaus study describes the process that puts lower- and higher-class children on different roads in childhood that translate into vastly different opportunities in adulthood. Rossi and Rossi (1990) studied paren t-child relationships across the life course and found that parents shape their children as well as their grandchildren through parenting styles, shared genes, social status, and belief systems. Alwin (2001) asserts that opus rearing children is both a public and private matter, the daily teaching of children the rules and roles in society largely falls to parents. Furthermore, Alwin (2001) explains how American parental expectations for their children have changed over the last half-century, noting an increased focus on self-discipline through childrens activities that help develop autonomy and self-reliance.Zinnecker (2001) notes a parallel trend in europium toward individualism and negotiation, and away from coercion in parenting styles. In contrast, Amberts (1992) The Effect of Children on Parents questions the assumptions of the socialization perspective and posits that socialization is a two-way process. Ambert argues that having children can set ones health, income, caree r opportunities, values and attitudes, feelings of control, life plans, and the quality of interpersonal relations. She questions the causality of certain problematic childrens behaviors, such as clinginess among some young children or patronise crying among premature babies. Ambert contends that childrens behavior socializes parents in a patterned way, which agrees with the position of de Winter (1997) regarding autistic children and that Skolnick (1978) regarding harsh child-rearing methods. Likewise, psychologist Harris (1998) argues that the parental nurture or socialization fails to ground the direction of causation with confirmable data. She explains that parenting styles are the effect of a childs temperament and that parents socialization has little influence compared with other influences such as genetic endowment and childrens peer groups.Harriss approach, know as group socialization theory, posits that after controlling for differences in heredity, little stochastic v ariable can be explained by childrens socialization in the home environment. Harris provides evidence that most children develop one behavioral system that they use at home and a different behavioral system for use elsewhere by middle childhood. chemical group socialization theory can then explain why immigrant children learn one language in the home and another language outside the home, and their native language is the one they speak with their peers (Harris 1998). Likewise, other studies (Galinski 1999 Smart et al. 2001) find evidence that children play a supportive role and nurture their parents. In a parallel but opposing direction, other studies suggest that having children negatively affects parents lifestyles and standards of living (Boocock 1976) and disproportionately and negatively affects womens career and income potentials (Crittenden 2001). Indeed, research indicates that socialization may affect both children and parents. While most research concentrates on the socia lization of children by parents and societal institutions, more research should focus on the socialization of parents. In this way, children may be viewed as affecting the worlds of their parents, which in turn may affect children.interdisciplinary Involvement and ImplicationsChildhood research benefits from the affair of a diverse range of disciplines. On the surface these approaches appear to have disagreement in terms of methods and theoretical underpinnings, yet these approaches challenge more traditional disciplines such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology to consider what best interprets childrens lives. In some cases, the interaction acrossBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage 146146 THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE intent COURSEdisciplines creates new approaches, such as those of sociologists who use general socialization theory from developmental psychology. Similarly, historical research on the value of children being tied to a certain epoch with a specific level of p olitical economy can inform the valuation of children and their labor in poorer countries around the globe today. There is a need for continued interdisciplinary collaboration, and mentation is being given to how children and childhood studies could emerge as a recognized interdisciplinary field of inquiry. Woodhead (2003) offers three models for interdisciplinary effort for advancing the study of children and childhoods (1) a clearinghouse model, (2) a break up n mix model, and (3) a rebranding model. The clearinghouse model (Woodhead 2003) would include all studies of children and childhood, all research questions and methodologies, and all disciplines that are interested. This clearinghouse model would view different approaches to the study of children for their complementary value and would encourage researchers to ask different but equally valid questions (James et al. 1998188).The pick n mix model (Woodhead 2003) envisions that an swan of child-centered approaches would be selectively included in the study of children. If this were to happen, the process of selection could stick and hamper the field of childhood studies in general. Fences may be useful in terms of demarcating the path for childhood scholars but also may obstruct the facial expression on the other side. The rebranding model (Woodhead 2003) would include researchers collaborating across disciplines on research involving children while informing and remaining housed within more traditional disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology. In this scenario, children and childhood scholars remain within sociology while also being committed to interdisciplinary involvement. This scenario has served to strengthen sociological research in general. For example, James and Prout (1990) coined the term sociological study of childhood, and later James et al. (1998) developed the concept of sociological child. More recently, Mayall (2002) has suggested the use of the term sociology of childhood to move children and childhood studies to a more central place within sociology. In turn, this strengthens children and childhood studies across disciplines by forging a place for children in the traditional discipline. The field of interdisciplinary childhood studies has the potential to widen its reach by creating constituencies across older disciplines. Additionally, childhood studies can learn from the development experience of other interdisciplinary fields such as womens studies or gerontology. Oakley (199413) asserts the shared concerns across the academic study of women and children because women and children are socially linked and represent social minority groups. In a similar vein, Bluebond-Langner (2000) notes a parallel in scholarly potential for childhood studies of the magnitude of womens studies, predicting that childhood studies will affect the twenty-first century in much the same way as womens studies has the twentieth century. weigh the contributions across disciplines, it is clear that developmental psychology has laid the groundwork for the field of childhood studies, yet the resulting communication across scholars and disciplines has produced a field that is much greater than the contributions of any one contributingdiscipline. Therefore, childhood scholars have much to gain through conversation and collaboration.CONSIDERING SOCIOLOGY AND CHILDHOOD STUDIESWithin sociology, scholars approach the study of children in many ways. Some sociologists take a strict social constructivist approach, while others meld this approach to a optical prism that considers social structures that are imposed on children. Some sociologists focus on demographic change, while others continue to focus on aspects of socialization as childhoods are constructed through forces such as consumer goods, child labor, childrens proper(ip)s, and public policy. All these scholars add to the research vitality and breadth of childhood studies. In addition, chil dren and childhood studies research centers, degree programs, and courses began to be established in the 1990s, most of which have benefited from the contributions of sociologists and the theories and methods of sociology. Childhood studies gained firm ground in 1992 in the United States when members of the American sociological Association (ASA) formed the dent on the Sociology of Children. Later, the section name was changed to the Section on the Sociology of Children and Youth to promote inclusiveness with scholars who research the lives of adolescents. In addition to including adolescents, American sociologists are also explicitly open to all methods and theories that focus on children. The agenda of the Children and Youth Section has been furthered by its members initiation and continued publication of the yearbook book of account Sociological Studies of Children since 1986. In agreement with the ASA section name addition, the volume recently augmented the volume name with a nd Youth and became formalized as the annual volume of ASA Children and Youth Section. The volume was ab initio developed and edited by Patricia and diaphysis Adler and later edited by Nancy Mandell, David Kinney, and Katherine brownness Rosier. Outside the United States, the study of children by sociologists has gained considerable ground through the outside(a) Sociological Association Research Group 53 on Childhood, which was established in 1994. Two successful international journals, Childhood and Children and Society, promote scholarly research on children from many disciplines and approaches. In particular, British childhood researchers have brought considerable steam to the development of childhood studies through curriculum development.Specifically, childhood researchers wrote four introductory textbooks published by Wiley for a targetBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage 147The Sociology of Children and Youth 147class on childhood offered by the Open University i n 2003. The books are Understanding Childhood by Woodhead and Montgomery (2003), Childhoods in Context by Maybin and Woodhead (2003), Childrens Cultural Worlds by Kehily and Swann (2003), and ever-changing Childhoods by Montgomery, Burr, and Woodhead (2003). The relationship between the discipline of sociology and childhood studies appears to be symbiotic. Even as sociologists assert that the study of children is its own field, this does not preclude the development of childhood studies across disciplinary boundaries. Sociologists capture the social position or status of children and have the methods for examining how childhood is socially constructed or situated within a given society. Sociologists can also continue to find common ground with other childhood scholars from other disciplines to develop better methods and refine theories that explain childrens lives. Advances in the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies serves to strengthen the research of sociologists who focu s their work on children. Likewise, sociological challenges to the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies since the 1990s have provided useful points of critique and improvement to the study of childrens behavior and childrens lives.CURRENT AND prospective RESEARCH SOCIAL POLICY AND CHILDRENS RIGHTS Current andfuture research on children falls into two main areas, social policy and childrens rights. Arguably, there is some overlap between these two large themes. Indeed, Stainton Rogers (2004) maintains that social policy is motivated by a concern for children, yet children have very little to no political or legal voice. Children do not vote or decide what is in their best interests or what childrens rights are. Social policy requires us to consider the cross of children as dependents or not yet adults and children as having certain rights. It has previously been noted that children are citizens and should be treated as citizens but with their own concerns (James and Prout 1 997), yet there is still much to be clarified. world policy can be used to improve the lives of children. Research has established that poverty matters in the lives of children, as measured in child well-being indicators, and public policies have been enacted to help families rise out of poverty (Hernandez 1993). Research on the impact of increased income after a casino unresolved on a Cherokee reservation indicates that Native-American children who were raise out of poverty had a decreased incidence of behavior disorders (Costello et al. 2003). At other times, public policies affect children as a byproduct or consequence. One example is the 1996 Welfare Reform Law (or PRWORA), which made work mandatory for able-bodied, American adults and put time limits of five years and a day on receiving public assistance. Still, much is to be learned as to the effect, if any, ofthis decree on children (Bass and Mosley 2001 Casper and Bianchi 2002). In addition to income, public policy shape s the experience of family life by recognizing some forms while ignoring others. A substantial number of children will experience many family structures and environments as they pass through childhood, regardless of whether the government legitimates all these forms (Clarke 1996). Likewise, examining childrens experiences in various family forms is a useful area of current and future study. Childrens rights can be examined in terms of protect children from an adult vantage point or in terms of providing children civil rights (or having a legal voice).The view of protecting children is a top-down approach positing that children are immature, and so legal protections should be accorded to keep children riskless from harm and abuse and offer children a basic level of developmental opportunities. In contrast, the civil rights approach asserts that children have the right to participate fully in decisions that may affect them and should be allowed the same freedoms of other citizens (La ndsdown 1994 Saporiti et al. 2005). In addition, the framing of childrens rights takes different forms in richer and poorer countries around the globe. For richer countries, granting children rights may involve allowing children civil and political voice, whereas in poorer countries, basic human rights bear out as more important. Child labor is an issue that has been examined in terms of the right of children to learn and be developed and the right of children to provide for oneself (see Bass 2004 Neiwenhuys 1994 Zelizer 1985). Future studies will also need to consider the relationship between childrens rights as children become study subjects. Innovative approaches are being used to include childrens voices and input in the research process (Leonard 2005), yet there is still much to be done in this area in terms of developing methodologies that allow children to participate in the research process. Indeed, incorporating children in the research process is a next logical step for ch ildhood studies. However, childhood scholars are adults and therefore not on an equal reason with children (Fine and Sandstrom 1988). Furthermore, there is momentum to include childrens perspectives in the research process at the same time that there is a growing concern for childrens well-being, which may be adversely affected by their participation as subjects in the research process. Future research on children should focus on the childrens issues through social policies yet also consider childrens rights in tandem or as follow-up studies. It is generally the matter of course to take children or youth as a definitive given and then seek to solve their problems or create policies for them. Future research should focus on practical childrens issues and use empirical research projects to increase our knowledge of the nature of childhood. The last 15 years provide evidence to support the idea that childhood researchers should continue to bridge disciplines and even continents to fin d common ground.