Children and Youth Essay

The bring of nestlingren and youthor tiddlerishness studiesinvolves enquiryers from diverse disciplines who theorize and conduct research on squirtren and adolescents. Woodhead (2004) aptly explains, Interest in nipperishness Studies is for many born(p) out of frustration with the narrow versions of the babe purposeed by traditional donnish dis leads and methods of inquiry, especi wholly in onlyy a rejection of the musical modes psychological science, sociology, and anthropology traditionally partition and objectify the child as subject to processes of phylogenesis, favorableization or acculturation. (P. x)sociologists affair these four perspectives, childishness scholars trained in opposite(a) disciplines also use these perspectives. I volition because consider the utileness of childishness studies as an interdisciplinary r to each one of see and present a vision for the future of puerility studies inwardly sociology.CONTRIBUTIONS OF DIFFERENT APPROACH ES TO CHILDHOOD STUDIES Historical Approaches to Childhood Studies Historical research says what the design of puerility means. Aris (1960 1962) made the low argument that puerility is touchionately and historically constructed. He did non view it as a innate state define by biology. By examining feeds of art dating back 1,000 years, he noted a difference in the edition of children prior to the 1700s, wherein children were picture as smallish adults and not as a distinctive group. In reason with Aris, Demos (1970) attribute forth a sym courseetic argument victimization read gathitherd on the Puritans of the Plymouth Colony in the 1600s, noting that children were not considered a special group with sh atomic repress 18d needs or status. These researchers asseverate that the shift from treating children as small adults to children as valuable individuals to be protected goes hand-in-hand with another(prenominal) kindly shifts such(prenominal) as the spread of workhouse and the decline of child mortality. While Ariss hypothesis has been challenged and criticized by historical research and empirical evidence (see Gittins 2004 Nelson 1994), his motifs devour inspired neighborly scientists to involve ordinary children, and many studies require been produced as a result. As a dialogue with theSince the late 1980s, sociologists wee-wee made sizable contributions to the flying airfield of children and youth, and the field of puerility studies has become recognized as a rightful(a) field of academic enquiry. Increasingly, childhood is employ as a hearty position or a i patron ripenual category to battlefield. Like womens studies, the get wind of children has emerged as an interdisciplinary field. Researchers of children from established disciplines, such as anthropology, education, history, psychology, and sociology, check arrange a meeting crop in this emergent interdisciplinary field of childhood studies. In the following s ectionalisations, I will first outline the sexual congress contributions of different cash advance shotes to the field of childhood studies. Some approaches retrieve a home in spite of appearance one discipline, bit other approaches argon apply by to a greater extent(prenominal) than one discipline. Specifically, I will attend approaches outside sociology, such as historical, developmental psychological, and childrens lit, and and so I will debate four perspectives used by sociologists, piddlely the ethnic approach, the favorable structural approach, the demographic approach, and the general cordialization approach. While cxlBryant-45099 start III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMvarlet 141The Sociology of Children and offspring 141work of Aris, De Mause (1976 19954) developed a psychogenic surmisal of history, which asserted that pargonntchild relations fix evolved to prep be greater intimacy and high excited satisfaction over time. De Mause explained that parent-child r elations evolve in a analog fashion and that parent-child relationships change incrementally and, in turn, fuel further historical change. In response to this, Pollock (1983) dismisses the findings of researchers such as Aris, Demos, and De Mause, who assert the modern or incremental approach to childhood, arguing that parents have always valued their children we should not seize too e daterly upon theories of fundamental change in parental attitudes over time (p. 17). While Pollock detailally counters the conclusions of Demos on children animation in the 1700s in the Plymouth colony, his conclusions respond to all prior research positing that childhood is a modern theory. Historical research documents that the musical theme of childhood emanates from the center of attention class as members of the middle class first advanced laws to enclosureination child confinement and promoted education and protection of children (Kehily 2004).The shift of children from stinting to fr antic contributors of the family later the s all the sameteenth century took place first among middle-class boys and subsequent became the expectation for all children, disregardless of neighborly class or gender (Zelizer 1985). A good example of this middleclass perspective is illustrated in the writing of Mayhew, a amicable commentator from the nineteenth century (1861, in Kehily 2004), who writes about a disadvant durationd eightyear-old street vendor from the working class who has lost all childish ways in the Watercress Girl in capital of the coupled Kingdom Labour and the London Poor. While Mayhew calls attention to the plight of workingclass children in the mid-nineteenth century, other research (Steedman 1990 Gittins 1988) proves that it is not until the early twentieth century that the childhood idea is redefined for working-class children in the linked Kingdom. Child poverty and ill health were viewed as strickleionate problems and resulted in a shift away fro m economic to increased emotional value of children and altered expectations that children should be protected and enlightened (Cunningham 1991). The idea of lost or stolen childhood continues to be prominent in popular discussions of childhood (Kehily 20043). With this, historical approaches offer a great deal to the field of childhood studies because they allow us to view the concept of childhood as malleable. The childhood concept does not have the same meat directly as it did 300 years ago in a given destination, and it does not have the same substance from glossiness to culture or even crosswise complaisant classes during a historical moment. around historical research focuses on Western forms of childhood, yet these constructs whitethorn be helpful for understanding certain aspects of childhood in non-Western contexts, especially when homogeneous socioeconomic factors, such as industrialization, and a shift from an agrarian to a cash economy, may frame conditions. Ideas about how childhood is bound by culture, governmental economy, and age continue to be caprioleed out today in many non-Western contexts. For example, Hollos (2002) found that a new partnership family grapheme emerged alongside the line be on-based organisation as a small Tanzanian familiarity underwent a shift from subsistence agriculture with hoe cultivation to w term labor. These family types exhibited 2 distinct parental perspectives on what childhood should be and how children should spend their time. fusion families emerging with a cash economy tend to view their children as a means of enjoyment and pleasure, whereas line shape up-based families typically see their children as necessity for labor needs in the near term and as investments and old-age insurance in the long term. In this way, historical perspectives have the likely to express contemporary heathenish and sociable constructive theories on children and childhood studies. The close step is to move beyond Aris and the dialogue he created to dole out the persistence of current social issues that involve children such as child poverty, child labor, and disparities across childhoods terra firmawide (see Cunningham 1991).Developmental Psychological Approaches to Childhood Studies asperses Studies of Childhood (Sully 1895 2000, quoted in Woodhead 2003) notes, We now speak of the beginning of a careful and methodological investigation of child nature. By the early twentieth century, developmental psychology became the dominant paradigm for studying children (Woodhead 2003). Developmental psychology has studied and marked the gifts and transitions of Western childhood. Piagets (1926) model of developmental stages stands as the foundation. at heart the developmental psychology framework, children are adults in training and their age is linked to physical and cognitive developments. Children travel a developmental path taking them in due time to a state of be adult members of the monastic order in which they live (Kehily 2004). Children are therefore viewed as learners with potential at a certain position or stage in a journey to child to an adult status (Verhellen 1997 Walkerdine 2004). kind and heathenish researchers have critiqued the developmental psychological approach, largely faulting its treatment of children as potential subjects who screw only be understood along the child-to-adult continuum (Buckingham 2000 Castenada 2002 jam and Prout 1990 1997 Jenks 2004 Lee 2001 Stainton Rogers et al. 1991). Qvortrup (1994) notes that developmental psychology frames children as valet de chambre becomings rather than human existences. Adding to this, Walkerdine (2004) suggests that while psychology is useful in understanding children, this usefulness may be bound to Western democratic societies at a specific historical moment. Still, Lee (2001) cautions that we should not give developmental psychology a wholesale toss, noting, What could growing up mean once we have distanced ourselvesBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage 142142 THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE behavior COURSEfrom the dominant frameworks account of socialisation and development? (p. 54). Likewise, Kehily (2004) notes that considering differences mingled with sociology and developmental psychology is useful, yet it is also useful to consider what is helpingd or complementary across the two. Developmental psychologists have not reached consensus on the relative importance of physical, psychological, social, and cultural factors in shaping childrens development (Boocock and Scott 2005). Gittins (198822) urges social scientists studying children to extend in mind the nature versus nurture debate. Bruner (2000) explains that both biological and social factors are important because babies are born with start-up cognition, which they then add and amend with carriagetime stupefys. Concurring with this approach, Chomsky (1996) explains that a childs biological makeup is awakened by experience and sharpened and enriched by interactions with other humans and objects. Walkerdine (2004) considers developmental psychology as limited because of its deterministic trajectory and sociology as limited because of its omission of psychological factors alongside sociological or cultural factors. Walkerdine (2004) invests to several developmental psychological approaches to consider the social production of children as subjects, namely situated learning (Cole and Scribner 1990 Haraway 1991), acquiring fellowship finished rehearse or apprenticeship (Lave and Wenger 1991), actor network theory (Law and Moser 2002), and the idea of assemblages as children learn to fill a child role in society (Deleuze and Guattari 1988). These approaches allow the researcher to include childrens internal and worldwide learning practices and processes. As such, developmental psychology endure continue to bear to childhood studies. In the 1990s, sociologists helped cull and identify useful concepts and tools for childhood studies by criticizing developmental psychology. As the field of childhood studies continues to grow 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, zone of proximal development, guided mesh, cultural tools, communities of practiceare also relevant for childhood studies (see Lave and Wenger 1991 Mercer 1995 Rogoff 1990 Wood 1988). Psychologists ad join forces with the individual child send packing complement sociological research that considers children as they interact inside their environment.worlds are created. Hunt (2004) notes that childrens literature may be unreliable for understanding childhood because childrens books typically invent the aspirations of adults for children of a detail epoch. Hunt (2004) channels however that childrens literature arranging a meeting place for adults and children where different visions of childhood can 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 moralise purposes. Later, childrens books were produced for all children, fill up with middleclass set to be spread to all. There is agreement and disparity on the definition of childhood when examining the childrens literature of different time periods and different cultures. For example, several books of the 1950s and mid-sixtiesincluding The Borrowers, Toms Midnight Garden, and The Wolves of Willoughby Chasedepicted adults looking back while children are looking forward (Hunt 2004). Likewise, Spufford (200218) notes that the 1960s and 1970s produced a second golden age of childrens literature that presented a coherent, agreed-on idea of childhood. Furthermore, an examination of childrens literature indicates different childhoods were beingness offered to children in the United States and Britain during the nineteenth century. British children were depicted as being restrained, while American children were described as independent and having boundless luck (Hunt 2004). In this way, culture and childrens material world coalesce to offer very different outlooks on life to children. The goal of books may change, from moralizing to idealistic, yet across 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 affectionate Construction Approaches to Childhood Studiesanthropological cultural studies have lay important groundwork for research on children, and sociologists have extended these initial boundaries to develop a social construction of childhood. Anthropological research (Opie and Opie 1969) first noted that children should be recognized as an independent community free of adult concerns and filled with its own stories, rules, rituals, and social norms. Sociologists then have used the social construction approach, which draws on social interaction theory, to include childrens agency and daily activities to interpret childrens lives (see crowd together and Prout 1990 1997 Jenks 2004 Maybin and Woodhead 2003 Qvortrup 1993 Stainton Rogers et al. 1991 Woodhead 1999). Childhood is viewed as a social phenomenon (Qvortrup 1994). With this perspective, meaning is interpreted by means of the experiences of children and the networks within whichChildrens Literature as an Approach to Childhood StudiesChildhood as a separate stage of life is portrayed in childrens books, and the medium of books represents a substantial part of the material 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 engraft (Corsaro 1988). Researchers in the main 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 two areas, childrens lives within institutionalsettings such as day care centers and schools, and childrens worlds as they are constructed with material culture. Evidence suggests that young children actively add meaning and create peer cultures within institutional settings. For example, observations of toddler peer groups verbalize preferences for sex emerge by two years of age and washing can be distinguished by tierce years of age (Thompson, G ladder, and Cohen 2001 Van Ausdale and Feagin 2001). Research also indicates that mold builds on itself and across playgroups or peer groups. so far when the composition of childrens groups changes, children develop rules and rituals that regulate the perpetuation of the play activity as closely as who may join an existing group. Knowledge is sustained within the peer group even when there 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 bony by Sami School children of Norway to learn how the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its nuclear radioactive dust modify their lives.The children expressed themselves through their drawings to show how the depleted environment touch on their health, diet, work, daily 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 experiment and learn from one another how to identify 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 right and treated as having agency. She found that children represent one direct of a societys beliefs, values, and social interactions. The childrens level interacts as muted voices with other levels of societys beliefs, values, and 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 augment 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 partner Power by Adler and Adler 1988 and Gender Play by Thorne 1993) show how the cultural world of children creates a stratification social organ isation similar to that of the adult world in a way that makes sense for children. Thornes (1993) study of childrens culture is set in an elementary school setting, wherein children have itsy-bitsy say in making the rules and structure. Still, she findschildren create meaning through vacation spot games that use pollution rituals to reconstruct larger social patterns of inequality 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 aversion (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 communicate sexual knowledge within a peer group producing a secretive child culture. specify (2004) contends that the concept of child has been constructed through the market. by means of a social history of the childrens clothing industry, Cook explains how childhood became associated with commodities. He contends that childhood began to be commodified with the normalation 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 consuming child has over time been interpretd a separate childrens clothing section stratified by age and gender. As in Cooks thesis, others (e.g., Buckingham 2004 Jing 2000 Postman 1982) provide evidence to add avow to the idea that childrens consumption defines childhood. Jing (2000) explains how the marketing of snack foods and fast foods to children has dramatically affected childhood in C hina. Likewise, television (Postman 1982) and computers (Buckingham 2004) reshape what we think of as childhood. Children are argued to have a reversed power relationship with adults in price of computers because children are more comfortable with this technology (Tapscott 1998). In addition, access to the Internet has created a new space for peer culture that is quite separate from adults. Through chat rooms and e-mail, children can communicate and share information among peers without personal 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 generational status. Because age is the primary criterion for defining childhood, sociologists who study children have found senescent and life course theories that foc us on generation 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 LIFE COURSEchildren as social agents. Therefore, it is how children actively construct their worlds as a response to the constraints 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 exact and big kids in a summer 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 also 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 chan ces 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, generation provides the or so(prenominal) useful concept to explain the lives of children (Mayall 2000120). Other researchers (Alanen 2001 Qvortrup 2000) assert that generational relationships are more meaty 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 differential 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 ofttimes speak on behalf of children (e.g., the law). In this way, the generational divide and unequal role between adults and children define childhood. Mayall (2002) uses the generational approach to explain how children contribute to social interaction through their position in the larger social order, wherein they hold a child status. The perspective of children remains meaningful even through the disadvantaged power relationship they hold vis--vis adults in the larger social order. It can therefore become a balancing 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, political 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 environs and therefore 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 otherwise based on features of the social structure. The resulting social structural child has a set of universal traits that are related to the institutional structure of societies (Qvortrup 1993). Changes in social norms or values regarding children are tied to universal traits as well as related to the soci al institutions within a particular society.Demographic Approaches to Childhood StudiesMuch 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 unbalance leading to break, family poverty, and family employment may affect childrens experiences. For example, Hernandez (1993) examines the American family using U.S. Census data from the twentieth century and notes a series of revolutions in the familysuch as in decreased family size and the emergence of the two-earner familythat in turn affected childrens well-being and childhood experiences. Children from smaller families and higher incomes typically attain more education and take higher-paid employment. Hernandez (1993) contends that mothers increased participation in work outside the home led to a labor force revolution, which in turn initiated a child care revolution, as the proportion of preschoolers with t wo working parents increased from 13 percent in 1940 to 50 percent in 1987.More recent data indicate that about 70 percent of the mothers of preschoolers work outside the home (U.S. dressing table of the Census 2002). This child care revolution changes the structure of childhood for most American children. Time diary data indicate that the amount of childrens household 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 infract 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 loss of income that children experience. The structural effects on children of living in smaller, more d iverse, and less stable families are silence 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-conflict marriage. Some research indicates that financial support from fathers after a divorce is low (Crowell and Leaper 1994). Coontz (1997) maintains that divorce and single parenthood generally exacerbate preexisting financial uncertainty. These barren conditions may diminish childrens physical and emotionalBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage 145The 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 break families have usually experienced parental conflict and behavioral and educational problems before the family broke up. Hernandez (1993) suggests that the pare ntal conflict and not the divorce or separation may provide more insight 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 outcomes as children from inherent families. Another study (Smart, Neale, and Wade 2001) finds positive attributes of children of divorce as children report that they were more independent than friends who had not experienced divorce. The demographic study of children has interpreted 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. Very picayune agency is noted or metrical in these studies. While the demographic approach does not offer detailed chronicle like research put forth by social constru ctivist childhood scholars (see James and Prout 1990), this approach provides a valuable perspective for framing and see childrens lives.Socialization Approaches to Childhood StudiesResearch indicates that socialising 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 two-way process. LaReau (2002) puts forth a more traditional model of socialization as she details 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 cancel growth amo ng 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 parent-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 while rearing children is both a public and private matter, the daily belief of children the rules and roles in society largely waterfall to parents. Furthermore, Alwin (2001) explains how American parental expectations for their children have changed over the last half-century, noting an increased emphasis on self-discipline through childrens activities that help develop autonomy and self-reliance.Zinnecker (2001) notes a mate movement in Europe toward individualism and negotiation, and away from coercion in parentin g 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 influence ones health, income, career 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 most young children or frequent blatant among premature babies. Ambert contends that childrens behavior socializes parents in a patterned way, which agrees with the apprehension 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 empirical 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 heredity and childrens peer groups.Harriss approach, cognize as group socialization theory, posits that after controlling for differences in heredity, little variance 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. group socialization theory can then explain why immigrant children learn one terminology in the home and another speech 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 socialization 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 involvement 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 just about cases, the interaction acrossBryant-45099Part III.qxd10/18/2006743 PMPage 146146 THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE LIFE COURSEd isciplines 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 political 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 thought 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 roll 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 array of child-centered approaches would be selectively included in the study of children. If this were to happen, the process of selection could beat 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 vista on the other side. The rebranding model (Woodhead 2003) would involve 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 arm sociological research in general. For example, Jame s and Prout (1990) coined the term sociological study of childhood, and afterward 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 potenti al for childhood studies of the magnitude of womens studies, predicting that childhood studies will affect the ordinal century in much the same way as womens studies has the twentieth century.Weighing the contributions across disciplines, it is clear that developmental psychology has laid the groundwork for the field of childhood studies, yet the resulting conversation 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 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 rights, and public policy. All these scholars add to the research vitality and breadth of childhood studies. In addition, children 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 Section 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 creation and continued publication of the annual ledger Sociological Studies of Children since 1986. In agreement with the ASA section name addition, the volume recently augmented the volume name with and Youth and became formalized as the annual volume of ASA Children and Youth Section. The volume was initially developed and alter by Patricia and Peter Adler and later edited by Nancy Mandell, David Kinney, and Katherine Brown Rosier. Outside the United States, the study of children by sociologists has gained sizable ground through the International 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 in 2003. The books are Understanding Childhood by Woodhead and capital of Alabama (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 parking area ground with other childhood scholars from other disciplines to develop better methods and bolt down theories that explain childrens lives. Advances in the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies serves to strengthen the research of sociologists who focus 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 FUTURE RESEARCH kindly 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 propel by a concern for children, yet children have very little to no political or legal voice. Children do not voter turnout or decide what is in their best interests or what childrens rights are. Social policy requires us to consider the intersection of childre n 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 1997), yet there is still much to be clarified. Public 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 formulate out of poverty (Hernandez 1993). Research on the impact of increased income after a casino opened on a Cherokee reservation indicates that Native-American children who were increase 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 a nd a day on receiving public assistance. Still, much is to be learned as to the effect, if any, ofthis legislation on children (Bass and Mosley 2001 Casper and Bianchi 2002). In addition to income, public policy shapes 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 protecting 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 play along children safe 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 enter fully in decisions that may affect them and should be allowed the same freedoms of other citizens (Landsdown 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). upcoming 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 make in this area in terms of developing methodologies that allow children to get in in the research process. Indeed, incorporating children in the research process is a bordering logical step for childhood studies. However, childhood scholars are adults and therefore not on an equal footing 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 desire to solve their problems or create policies for them. Future research should focus on practical childrens issues and use em pirical 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 find gross ground.