This series of presentations are an accompaniment to terrific textbook 'Sociology, 7th edition' by Giddens and Sutton (2013). There is a very strong focus on visuals, with many additional short activities designed to foster interaction between teachers and students. The text from Giddens and Sutton is usually paraphrased and reworded to aid the comprehension of students, particularity those of lower language ability than Giddens and Sutton had in mind. The sociology of the age and the life course is the perfect embodiment of contemporary sociology as a whole, and a branch of the discipline with direct relevance to every individual in late-modern capitalist industrial societies. Sociology is the study of how the structure of any particular society largely dictates how individuals must live; the analysis of the plight of the modern individual in a rapidly changing world. By using this frame of reference, we often reveal social phenomena previously regarded as "natural" and eternal as -in actual fact- "social constructions" that are completely dependent on the socio-historical era for their own existence. The sociology of the life course looks at how the meanings attached to something as fundamental as a "stage of life" (e.g. childhood) change across time and space; in other words, in different historical eras and -still today- in different places around this complex and diverse planet, the expectations attached to -say- being pre-teen, a teenager, or someone over the age of 50 are products of capitalist, industrial modernity and therefore very, very recent developments in our 800,000 year human history. This series begins with an introduction to the different aspects of ageing, with an emphasis on the development of social self (looking-glass self), which is something all humans do regardless of time and space; it is part of the psychological process of growing up in all societies. We then establish what social ageing is; the fundamentals of the sociology of ageing. Later chapters of the series analyze the different stages of life, in turn, in socio-historical perspective; beginning with what we would today call "childhood" (pre-teen), before looking at "youth", "young adulthood", "mature adulthood" and finally "later life".

1. The Sociology of
the Life Course
2 – The sociology of childhood
Accompaniment
to the superb
Giddens and
Sutton (2013)
(left) Chapter 9,
with an
assortment of
additional
accompanying
resources and
activities

2. Contents
2 The sociology of childhood
Also in the series…
1 Introduction to the sociology of age and the life course
3 The sociology of youth and adolescence
4 The sociology of young adulthood
5 The sociology of mature adulthood
6 The sociology of later life

3. 2 The life stages in socio-historical perspective:
1- Childhood
see Giddens and Sutton 2013:348

4. .
As in most areas of sociology, the sociology of
childhood is based on the idea that this phenomenon is
in part
socially-constructed… ie not
based entirely on the same ancient laws of nature
governing the remaining .
As Giddens’ human-existance-as-24-hour-day analogy
shows on G&S2013:108, modernity is an
extremely “recent” event in human history; and
cultural changes since early modernity have occurred at
lightening speed relative to those of the vast majority
homo sapiens’ existence
No area demonstrates this more purely than the
life course; in particular,
childhood

6. Stages in the life course are influenced
by cultural
differences but also by the
material
circumstances
(affluence) of people’s lives in given
types of society.
Giddens and Sutton 2013:346
The above applies to both the stage of life each
individualis at, right now; and the
culturally-specific social meaning attached
to these stages at various
points in time

7. Sociologists, and common sense in
general, have long identified “childhood”;
early life- a time of being biologically and
psychologically pre-developed

8. As functionalistssuch
as Parsonsand Merton,
along with feminists,
Marxists and others, all agree
that it is at this stage that people are most
actively
socialized
(Below) Karl Marx
as a young adult

9. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle
/2014/apr/22/gendered-toys-stereotypes-boy-
girl-segregation-equality
The fightback against gendered toys
Do all girls really want to play with dolls and tea sets? Do all boys want guns and trucks? Of course
not. Then why are toymakers so aggressive in marketing these stereotypes?
Kira Cochrane
The Guardian, Tuesday 22 April 2014
Exerpt
Three years ago, while she was on maternity leave, Ros Ball and her partner, James, began a
diary of their children's lives. Their daughter Josie was three and their son Clem three months
old. They wanted to record the moments when their children were made aware of gender
stereotypes; when they were directed towards a view of the world in which girls and boys
inhabit separate, rigid spheres of pink and blue – the first sphere passive, pretty and gentle, the
second aggressive, active and strong…(Continues at above link)

10. Children are socialized by “agents” - their
families, early
education, and the
mass media
Activity:
List (i) two values,
and (ii) two
behaviour
patterns children
are socialized with
for each of the
agents in this slide

11. In most views of childhood, it is relevant as a
transitorystage of learning
and training; our gender, social class
and consumer identities are developed most
quickly at this time
The educational and leisure experiences of
children, and the socializing
messages young individuals receive, are
quite rightly seen as highly
important to them, and
society

12. Key to all socialization theories of “childhood” is
the notion that these individuals are, naturally and
inevitably, incomplete;
transitory, half-finished adults
Activity:
What does ‘transitory’ mean; and
how does it apply to the
conventional view of childhood?

13. This links with the idea that
children are v_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _,
w_ _ _, n_ _ve, in_ _ _ _ _ _
etc.; and together they are an
even more pervasive
notionthan that of little
girls being naturally effeminate
ie “girly”, or that
working-class children
are more likely to be
“naturally stupid
(or, “low ability”)
Activity:
If a norm or
value is
‘pervasive’, does
this mean it is
commonly held,
or not?

14. Activity: List five adjectives you think survey respondents would
associate with the noun “child”
Extension: Conduct this survey

15. In recent years, the sociology and social history
of childhood has moved beyond the notion that
childhood is necessarily a time of
vulnerability,
dependence and
innocence…
Despite the obvious importance and accuracy of
socialization theories, many
believe something is missing

16. Missing –say many- is the notion that these
associations of vulnerability,
under-development and
innocenceare time-space
specific;
not based on natural laws but rather modern
social processes and the
material/economic
conditions of our social era

17. Philip Aries (1962):
Centuries of Childhood
Our current concept of childhood is a
specifically modern one; which only
dates back to the
early industrial
revolution
In the 18th century, for the first time,
childhood began to be seen as a time of
learningand
development; and
children became an economic liability
for their parents.
Activity:
If children
became an
economic
‘liability’ for their
families, what
were they
before? Why?
A_ _ _ _s
Children worked throughout
pre-modernity(below) and in
early-modern
factories(above); but were
later removed and educated
instead- starting with the
upper classes

18. Rather than working with other
family members in cottage
trades, farms or early
factories and
workhouses, children were
increasingly sent to school,
and cared for by nannies (later,
modern childcare)
The modern “child”, for Aries
(1962) was an upper-class
phenomenon that trickled-downto
the proletariat
eventually
‘Trickle-down’ theory of
culture is associated
with Pierre Bourdieu
(below)

19. According to Aries (1962), “children” –
rich and poor- depicted in pre- and early-modern
paintings and books were of
course physically under-developed;
but not as
socially or
psychologically as in
the present era
Aries provides some evidence that pre-modern
“children” were more
“miniature adults” than
today; in their clothing, body language
and facial expressions
Activity:
What is one
flaw in taking
pre-modern
paintings as a
representation
of reality?

20. Inpre-modernsettings, many now
believe,
“Children took part in the same work and play
activities as adults, rather than in the childhood
games we now take for granted”.
Giddens and Sutton2013:349
They wore clothing no different to adults;
quickly learned to speakin the same tones and
with the same vocabulary; and worked and
relaxedtogether with older generations

21. From this key social history stem late-modern
theories that everything associated with
childhood need not be:
We are, in late-modernity, over-pampering,
over-protecting
and patronizingour
young people; and this functions as a boost to the
capitalist mode of production
Activity:
Why might this
social
construction of
childhood support
the capitalist
MoP? (then see
next slide)

22. Leaving a sizeable proportion of society in training for around 15
years produces a more skilled workforce, clearly;
…and without schools, where would we learn the disciplinary
and social skills necessary to every good worker or citizen?

23. Childhood, and as we shall see,
adolescence/young adulthood, are in late-modernity,
times of a very special sort of
identity-forming
consumerism that wouldn’t
exist if uneducated“miniature
adults” were working alongside adults from
ten years of age

24. Today, in some “still developing”
parts of the world , something
similar to Aries’ pre-modern
“miniature
adulthood” still exists
In countries lacking full
industrialization and
corresponding long, full,
compulsory
education, it is still
common for children to work in
family cottage trades…

25. in factories (often
supplying the industrialized world’s
consumer goods)…

26. Even as soldiers
Activity:
How do think most
citizens of the
“developed world”
would feel about
the scenes depicted
here? Would
similar public
attitudes have
existed in Medieval
times?

27. The United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child
(UNCRC), 1990:
This groundbreaking agreement –signed by
194 countries by 2009- set out “basic
human rights” for people under 18
Among them was the right to education, and
to not have to “work”.
Activity:
Giddens (2013:349) defines this “attempt to universalize the
right of children and childhood in very different social and
economic contexts” a “bold task that raises some important
issues”. Why is it bold? Isn’t it “obvious” that children should
go to school and not work?
What controversies does it raise in poorer
countries?

28. The problem –sadly for Western children's’ charities
like UNICEF – is that the household
economiesof families in many poorer
countries, and therefore the macro
economies, depend on children still
being an economic
assetto their parents

29. .
• .
They have to work to support their family, and
themselves…they may be making 1st-world
clothing in
industrialized factories, but their
cultural norms remain those of pre-modernity
(as in the vast majority of
human history)
Activity:
Should we pity the pre-modern,
uneducated,
working child?
Are there reasons to feel
sympathy with the late-modern
child?

30. Giddens and Sutton (2013:349):
.
“Is the UN definition of childhood culturally
sensitive to different societies, or does it
impose (unworkable)
Western ideas of children and
childhood on the rest of the world?”
Will the UNCRC really improve
lives and economies, or will it
restrict the economic development
of families too much in the short term
by banning children from working?
Often, the task of the sociologist it
to ask “says who..?”

31. In wider society –more crucially- new
technology, the internet and an easily-accessed,
globalized mass media are believed
to be reversing the
infantilization trend
Children are becoming “free”
consumers at an earlier age;
and are consuming products and
entertainment previously seen as “for adults”
Activity:
How could
the late-modern
childhood
experience be
improved for
the good of
society and
the
individual?

32. Others, on the other hand,
argue that we are in fact
infantilizing
everyone- not only
children
Many critics echo the warnings
of the Frankfurt
School critical theorists, such
as Theodor Adorno, the
‘culture industry’ of pop
music, “trashy” novels and movies, robs adults of
their maturity; their ability to think
rationallyand
critically

33. The culture industry robs
not only children, but also
adults of their ability to
question
capitalist
inequality and
unfair
power
relations…
potentially turning us
all into the late-modern
infant
Activity: Does a ‘culture industry’
exist? Does it have a positive of
negative effect on children, and
adults?