a. Anthropologists and Sociologists have long been interested in children as a social group and how their childhoods have changed through history and across cultures the world over. They have sort answers to how we view children, how children are treated, how children develop and the immediate social, environmental and cultural factors that influence a child’s development. Towards the end of the 20th Century researchers started to feel that a more comprehensive, international understanding and view of children and childhood was necessary. Further impetus was given to the study of children and childhood with the ratification of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which recognised that children have rights
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The fact that children have right is considered a key feature of childhood studies. ‘In What is childhood studies, The Open University (2014) Mary Jane Kehily describes the birth of childhood studies, “I suppose childhood studies is seen as a new or emergent discipline and the birth of it is really marked by the publication of Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood by James and Prout in 1997…. which brought together different disciplines and different disciplinary perspectives on childhood and actually branded them under the name of childhood studies.”’ Thus Childhood Studies is seen as interdisciplinary; it uses multiple research methods and brings together work and ideas from academic disciplines and professions including Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Law, Education, Health and Social …show more content…
These various perspectives allow Childhood Studies to look at all aspects of a child’s life from birth to eighteen and provides us with a greater understanding of childhood across history, culture and globally. ‘In What is childhood studies, The Open University (2014) Martin Woodhead states that Childhood studies “has strong respect for understanding the child, not just as an object of study but understanding what it means to be a child from children’s point of view.”’ Therefore Childhood Studies can be described as being ‘child focused’. One of the core concepts of Childhood studies is that Childhood is a ‘social construction’. This emphasizes that childhood differs depending on the culture, class of society, country and the period of history in which a child grows up in. For example in some cultures it is acceptable to smack a child but in Britain this idea is considered outdated. Another example is that in many third world countries education is a privilege not a right and children only get an education if their parents can afford to send their children to school. In Britain schooling is mandatory for children up to the
The fact that children have right is considered a key feature of childhood studies. ‘In What is childhood studies, The Open University (2014) Mary Jane Kehily describes the birth of childhood studies, “I suppose childhood studies is seen as a new or emergent discipline and the birth of it is really marked by the publication of Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood by James and Prout in 1997…. which brought together different disciplines and different disciplinary perspectives on childhood and actually branded them under the name of childhood studies.”’ Thus Childhood Studies is seen as interdisciplinary; it uses multiple research methods and brings together work and ideas from academic disciplines and professions including Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Law, Education, Health and Social …show more content…
These various perspectives allow Childhood Studies to look at all aspects of a child’s life from birth to eighteen and provides us with a greater understanding of childhood across history, culture and globally. ‘In What is childhood studies, The Open University (2014) Martin Woodhead states that Childhood studies “has strong respect for understanding the child, not just as an object of study but understanding what it means to be a child from children’s point of view.”’ Therefore Childhood Studies can be described as being ‘child focused’. One of the core concepts of Childhood studies is that Childhood is a ‘social construction’. This emphasizes that childhood differs depending on the culture, class of society, country and the period of history in which a child grows up in. For example in some cultures it is acceptable to smack a child but in Britain this idea is considered outdated. Another example is that in many third world countries education is a privilege not a right and children only get an education if their parents can afford to send their children to school. In Britain schooling is mandatory for children up to the