Social Constructionism and Its Significance in Society

Moving forward to discuss in detail the ideas around social constructionism will further enhance understanding of how the new social studies developed. It can be said with a certain amount of agreement that there seem to be some fundamental differences between adults and children. For example, people in most societies seem to agree that; children are physically and psychologically immature compared to adults, children are dependent on adults for a range of biological and emotional needs. In other words, children need a relatively lengthy process of socialization which may well last for several years. As opposed to adults, it could be said that children are not yet experienced enough to determine their own lives and therefore, cannot be held responsible for their actions. In contrast to the period of childhood, one of the defining characteristics of adulthood is that adults are biologically mature, are competent to run their own lives and are fully responsible for their actions. However, despite broad agreement on the above, what people mean by childhood and the position children occupy is not fixed but differs across times, places and cultures.

There is considerable variation in what people in different societies think about the place of children in society, about what children should and shouldn’t be doing at certain ages, about how children should be socialized, and about the age at which they should be regarded as adults. For this reason, Sociologists say that childhood is socially constructed. This means that childhood is something created and defined by society:

The social construction of childhood in modern British society   Part of the social construction of childhood in modern Britain is that we choose to have a high degree of separation between the spheres of childhood and adulthood.

1. There are child specific places where only children and ‘trusted adults’ are supposed to go, and thus children are relatively sheltered from adult life.
2. There are several laws preventing children from doing certain things which adults are allowed to do.
3. There are products specifically for children –which adults are not supposed to play with (although some of them do).

 

All of the above separations between adults and children have nothing to do with the biological differences between adults and children – children do not need to have ‘special places’ just for them, they do not need special laws protecting them, and neither do they need specific toys designed for them. We as a society have decided that these things are desirable for children, and thus we ‘construct childhood’ as a being very different to adulthood.

A good way to illustrate the social construction of childhood is to take a comparative approach – that is, to look at how children are seen and treated in other times and places than their own. The anthropologists Ruth Benedict (1934) argues that children in traditional, non-industrial societies are generally treated differently from children in modern western societies.

In other cultures children are seen as an ‘economic asset’ and expected to engage in paid work – In Less developed countries children are seen as a source of cheap (free) labor on the farm, in the home or in sweatshops where the wage can help boost the family income. Sexual behavior – In some cultures girls are sometimes married off at 14 or younger, taking on the duties of a wife or mother at a young age.

Philippe Aries – A Radical View on The Social Construction of Childhood   The historian Philippe Aries has an extreme view on childhood as a social construction. He argues that in the Middle Ages (the 10th to the 13th century) ‘the idea of childhood did not exist’ – children were not seen as essentially different to adults like they are today. Aries uses the following evidence to support his view… Children were expected to work at a much earlier age The law often made no distinction between children and adults Works of art from the period often just depict children as small adults – they wear the same clothes and appear to work and play together.

In addition to the above Edward Shorter (1975) argues about parental attitudes toward children in the Middle Ages were very different from today…   High infant mortality rates encouraged indifference and neglect, especially towards infants Parents often neglected to give newborn babies names – referring to them as ‘it’ and it was not uncommon to eventually give a new baby a name of a dead sibling. Aries argues that it is only from the 13th century onwards that modern notions of childhood – the idea that childhood is a distinct phase of life from adulthood – begin to emerge. Essentially Aries is arguing that childhood, as we understand it today, is a relatively recent ‘invention’