An afterword: some reflections on a seminar series

Abstract

This paper was commissioned by the editors of the seminar series of papers, to provide a commentary on the series. It outlines how the sociology of childhood developed and some key themes: intergenerational relations and intergenerational processes. It discusses the specific character of childhood work in the UK and considers ways forward for theoretical development. Finally it considers what lessons can be learned across the majority and minority worlds to help us in our sociological work.

Keywords:

• sociology of childhood
• intergenerational relations
• Majority and Minority Worlds

Notes

We could also note that the many books of advice to mothers on how to bring up children (from the seventeenth century onwards) tell us a lot about ideas across time and space about childhoods (e.g. see Hardyment 1984 for a review).

Göran Therborn, a Swedish macro-sociologist, provides an important cross-national overview of children's rights and how recognition of these relates to legal and religious traditions in varying societies.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has of course set an age-limit for childhood of 18 years but it notes that childhood may end at varying points in varying societies. Still, the age-limit may be regarded as a convenient marker for considering policies geared at children. A useful study on dimensions of childhood is given by Frønes (1994).

Qvortrup (1994) in his Introduction to the book where the paper appears admits that this is a very solid argument – a pessimistic argument, but one that is without illusion.

See, for instance, four chapters in the Palgrave handbook of childhood studies, by Alanen (2009), Mayall (2009), Olk (2009) and Hengst (2009), 157–214.

It would be rash to try to explain why sociology and its practitioners vary across societies. But perhaps there has been more dominance by men in the UK sociological scene than in, for instance, Denmark and Germany; and men – British men – may be slow to think seriously about children and childhood.

See also the early paper by Hardman (1973).

Among the many references to the work of geographers in relation to children and childhood, a few must suffice here, but each of them, of course, refers the reader on to other useful work: Massey (1994), Matthews and Limb (1999), Holloway and Valentine (2000), Horton and Kraftl (2006), Holt and Holloway (2006) and Holt (2011).