Childhood narratives: adult reflections on encounters with difference in everyday spaces

ABSTRACT

Research on children and young people commonly focuses on the present experiences of childhood. Yet Philo, C. [2003. “‘To Go Back up the Side Hill’: Memories, Imaginations and Reveries of Childhood.” Children's Geographies 1 (1): 7–24] has argued that we might also access the ‘worlds’ of children and childhood through the memories or recollections of adults, given that we have all been children once. In response, this paper explores the narratives of adults reflecting on their childhood experiences and in particular, on the formation of their attitudes towards difference. The paper offers a means of understanding how adults reflect on their childhood encounters with difference, how their attitudes towards difference are developed over time and the extent to which these childhood narratives are carried into adult lives. This is not to suggest that early experiences are deterministic. Rather, individuals can reflect on their own lives and encounters and choose to change or react to wider social relations in new ways such that they produce and embody new dispositions.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• adult identities
• family
• difference
• encounters

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

We are grateful to the European Research Council which funded this research through an Advanced Investigator Award (grant agreement no. 249658) entitled Living with Difference in Europe: making communities out of strangers in an era of supermobility and superdiversity. This research was conducted at the University of Sheffield.