-

14
Children's Bodies
La ara Fingerson

As humans, we experiente every moment of our lives as ernbodied. We are

i mmersed in a world where our lived meanings and experientes have a bodily
dimension, yet are not biologically determined. This approach to understanding
social action, called embodiment, recognizes the body's corporeality and materi-
ality as well as the social interactions and interpretations with which it is shaped
and given meaning (Nettleton and Watson, 1998). The body is a variable in social
interaction. For example, having a cold can make us irritable and grumpy, being
in shape can compel us to start up a neighbourhood pickup basketball game and
having frozen toes at an outdoor football game can force us to retreat to a 'reate('
honre before the game is over. Socially, we interact differently with children's
bodies or pregnant bodies or bodies belonging to those of a different race, ethni-
city, dis/ability or gender.
Bodies are not static, but constantly change and shift through processes such
as ageing, puberty or illness. This is particularly true for children whose bodies
change even more dramatically and quickly than those of adults. When sorne-
thing changes about our physical bodies, it changes the way we interact with
others. We are ali 'embodied social agents' (Nettleton and Watson, 1998).
Individuais are constrained by the conditions in which they live and it is through
their bodies, through embodied practices, that they can become subjects, part ici-
pate in the construction of their conditions, transcend these conditions and act
upon their worlds. Consequently, the body is implicated in processes involv ing
power and agency (Foucault, 1977). Power, fluid and constantly shifting, is a fun-
damental aspect of ali social interaction. Power is both the ability to influence
behaviour and the capacity to use resources to achieve desired ends. For exaniple,
children and adolescents use power to influence others' views, to control conver-
sation and to increase their social status. They use resources such as social status,
their bodies and their knowledge to achieve their interactional goals.
When trying to expiam individual action, there is a tension between attribut-
ing action to an individual's own power and desires versus the constraints of soci-
ety, or structure, on that individual's actions. Keeping in mind chis tension (or
continuum as Fuchs [2001] advocates), agency involves individual and/or collect-
ive assertion of power over and choice in the larger circurnstances (or structure)

217
Lia 1 ale Paigrave tranaboox or entianooa amares
in which people find themselves. Power and agency both are negotiated and dis-
cursively produced through relationships, social interaction and language rather
than being an essential element that an individual or group does or does not
possess.
Bodies themselves can be used in an agentic manner as they help to shape the
course of social interactions (Connell, 1995; Fingerson, 2006). Connell's (1995)
terin 'body-reflexive practices' refers to theorizing the body as both an object and
an agent in social processes; as such, the body is a locador' for the negotiation of
power. This sort of embodied agency is flexible and is not used in the same fash-
ion ali individuais. Children and adolescents draw on their bodies in creative
ways in social interaction, as discussed below, providing evidence for agency (also
seeJames, this volume).
These notions of ernbodiment, agency and power are consistem with recent
thinking in the sociology of childhood. Corsaro's (2005) theory of interpretive
reproduction holds that children do not simply mimic adult (dominant) cul-
ture, but Talher appropriate aspects of adult worlds into their own unique peer
cultures. At the sarne time, children actively contribute to cultural production
and social change. The dominant model of socializado') relegates children and
their bodies to a passive role, emphasizing societal moulding rather than chil-
dren's actions (Prout, 2000). Corsaro instead finds that children are agents in
their lives as they appropriate, reinvent and reproduce constructs from the larger
social world.
By understanding how children and adolescents socially experience their bod-
ies, we can learn about broader aspects of their everyday lives. We can learn about
the shifting power in their social interactions, the resources from which they
draw power, the ways in which they construct their social worlds and the ways
in which they define each other as gendered, raced and aged beings. Surprisingly,
although the literature on children, and adolescents' social lives lias grown sig-
nificantly in these past twenty years, there have been few empirical or theoretical
contributions to research done ou children's and adolescents' embodied lives.
This chapter outlines some of these developments.
Salience of the body in childhood
Prout (2000) observed that the sociology of the body and the sociology of
childhood have developed substantially in recent years, often along parallel
Tines. However, there has been surprisingly little contact between these two
fields. This is due to how sociologists have traditionally addressed the body and
to a lack of recognition of children's agency and distinct childhood cultures
(James, 2000, this volume). However, children and adolescents are particularly
defined by their bodies as their body marks status and their bodies change rap-
idly (Eder, Evans, and Parker, 1995; Fingerson, 1999; James, 2000; Fingerson,
2006).
For example, children are labelled based ou their age and the abilities of their
bodies, such as the terms `baby', 'toddler', or 'adolescent', and each of these age
markers signify a different structural placement in childhood. Height is a sigr
marker of age and status for children (James, 2000). Children use heigh t to
mark their social rank within the larger group and their progress towards being
an adult, a position of power and maturity. James (2000) finds that children are
involved in 'body work', as they constantly negotiate the presentation of their
body, their body's actions and dica body's appearance. For example, children
work to make themselves appear taller or to stay within cultural prescriptions of
thinness.
Adolescence is classified not only by growth but also by pubertal change s in
the body, including secondary sex characteristics such as facial and public hair
and primary sex characteristics such as menstruation. Fingerson's (2006) research
focused on menstruation, which is a physical process that is intimately tied to
social life, constrained by cultural and social interactional expectations and inte-
grated into social discourse and power relations. Importantly, for a brief time,
menstruation is new and has a great impact on girls' and boys' lives. For a brief
ti me, menstruation is salient. By adulthood, women's and men's management of
menstrual ion lias become routine. Adolescent bodies are changing and growing
as they make lhe transition between pre- and post-pubertal forms. The body and
the body's experiences significantly shape human experience and human experi-
ence in turra shapes the body.
Christensen (2000) finds that children experience their bodies in terms of the
social consequences the body has ou their lives. In describing their bodily frinc-
dons, children emphasize their own actions and their interactions with otliers,
rather than simply talking about their bodies as isolated entities. Children ti rin k
of illness, such as catching a cold, not as simply a bodily phenomenon, but
rather as a disruption to their everyday social activities and routines. Recovery
and feeling better are also expressed in terrns of the social. For example, une of
Christensen's par t icipants, a seven year old, said that recovering meant a resump-
tion of her daily activities: 'to do as I usually do'. She trames her recovery in terms
of social interaction, not how her body is feeling.
Also dernonstrating the saliente of the body to childhood, Fingerson (1999)
explored how nine to eleven-year-old girls interpreted family television prograins
and finds that these girls focused ou hurnour relating to the body. During the
group interviews, the girls appeared happier and more comfortable when col-
laboratively talking and laughing about body-related hurnorous sequences, than
when answering other questions about the prograrns. These sequences included
reterences to body image and body control through the topics of wearing reveal-
ing bikinis, being clumsy and using portable toilets. The laugh track of each pro-
gram designates humorous sequences in the show and there were many such
designated sequences the girls did not discuss. The content of media interpret-
ations depends not only ou the group dynamics and program content, but also
ou the particular issues raised in the program and how salient these issues are to
the individual viewers. The girls focused their attentions ou humour related to
the body, as the body is indeed salient for pre-teen girls whose bodies are rnatur-
ing loto women's bodies rapidly.
220 The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies
Body and agency
Prout (2000) finds that although empirical work on children's agency is strong,
few researchers take this work beyond the levei of description (also see James,
this volume). Fingerson (2006) attempts to fill this gap by proposing a theory
of agency and the body, where the body both exerts agency and is a source of
agency. These analytic tools can be used to understand how bodies can be used in
negotiating power relations In daily interaction among ali ages and groups.
Using the example of menstruation in adolescence, Fingerson first finds that
the body itself exerts agency in girls' everyday lives. Some of the girls at times
feel out of control when they are menstruating and wish they could plan exactly
when their bleeding would start. Secondly, Fingerson shows that many girls,
rather than being simply discouraged by their lack of control over their bod-
ies, respond by drawing on their bodies as a source of power and agency in
their interactions with other girls and with boys. Boys might have the power in
the interactions when they teased or embarrassed girls about menstruation. But
girls also had significant sources of power as they used boys' and men's embar-
rassment about menstruation to achieve deslred ends (such as getting out of
gym class or compelling boys to leave the conversation); developed an engaging
social discourse with other girls and women about their shared bodily experi-
ences; and developed a discourse of competente, where girls felt they could han-
dle the paia and management of menstruation because they were girls, whereas
they thought boys would not be able to handle it. Thus, the body is directly
engaged in agency, both as it exerts agency and as it is a source of agency in the
actor's social interactions.
As with many things in childhood, adults have a hard tinte imagining how the
body can be so salient to children and adolescents. Beyond the importante of
growth and puberty, adults wonder if adolescents, in particular, real ly talk about
their bodies and other bodies in social interaction. But, as Fingerson (2006) dem-
°list rates, teens talk openly irr tnixed-gender settings about menstruation and the
body, something most adults never would have done in their own adolescence.
,
Children and adolescents are living in a world that is general!) comfortable with
discussing the body and sex. There is openness in our culture today that was not
there even in the late 1970s or the 1980s, only 20 to 30 years ago.
First, the prevalence of mass media exposes teens to a much larger cultural
workf than they used to be. No longer are children's social interactions lim-
Reei to people they can talk to in person in their communities. Children and
adolescents can follow along with the lives and conversations of characters in
numerous television shows, movies and real-life celebrities. Further, there is a
sensationalisrn and intense competition in the mass media where every show
lias to be more daring and more explicit than the last show. lssues of sex, vio-
lence and the body that were atice taboo are now talked about routinely, ali day
and ou network television, not just irr the evening hours or on cable. This cas-
ualness of media talk filters into children's, and adolescents' lives and influentes
their peer cultures.
Children's Bodies 221
Secondly, as Jane Brody (2003) in a New York Times article explains, the AIDS epi-
demic has changed the way body and sexuality are talked about in the media and
in everyday life. In order to talk about AIDS transmission and prevention, doctors,
journalists and health writers learned to discuss explicit sexual activities without
being embarrassed or prudish. The Monica Lewinsky-forrner-President Bill Clinton
affair with the blue dress and detailed sexual information was plastered over the
daily news. Similarly, with the bulk of US population, the baby boomers, moving
lato old age, there is an increasing attention to disease and illness such as breast
cancer, impotence and menopause. Infertility is also increasingly cornmon and
discussed on the national scene. Brody recalls that when she started reporting on
health issues in 1966, editorial policy severely limited her ability to describe any sex-
related issue in a meaningful, forthright manner. This has changed significantly.
Th irdly, connecting both increased media prevalence and more open talk about
body and sexuality, is the effect of third-wave feminism ou children's and adoles-
cents' cultures. Th ird-wave feminisrn is the current feminist movement prirnarily
driven by younger women. Among the priorities of third-wavers are women's
rights to sexual pleasure and women's rights to use and display their bodies as
they choose. For example, girls and women feel that they have control and power
over their own bodies and body expression, so they dress as sexily as they please
for their own pleasure. They argue that this is not for the pleasure or objectifi-
cation of boys and men. By dressing sexily, these third-wavers chim power over
their surroundings and over their appearance. Thus, they gaia control over the
effects of their appearance on boys and men. We can see such control by media
icons such as Madonna and Brittany Spears. Also, any walk through a local school
reveals that girls, even irr elemeutary schools, wear outfits baring their In idriffs,
or shorts with words ou the rear. Such forms of attire can lead to school dress
codes, which are often strongly resisted by both children and parents. Third-
wavers' construct ions of the body and sexuality have benefited from the second-
wave feminist movement, such as the publication of Our Bodies, Ourselves (Boston
Women's Health Collective, original publication date 1976), which is credited
with launching the women's health movement.
These issues have changed what is acceptable to talk about, discuss and debate in
public space. Children and adolescents today, in 2007, were boro after 1990. They
do not remember Reagan's presidency. Girls have always been welcome and involved
in school sports. Former US Senator Bob Dole is best known for talking about impo-
tency, not running for president. Most of thern know someone who was boro with
the help of infertility science. The technologies for genetic testing, DNA analysis
and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs) have always been available (for more, see
the annual Beloit College 'Mindset List'). In Fingerson's (2006) research, some of the
teens had even been to a local production of 'The Vagina Monologues'.
The body, agency and social interaction
Although the connection between sociology of childhood and sociology of the
body is a new and underdeveloped area, severa! contributions have been made
222 The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies
(see also Corsaro and Fingerson, 2003). This research demonstrates how children
can draw on the body as a source of agency in everyday life.
In terms of gender, Martin (1996) finds that adolesceras use their bodies and
their sexuality as sources of agency. Yet, giris may feel that they have little control
over their bodies because of the lack of both cognitive and subjective knowledge
about their bodies. Tolman (2002) adds that adolescera giris are limited by tlieir
language in expressing sexual desire. They are not given language or space to
express sexual pleasure or to explore positively their sexuality. This lack of sex-
ual subjectivity limits giris' sexual agency, which makes girls susceptible to sex-
ual and domestic abuse and unfulfilling sexual relationships throughout the life
course. In sexual relationships, girls often have less power precisely because they
are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with their own genitalia, and they do not have
access to comfortable language to express either discomfort or pleasure. Giris are
thus more vulnerable in sexual situations and being pressured to do things they
do not want to do. Boys, on the other hand, are culturally supported in their sex-
ual explorations and sexual knowledge. Boys learn through puberty that their
bodies are a source of power and control (Martin, 1996). They use tlieir know-
ledge and language in sexual interactions with giris to gaio and hold the upper
hand (Eder, Evans and Parker, 1995). Martin (1996) finds that girls use sports and
school participation Io express control in their lives.
Thorne (1993) finds that children use differences between their bodies as ways
to tease the other sex and highlight the differences between the sexes. She con-
tencis tliat power differences between US fourth and fifth grade boys and giris
are communicated and learned through social interaction, which focuses on the
body. She talks abola 'gender play', which is where children use the frame of 'play'
as a cover for serious, gender-based messages that their play conveys about sexu-
ality and aggression. Examples of gender play include bra-snapping and 'cooties'
rituais. In cross-gender interactions, giris are more 'polluting' than boys are. Giris
give cooties more often to boys than boys give tirem to giris. Also, Thorne found
that the name 'cooties' was frequently changed to 'girl stain' or 'girl touch'. The
most unpopular giris were sornetimes called 'cootie queens' or 'cootie giris' and
no such similar terms were used for unpopular boys. This shows that boys are
more powerful; they are masculine and not stained by feinininity.
Boys define themselves and their masculinity in opposition to femininity. For
example, male athletes and coaches often use terms such as `girl' and 'pussy'
to insult those players who lack toughness (Eder, Evans and Parker, 1995). It is
i mportant for boys to be tough and aggressive, and at the same time to belittle
and separate themselves from anything that is weaker or feminine (Fine, 1987).
The giris' treatment as a source of contamination highlights the social power
differences between superior boys and inferior girls. Boys and giris learn this
dl fference through etnbodiment and body-based social interaction.
I n another, striking example of using the body as a source of agency, Parr (2005)
discusses how in 2002, approximately 29 child and adolescent asylum seekers in
Australia attempted self-barro, such as hunger strikes and slashing their arras, to
resist and to draw public attention to their placement in detention centres as they
Children's Bodies 223
waited for the government to handle their cases. The children used their bodies
as a direct source of agency in defiance of the structure that placed their bodies
in detention.
Children also use their bodies, bodily functions and bodily waste products to
resist authority. For example, children tell dirty jokes, disobey the dress code and
use taboo bodily waste to shock teachers and other aduas. Sirnpson (2000) relates
one incident where a boy deliberately stabbed himself with a pendi to draw blood
so he could leave the classroom lesson and visit the nurse. Resistance to the 'bote-
doms' of school lessons is well documented (Best, 1983; Everhart, 1983), but in
this case it is the body that is directly used as the object of resistance.
At play, the physicality of the games shows how children can use their bodies
as sources of power in their interactions. Several researchers have found that girls
use their bodies in more restricted and inhibited ways in play and on the play-
ground (Young, 1990; Thome, 1993; Karsten, 2003). Thorne (1993), for example,
finds in her US research that giris generaily use less space and a smaller range of
space on the playground than boys. Both boys and girls used their bodies to des-
ignate and patrol the borders of their space. In Karsten's (2003) research among
children In Anisterdam, she finds that boys have claim to a higher, more valuable
status on the playgrouncls because of their bodily positions and visibility. Boys
outriumber the giris, they are on the playground for more hours than girls are,
they control more territory and space with their physical play than girls and their
social networks were larger and more developed. At the same time, some giris
challenged this gender divide by physically joining in games with boys. Boys
were far less likely to join in girls' games.
However, in Evaldsson's (2003, this volume) research with giris and boys of
immigrant hackgrounds playing foursquare during recess In Sweden, she finds
tliat power and agency in the social interactions of the game are attained by
physical skills In throwing, not by gender status. Evaldsson finds that girls use
tlieir physical skills and power stances to demonstrate social power and compe-
tency in their play, rather than following dorninant norms of ferninine docile
bodies. This is similar to Goodwin's (1998) research where she shows that Latina
and African American girls in the United States use their bodies in hopscotch to
display and assert power, challenge other players and resolve conflict. The giris
are not simpiy playing passively and cooperatively, but call out fouls, dispute
about roles and physically positiou themselves within the game to assert power.
In another example, Messner (2000) observed four- and five-year-old giris in the
United States and saw the giris using their bodies and voices to celebrate their
soccer team, called the 'Barbie Giris.' An opposing boys' team was chanting In
opposition to the girls' celebrados) of Barbie. Yet, the giris were not silenced and
instead, they chased the boys off. The giris used their bodies to both proclaim
their aJlegiance and to drive off the opposition.
In school ing, children's bodies are ordered and controlled. In preschools, Martin
(1998) uncovers a hidden school curriculum designed to control children's bodily
practices. Teachers require that children waik properly and quietly down the hall,
sit up straight and try not to fidget. It is only on the playground that children
224 The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies
are free to move about across different spaces, move their bodies as much as they
please and play with whomever they choose (Evaldsson, 2003). Simpson (2000)
finds that children's bodies are perceived as dangerous and troublesome and thus
rnany school rules are designed to control students' bodies and their attentions.
Further, when kids misbehave in school, their bodies are used in the punish-
ment. For example, a child who was talking while the students were lining up
for the dining roorn was punished by being made to stand in the main passage
with his back to the rest of the school. He was bodlly put on display. In Uns way,
Simpson contends that the body is central to power relations among children and
between children and adults In the schools. For children in school, being invis-
ible, unnoticed and just a part of the group means they have managed to stay
out of trouble. One effective punishment for kids who misbehave in school is to
physically segregate and rnark them.
Similarly, children, more so than adults, work particularly hard to fit in with
others, as James (2000) learns in her classroom ethnography. Children do not
want to stand out as different from their peers. To do this, they must make their
bodies appear a certain way, such as changing the appearance of their bodies
to coo forni to what other children in the group are doing, or in the classrootn,
blending in by sitting straight and still so the teacher will not notice them. In
fact, children are not generally so orderly and well hehaved, but children work to
promote this view of themselves.
Health and the body
I lealth and health behaviours have direct implications for how children and ado-
lescents experience their bodies and live embodied lives. For example, children
who experience chronic illness may have many restrictions on their social lives.
Clark (2003) explores US children's experientes of severe asthma and diabetes
and finds that children have creative and powerful ways of coping in their social
interactions with others, such as the use of imagination and play. The health
decisions that children and adolescents have the most control over and that con-
tribute significa ntly to youth physical well-being are eating and physical activity.
The so-called obesity epidemic in the United States is getting a lot of press, par-
ticularly as it relates to children. Unhealthy diets and low physical activity can
result in a myriad of physical and mental health problems (CDC, 2003), which are
not only distressing in themselves, but also influence children's ability to partici-
pate in everyday activities and their social interactions.
According to the most recent Center for Disease Control (CDC) data (2003),
approximately 15 per cent of youth in the United States ages six to nineteen are
now overweight. This is triple the proportion from 1980. Among adolescents aged
twelve to nineteen, African Americans are 24 per cent more likely and Mexican-
Americans are 13 per cent more likely to be overweight than their non-Hispanic
white counterparts (NCHS and CDC, 2002). The CDC (2003) reports that more
than 60 per cent of youth eat too much fat and over 80 per cent do not eat
enough fruits and vegetables. More than one-thial of high school students do
j Children's Bodies 225
not regularly engage in vigorous physical activity. Daily Physical Education (PE)
exists nationwide at only 8 per cent of elementary schools, 6.4 per cent of middle
schools and 5.8 per cent of high schools (Weir, 2004). Illinois is the only state that
mandates PE every day for every student, but about 25 per cent of Illinois school
districts have been given waivers that relax the PE requirement (Weir, 2004).
The structure and institutions in adolescent social lives litnit their power and
agency in making their eating and physical health decisions. Social class group-
ings affect children and adolescents' physical health. For example, in terms of
physical activity, middle-class youth are rnuch more likely than working-class
youth to be involved in extra-curricular organized sports, often several sports at
one time (Latem], 2003). Middle-class parents feel pressured to give their children
the most opportunities possible and to have their children's time structured and
supervised by adults. Working-class youth have more limited access to organ-
ized sports due to the financial and parental-time cost of participation (Lareau,
2003). Working-class adolescents may also not have enough financial resources
to belong to health clubs and often live in unsafe neighbourhoods where they
would not feel comfortable going out for a ruiu (Duncan and Robinson, 2004).
Space to play pickup games of basketball or soccer is often defined by social class
through city and local politics (Bettis and Adams, 2005). Weight is particularly
tied to class as the achievernent of a slim, toned and muscular body ideal is a priv-
ilege afforded by the middle- and upper-classes who have the time and funds to
spend on body projects (Lupton, 1996). As with many other areas, much of the
research on class interactions with food and physical activity lias been done on
the adult world.
in terms of children's own power and agency to make their physical health
decisions, age luas the biggest influence. lacobson and Maxwell (1994) found that
children as voung as kindergarten are making more of their own food choices
tlian ever before. However, in Lupton's (1996) research, younger children felt a
marked lack of power over food and relished young adulthood where they had
new-found autonomy over t he food they could choose, prepare and eat. Generally,
adolescents have much more autonotny in their health decisions than younger
children.
Adolescents' age and social location influence their mobility and financial
resources. Adolescents are more limited in their movements and choices than
adults because they are subject (at least somewhat) to their parents' or guard-
ians' rules and household activities. Adolescents can be limited by family meal-
ti mes or food selections available at horne or at school. However, adolescents have
more choices than younger children do to choose their own food and activities
through increased access to money and to private and public travel to friends'
pomes, the park, the mall, restaurants or other social events. Adolescents often
have larger allowances or work for wages in part-time jobs (Fine, Mortimer and
Roberts, 1990). They also eat fewer meais with their parents and play and exercise
less with their parents than younger children (Galinsky, 1999). Junk food is par-
ticularly attractive to adolescents because it is associated with parties, being with
friends and being away from home (Lupton, 1996). Additionally, adolescents'
226 The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies
I
eating and physical activity decisions and interpretations are more visible than
those of adults because teens' social networks are more concentrated and physic-
ally proximate. Their bodily behaviours are on display for their peers and families
and these behaviours are often scrutinized and commented on (Lupton, 1996).
More research on children's and adolescents' eating and physical activity behav-
iours is needed, particularly as they relate to peer groups. The 'obesity epidemic'
In Western societies, particularly in the United States, continues to receive a great
deal of press and children's food choices and opportunities for physical activity
significantly affect their embodied lives.
Conclusion
As the research reviewed in this chapter shows, the body is experienced, rnanaged
and understood socially. The body is both a direct source of agency and can be
drawn on as a source of agency and power in social interaction. For children and
adolescents, in particular, the body is salient in their lives and affects their social
interactions. In order to truly understand children's social lives, we must under-
stand their embodied lives.
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