YC100: Lecture 2, 3 – Sept. 15, Sept.

20, 2022
Social Theories of Childhood, Ch. 2
Chapter 2
- “The study of children is withered totally absent of sociology or is treated within very
limited contexts which are considered marginal for sociological theory and research” –
Leena Alanen, 1988
- Sociology has only recently rediscovered childhood
o Begin to take children seriously as subjects, actors, and objects of social inquiry
o Children and childhoods played a role in sociological theorizing and research

Nature vs Nurture
- 1700s and 1800s – the Age of Enlightenment
o Marked by the questioning of religious authority and the rise of science
o Increasing the understanding of nature and how the social world works
 Charles Darwin: developed a theory of natural selection
 Social Darwinists (biologists o biological determinists) applied
Darwin’s theory to understanding and explaining human behaviour
o By looking at the biological and genetic makeup of
individuals to understand why they do the things they do

- Evolutionary psychology: psychological characteristics, like biological characteristics,

have evolved over a long period and should be seen as adaptations to the social and
biological circumstances that characterize human existence
o Human mind compromises a collection of psychological adaptations, which arose
through the process of natural selection

- Behavioural traits were the result of both nature and a shared environment

Psychoanalytical Viewpoints

Sigmund Freud’s. work is strongly influenced by biological assumptions

- “normal” children move through a series of relatively fixed staged of psychosocial
development in their development of personality

- Children are born with a fixed set of innate drives: the ‘id’ driven by the pleasure
principal (seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain)
o Id -> ego -> superego

- Recognized the importance of interactions with others

- Several theorists each recognized to a degree that the combined roles off biology and
environment (society), helped to develop branches of child studies that moved away from
strictly biological explanations to more constructivist (psychology) and constructionist
(sociology) explanations
o for the most part, stage-based developmental approaches in general—and
psychoanalytic approaches in particular—tend to see difference and
 developmental divergence from the fixed sequential stages as problematic or
pathological

From Behaviourism to Symbolic Interaction and Constructionist Approaches

- John Watson and B.F Skinner believes human development should be understood
according to observations of behavior instead of through speculations on genetic that are
unobservable

- Watson argued children are infinitely mouldable and that development is a continuous
process that involves behavioural changes shaped by a person’s unique environment
o The child’s environment and the people who surround them are largely
responsible for who or what they become

- Charles Horton Cooley – “looking-glass self” in personality development

o Three-part process:
 We imagine what we appear to be like to another person, then we imagine
how that person judges us, lastly, we feel pride or mortification based on
what we think others think of us
 Self-image is constructed according to how we assume others think
of us
 We see ourselves reflected, then feel pride or shame depending on
we think others will judge us

- George Herbert Mead – the self is made up of two parts: the “I” – the biological basis of
existence (sensual, impulsive, and physiological) and the “me” the learned and acquired
social component made up of all that we learn (values and norms) and come to know
through our interaction with others

One thing all these studies have in common = they appear to exclude children as a focus of
study.

Adding Children to the Theoretical Focus…But Not Yet Fully There

- Albert Bandura – “social learning theory” (social cognitive theory), in childhood studies
o Emphasized the importance of children observing and modeling the behaviours,
attitudes, and reactions of others around them
o Human behaviour in terms of ongoing reciprocal between children operating
cognitively under their environmental influences

- Urie Bronfenbrenner (a developmentalist) – focuses on how a person’s biologically

influenced characteristics interact with a set of environmental spheres and forces that
shape behaviour and development
o Human development occurs within a set overlapping economical systems that
operate together to influence what people become as they develop
 - Model is depicted as a set of circles. And attempts to capture the complicity and dynamic
nature of human development
o Microsystem = activities and actions in the person’s immediate surroundings
(home, school, peers) all which shape behaviour
o Mesosystem = connections and interrelates between and among microsystems
(the connection between positive and supportive home environment and strong
performance in school)
o Exosystemic = compromises the social systems that children do not directly
experience but may influence their development such as a parent’s work
environment
o Macrosystem = includes cultural, subcultural, and social class context in which all
other systems are embedded

- Lev Vygotsky – the recognition that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the
development of cognition
o Examine the relationship between culturally specific practice and child
development
o sociocultural theory – focuses on how cultures (values, beliefs, custom, etc., of a
social group) is transited through social interaction or co-operative dialogues
between children or learners and more knowledgeable members of society
 children develop adaptive competencies, when it appears at the social
label, children internalize knowledge at a personal level allowing them to
engage in inner speech and higher mental functions

Socialization Theories
- socialization has been described as the developmental learning process through which
children learn how to enter and participate in their social worlds.
o Different cultures teach children different sets of expectations and conventions
- Socialization involves social integration through the child’s internalization of norms
o Primary socialization: takes place in childhood
o Secondary socialization: takes place later in life, it involves a recalibration of
roles and identity based on changing expectations as the individual moves through
the life course (as parents’ workers, retirees, etc.).

- Children learn from what they are rod directly, what they see, and hear
o Socialization can be direct or indirect, intentional, or unintentional or even
accidental

- Agents (or agencies) of socialization are the social institutes and the individuals within
the that most affect children’s development
o Family, school, peer group, the media

- Socialization is still perceived as largely imposed on children by authority figures or

other adults’ agents
o Children however are rarely seen as important for decision-making within
institutions of socialization
 - Socialization has been criticized for being “adult-centric” in its neglect of children as
social actors
- Also, for being “a historical in the generalization of a specific, socially constructed
arrangement of childhood.” And for ignoring “inequalities and particular interest
implicated in this arrangement”

Recent Critiques of (Social and Psychological) Developmental Theories

The developmental approach within psychology and sociology are the dominant theoretical
approach in childhood studies

- Development theories far, the child as an incomplete adult, one who is in adult-in-the-
making
- Frames children as underdeveloped and as lacking power and knowledge
- Childhoods is conceptualized and related as deficit
- Fail to see children as capable of being social agents or doers in their social worlds and
assume either biology and adults “do” things to and for children
- Tend to not focus on the “here and now” of childhood

International and National Initiatives towards Children’s Rights

In 1990, at the World Summit for Children, world leaders made a joint commitment and issued
an urgent, universal appeal to give every child a better future. This was the largest gathering of
world leaders in history.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

- Universally agreed-upon set of standards and obligations expected to be respected but
those governments who have signed the agreement
- Respect of child regardless of race, colour, sex, language, religion, opinions, origins,
wealth birth state or ability

Four main commitments:

1) The best interest of the child
2) Right to survival and development
3) Children’s participation
4) Non-discrimination

In 2022, the UN called on world leaders to joining a global movement aimed at building a world
fit for children
- Put children first
- Eradicate poverty
- Leave no child behind
- Care for every child
- Educate every child
- Protect children from harm and exploitation
- Protect children from war
- Combat HIV/AIDS
- Listen to children and ensure their participation
 - Protect the Earth for children

A Canada Fit for Children = as Canada’s national plan of action in response to the international
agreement A World Fit for Children.
- It claimed to guide Canada’s collective efforts towards strategies that were child-centred,
multisectoral, forward-looking, and collaborative.
- It also identified ways to promote and to protect children’s rights, including greater
public awareness of the CRC.
- The document contained a plan of action that reflected a consensus on goals, strategies,
and opportunities for action on key priorities within four central themes:
o supporting families and strengthening communities,
o promoting healthy lives,
o protecting children from harm,
o promoting education and learning.

In 2007 the Standing Sente Committee on Human Rights released a report that clearly indicated
that Canada’s attempts at improving children’s rights and fulfilling its international obligations
were inadequate
- Canada must fully incorporate the CRC into its policies, planning, and programs, and put
into practice the other commitments made at both national and international levels.
Canada is no closer to achieving this today than when the Senate Committee identified
the problems.

New Sociologies of Childhood

The goal of these theorists and of new theorizing is to provide a better understanding of
childhood that recognizes children as social agents and further acknowledges the capacity they
have for autonomy and competent decision-making—this would in turn better inform policy and
research
- focuses on an appreciation of what children are in the present, rather than what they will
eventually become
children are seen and understood through their communication and interaction as participating
actively in the construction of their own social situation (agency), but children and childhood are
also understood as being constituted in relation to the adult world (structures) in which they live

Despite important sociological research being done in Canada today, there is still much room for
improvement when it comes to developing a new sociology of childhood in this country.

Summary:
- children continue to be marginalized and remain far from the focus of attention in
theories that profess to help explain child development
- the new theories of childhood that have emerged alongside international initiatives aimed
at improving children’s rights remind us that children are worthy of research and
theorizing in their own right
- children should not be seen as mini adults
o they should be recognized as people, social agents, doers, and disempowered
group who warrant sociological attention
 we being to recognize the importance of understanding the subjective add
collective experiences of children today
- We need to recognize childhood as an important and permanent structure in society,
which both adults and children help to shape and reshape, across (sub)cultures and time.
- we need to listen to children as they express what it is like to stand in their shoes and live
in their worlds
- As we come to see how children fare in the institutional locales that make up their social
world, it will become obvious that more and better child-focused research could and
should inform our understanding of Canadian children and childhoods.

Lecture Notes
Theorizing about Children
- Children were not considered much in sociological theorizing until much more recently
o We see this across many countries
- Previously examined children in the context of families and education – not focusing
solely on children
- Many of the theories about children come from a developmental perspective, the
journey to becoming an adult

Nature-Nurture Debate
- Examines why humans behave how they do – is it a result of their genes or
environment?
- Nature: Completely generic
- Nurture: Completely environment
- Influences of behaviour fall somewhere along the
continuum – neither completely one or the other
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) – NATURE
- Age of enlightenment questioned religion and gave rise to science
- People wished to understand nature and the social world
- Developed theory of natural selection to understand the rise of certain animals and
reasons for their behaviour
- Blueprint for behaviour and appearances lies in genes (i.e., nature)
- Genes vary greatly
- Some are better suited for certain environments
- Focused mostly on non-human species

Social Darwinism: nature

• Group of like-minded thinkers who applied Darwin’s theory to human behavior
• Looking at biological makeup to understand why humans are the way they are
• Survival of the fittest – some people become more powerful because they are innately
”better”
• Still applied to research today
• Initially believed to be rooted in science, but then used to converge/change others to
follow certain ways of life

Evolutionary Psychology: NATURE

• Supports and maintains the nature argument
• Theory: Typically developing children will have the same life outcomes regardless of
geographic region, culture, or historical era based on genes
• There is no way to avoid behaviors because of genetics
• i.e., environment and social factors don’t change life trajectory
• Twin studies have often been used to support this theory
• Raised twins a part and compared their personalities/ behaviors to see how
familiar they are and looking at genetically influenced behaviors
• In this field of research there are caveats (i.e., counter explanations), of course!
• Some people don’t fully support the theories

Psychoanalytic Perspectives: NATURE AND NURTURE

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• Examined many biological assumptions
• But also acknowledged impact of relationships - nurture
• Developmental theory “stages of psychosocial development” influenced by biological
assumptions
• Focus on sexual stages (i.e., oral, anal, phallic, etc.) – nature
• Human psyche has more than one aspect and they interact to form a whole:
• ID: primitive and instinctual part of personality (infant stage)
• Instinctual, impulsive
• EGO: Part of the id that has been modified by the influence of the external world
• What is acceptable and not acceptable in society
• What is right and wrong and tries to tame the ID with that
• Balances ID and SUPEREGO
 • SUPEREGO: Incorporates values and morals of society which are learned
through others

• Other stage-based approaches taking both debates into consideration:

Erik Erikson (1902-1994)

• Stages emphasized psychosocial components
• Stages were based on chronological age (biology)
• Considered the impact of social experiences across the lifespan – each stage with
a crisis
• Based on the epigenetic principle: People grow in a sequence that occurs over
time in the context of a larger community

• Jean Piaget (1896-1980) – observations made he made of his own children

• Four stages of cognitive development (many sub-stages)
• Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years old): Learn about environment through sense and
motor
• Preoperational stage (2-7 years old): Ability to use mental representations
(pretend playing)
• Concrete operational (7-11 years old): Solving problems, envisioning numerous
outcomes (goes well with schooling)
• Formal operational (11 years old+): abstract thinking, hypothetical-deductive
reasoning (to think about the future, stand back and think about the big picture)

• Erikson and Paget were theorists who helped lay the foundation for more constructivist
approaches (sociological)

Behaviourism: NURTURE
• John Watson (1878-1958) and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990): Behavior should be understood
according to overt observations
• They believed that nurture was the determining factor
• Behavior is learned
Symbolic Interaction: NURTURE
• Highlights the importance of symbolic communication and interaction in human
development
• Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929)
• Another one on the nurture side of the debate
• Notion of personality being maintained through “Looking-glass self”:
1) Imagine what we appear to be like to another person
2) Imagine how the person judges us
3) Feel pride or mortification based on others perceived judgements
• Our sense of self is completely reliant on others’ views (socially based)
• Many criticisms…

Theories in the Nature-Nurture Debate

• Obvious strengths and weaknesses
• Even though they are relevant to the development of children, the focus is on adulthood
• Human behavior (shaped to be a doctor?)
• Psychological development (stages of crisis)
• Cognitive growth (excelling through stages to be a fully competent adult)
• Personality (reflection of others?)
• Study of childhood to understand adult pathologies

Considering Children (the beginning)

• Children began to receive attention in terms of study beyond their developmental
trajectory
• Focus remained on interactions with others and social environments
• Key players:
• Albert Bandura (1925 - )
• Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917 – 2005)
• Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934)

Albert Bandura
• Importance of observation and modelling – children are always watching!
• Children observe how others behave and code that information to guide them in the
future
• Social learning theory: How observations (nurture) and cognitive factors (nature)
interact to influence human behavior
• Bobo doll experiment (1961 – 1963): Studied children’s behavior after watching an adult
model interact with a Bobo doll (blow up clown)

Urie Bronfenbrenner
• Psychologist who closely examined the impact of social environment on development
• Most known for his Ecological Systems theory: Views child development as a complex
system of relationships affected by multiple levels of surrounding environment
• Microsystem: Immediate environment (home, school)
• Mesosystem: Connections among immediate environment
 • Exosystem: Indirect environment (parents work environment)
• Macrosystem: Social and cultural values (culture, social class)
• Chronosystem: changes over time (looking through a historical lenses)

Lev Vygostsky
• Focus was on social development of children within a cultural context
• Developed the Sociocultural Theory: Human learning is a social process, and our
cognitive functions are formed by interactions with those around us
• How culture (values. beliefs, attitudes) is transmitted through social interaction between
children and adults
• Results in culturally specific and adaptive competencies
• Once children learn from others, it begins to transmit as inner speech – thus
thoughts are a product of socialization

Socialization Theories
• Sociology is interested in how individuals become functioning members of society
• Socialization: developmental learning process through which children learn how to enter
and participate in their social worlds
• Culturally specific expectations and norms
• Necessary for society to reproduce values/norms

• Socialization is also lifelong social experiences by which individuals develop their

human potential and learn patterns of their culture
• Primary socialization: takes place in childhood
• Secondary socialization: takes place later in life and changes based on changing
expectations of the individual
• Socialization can be:
 • Direct or indirect
• Intentional (taught) or unintentional (observed and wasn’t intended to be
observed)

- Agents of Socialization refer to the social institutions and the indivuals within them that
most affect children’s development
o Family
 Immediate socialization a child gets, first thing the child looks up to and
internalize the behaviours
o School
 Kids socialize each other, they’re working together to influence each
others’ behaviours
o Peer groups
 Takes place within the school context, or extra circulars
o Extracurriculars
 Along with peers you have to consider coaches
o Media
 Social norms and biases

- Socialization is perceived to be imposed on children by adults and agents

o (agents - family, school, peer groups, extra circulars, media)

- Children are treated and studies as passive recipients – it’s not a two way street
o Children are passive beings and experience everything themselves

- Socialization theory criticized for being “adult centric”

o Viewing everything from the perspective of an adult

Critiques
Devleopmental Theories
- Framing child as being incomplete or as an adult in the making
- Fail to see children as social agents or capable beings
- Creates categories including the “at-rsik” child

Soicalization Theories
- Adult-centric
- Lack of mental content (influenced by culutres and values)
o Don’t focus on how cultures influence children and their dedvelopemtn
- Tend not to focus on the here and now of childhood
o They don’t think about the childs current stage of developemtn

Children’s Right
- In 1989, the UN General Assemby adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC)
o International human rights treaty set out to protect rights of children
 - Founded on pricicples of respect of dignity and worth, expected to apply to all children
everywhere
4 main pillars:
- the best interest of the child
- right to survival and development
- children’s participation
- non-discrimination

• 2002 the UN met again at the World Summit

• Adopted a Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children
• Developed a plan to implement articles previously developed
• ”New world for children”
• E.g., care of every child, protect every child, combat HIV/AIDS, listen to children
and ensure their participation

• Canada’s response to international plan  A Canada fit for children based on A world fit
for Children (CRC)
• Document contained an action plan with four themes:
• Supporting families and strengthening communities
• Promoting healthy lives
• Protecting children from harm
• Promoting education and training
• Most of these ideas/plans were mostly on paper, little put into action in the 1990s

• In 2007 a report was put forward (The Silenced Citizens) indicating response to
international obligations was inadequate
• Other reports followed
• Reports included lists of recommendations on issues for progress
• Corporal punishment; Adoption; Poverty; Youth justice; health
• Message: Canada needs to do better with regards to the UN’s CRC
• Are we closer today?
• Canada does not have an independent federal advocate to ensure voices of
Canada’s children do not go unheard
• Progress in the study of children

Children in Current Research

• Adults were treated as “beings”, while children as “becoming” (Qvortrup, 1994)
• Children were thought of as unstable, incomplete, incapable of independent
thought
• Now there is a push towards becoming more inclusive
• Children are being viewed differently now for a variety of reasons:
• Demographics (smaller families); Legal reasons; Socioeconomic shifts;
Globalization

• Now an emphasis on the voice of the child and their perceptions in research
 • Currently an emphasis on the voice of the child and their perceptions in research

New Sociologies of Childhood

• Developed alongside the rise of global children’s rights agenda
• Recognizes children as social agents and acknowledges the capabilities of they have for
competent decision making
• Goal is to better understand childhood in a child-centric way
• Going to the child and understanding their childhood through their eyes
• Focuses on what children are in their present instead of what they will become
• Children as agential - active doers in and of their social world

• Children do not passively adapt to and learn from their surroundings, but participate in
and influence
• Children contribute to reproduction of cultural/societal activities and routines
• This approach combines both macro (structural) and micro (agential) approaches
• Structural (macro) – interact with the adult world in which they live
• Agential (micro) – participate in the construction of their own social situation

• Good sociology of childhood understands childhood as relational and contextual

• Not the same for everyone
• Childhood is impacted by interactions and relationships with others (relational)
• Childhood is impacted by specific social contexts (contextual)
• Childhood takes place within specific social worlds

New Approaches in Canada

• Mostly on psychological or developmental approaches to children
• More recently (i.e., 21st century onwards) scholars have written on
• Children’s rights
• Need for inclusive conceptualizations of children worthy of study, understanding,
and attention
• Constructions of childhood
• What is child really? What does child mean for a child? Move away from
adult-centric views
• Room for improvement

Summary
- Nature vs. nurture
o Theorists involved in the debate
- Development theories
o Theorist
o Freud (his theories were more general)
- Socialization theories
o Primarily and secondary socialization
o Direct and indirect socialization
- Children’s rights
o UNCRC
 - New sociologies of childhood
o How we are really starting to think about things in a child centric way
Post-Lecture Review

Recognize different approaches to understanding childhood

Explain how conceptualization of childhood has shifted.
Examine theories of childhood
• Examine absence of study of childhood in Canadian Sociology until recently
• Learn about how theorizing childhood has changed
• Examine shifting thinking about childhood in line with approaches to children’s rights
• Understand which theories of childhood dominate Canada today