Page 214 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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13

Rethinking the Sociology

of Childhood: Conflict,

Competition and

Cooperation in

Children’s Lives

Robert van Krieken and Doris Bühler-Niederberger

INTRODUCTION – THE SOCIAL that in itself shouldn’t render us meaningless.
CONSTRUCTION OF CHILDHOOD But in this society, we are meaningless,
because we’re powerless. We have no voice.’ 1
In the US political soap opera, The West This is not the first time that the question of
Wing, there is an episode where a group of children’s ‘voice’ has been addressed in
middle-school children calling themselves the public sphere, but over the course of the
the ‘Future Leaders for Democracy’ visit the twentieth century and into the twenty-first,
White House with a view to arguing for low- some important shifts have taken place in the
ering the voting age. In the ensuing discus- way children and childhood are understood,
sion, the point is made that the exclusion both in broader public debate and in the
of children from voting has the effect of social sciences. 2
uncoupling decision-making from decision- The background to our analysis of these
consequence bearing. The argument was that shifts is the three-fold distinction between
it seems problematic that those who have to the concepts competition, conflict and coop-
live with the future outcomes of today’s eration. The roots of this conceptual triad lie in
debates and arguments should be denied any Park and Burgess’ (1969 [1921]) outline of
voice in those public discussions. As the what they saw as four central social processes:
young man advocating the lowering of the competition, conflict, accommodation, and assim-
voting age, Cody, puts it: ‘We’re children, and ilation. For Park and Burgess, competition