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192 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

In addition to constructing a different it also generates particular forms of inequality
range of opportunities and life-chances, in relation to the extent and type of access to
globalization processes constantly reconfig- such technology. The term ‘digital divide’
ure relations of power and inequality and (Koss, 2001) has been used to capture the
generate new forms of poverty. The extent divisions between those with consistent and
and distribution of poverty varies signifi- effective access to the new communications
cantly according to age, so that a particular technologies and those with little, poor, or no
shift in the overall rate of poverty will pro- access. In her overview of the research in the
duce much greater changes for children and field, Sonia Livingstone (2003) has indicated
the elderly than for adults aged 18–50. The that the key concerns in relation to children’s
global economy throws up new forms of use of the Internet include the changed forms
work in which children figure prominently, of identity-construction and leisure activity,
so that the extent and impact of child labour the transformation of processes of learning
is central to the everyday experience of most and literacy, the question of new dangers and
of the world’s children, creating a problem- problems related to expanded access. These
atic relationship with school and family life. include evolving commercial interests, as
This is a question which is not confined to well as children’s access to each other
the less economically advanced countries; and adults, the impact of particular kinds of
for example, in Britain a number of studies content, especially in relation to sex and vio-
have shown the extent to which children’s lence. In all of these areas there are signifi-
paid work, such as newspaper and milk cant inequalities closely connected to other,
delivery, fast-food service, is far more exten- more familiar, social inequalities to do with
sive and problematic than is generally wealth and income across the globe, and this
assumed (Hobbs et al., 1992; Lavalette, will become an increasingly important field
1994, 1996). of study in the sociology of childhood.
Another especially important issue is the
effects that global economic forces have on
government policies in relation to children, Children’s rights, citizenship,
which structure their lives in varying ways. and the law
For example, Bradshaw (1993) has argued on
the basis of a study of children’s experiences The children’s rights movement evolved out
in Zambia that the impact of the global debt of the orientation towards ‘child-saving’
crisis, especially cuts to government spend- (Platt, 1969), with the emergence of the
ing in health and education, has fallen partic- United Nations Convention on the Rights of
ularly heavily on children. More generally, in the Child in 1989 an important watershed
countries where welfare provision is weaker, (Archard, 1993; Eekelaar, 1986, 1992;
this also correspondingly increases adults’ Freeman, 1998). Jeremy Roche (1999) has
dependence on the income generated by pointed out that there are two unavoidable
child labour, and decreases their capacity and problems characterizing the claims to citi-
willingness to ‘invest’ in their child’s future, zenship and rights made in relation to chil-
since the needs of the present are too press- dren. The first is that, although every
ing. This also underpins phenomena such as category of citizenship refers to a variety of
child prostitution, which in turn is interlinked types of personhood, the category ‘child’
with global tourism patterns. covers a particularly diverse range, from a
Although the spread of new communica- newborn infant to a 15-year-old. The argu-
tions technologies and the internet has the ments for citizenship rights are more persua-
potential to ‘globalize’childhood in the sense sive the older the child is, but like the
of strengthening differing forms of social question of children’s criminal responsibility,
interaction across geographical boundaries, there will always remain a border zone or a