Page 223 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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194 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

played by children in the construction of progressively more influential both as consumers
their social world, their lives remain framed of education and governors of schools, pupils have
lost the few bargaining powers they once had.
by a number of core institutional settings,
(Wyness, 1999: 358)
particularly the school, health and welfare
systems, and to this extent the socialization Similarly in relation to health, James and
approach still has much to offer. Here, too, James (2004) point out for the example of
there is a wide variety of research pro- childhood obesity that the policy focus on
grammes in progress, and we can only high- this question has reflected more the adult
light a selection of the main issues. In priorities concerning the longer-term effects
relation to schooling, the core concerns cur- of obesity as children become adults than
rently include literacy, gender differences, those of children themselves, who also have
new technologies, children with special more immediate concerns, such as mental
needs, bullying, and the varying impacts of and sexual health, which are given dispropor-
neo-liberalism and the ‘marketization’ of the tionately less attention (James and James,
education system around the globe. With 2004: 165–6). In general it remains an open
respect to health, they encompass infant mor- question how much ‘voice’ is given to chil-
tality, smoking, drugs and alcohol, sexuality dren in relation to medical care, social wel-
and HIV/AIDS, obesity, suicide and mental fare interventions, and their own schooling.
health, and general well-being among chil- The exact nature of the relationship between
dren. In the field of welfare, research themes school, family, leisure, and work, as well as the
include the operation of institutional and power balance between parents, state, and
foster care, the relation between child and other organized authorities, and children con-
youth welfare and criminal justice, uneven- tinues to constitute a central concern for the
ness in service provision across class, ethnic- sociological theory and research in these fields.
ity and the urban/rural divide, the question of
children’s capacity to seek or refuse welfare
intervention independently of their parents or
adult carers, and the role of child welfare TOWARDS NEW CONCEPTUAL
service provision in social and economic FRAMEWORKS?
development generally.
Running through the heart of much of this Although there are now a number of interest-
research is a set of questions concerning the ing discussions of the theoretical dimensions
extent to which children are being conceptu- of research in the sociology of childhood
alized as social agents in their own right, as (James et al., 1998), there is still only a lim-
opposed to issues being framed primarily in ited engagement with sociology’s ‘big’
terms of the concerns and interests of adults. themes, such as globalization, state formation,
For example, in relation to education policy individualization and post- or ‘second’moder-
reforms over recent decades in the developed nity, citizenship and individualism,
countries, Michael Wyness (1999: 354) has the long-term decline of patriarchy, postmod-
argued that there has been only a little move- ernization, changing configurations of power
ment towards treating children more as com- and authority, or shifting constructions of
petent social actors. The rhetoric of ‘choice’ the nation-state and sovereignty. For example,
which is so central to the subjection of the work of Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995)
schooling to the mechanisms of the market on family life and individualization has a
will still treat parents as the social agents or range of implications for the sociology of
consumers making the choices, not school childhood (Kelley, et al., 1998), and Beck
pupils themselves. As he puts it, (1997) has also made a very suggestive
attempt (drawing on the work of Heinz Abels,
There is almost an inverse relationship here
between the changing fortunes of parental and 1993) to include childhood in his analysis of
pupil influence. As parents appear to have become the ‘second modernity’ and contemporary