Leena Alanen

Kindheit als generationales Konzept

Seit der Entstehung des neuen soziologischen Teilgebietes, der Soziologie der Kindheit, vor etwa zehn bis funfzehn Jahren, hat sich das Wissen uber Kinder und Kindheit als sozialen Phanomenen kontinuierlich entwickelt und erweitert. Dieses Kapitel setzt sich damit auseinander, dass Kindheitssoziologen die Tatsache, dass Kindheit im Grunde durch das soziale „Faktum“ Generation konstituiert wird, noch nicht klar genug erkannt und deshalb noch nicht in ihre Forschung und ihr Nachdenken uber Kindheit eingearbeitet haben.

Childhood with Bourdieu

About the book This book breaks new ground in its theorizing of childhood within sociological concepts. Over the course of nine chapters, authors give detailed accounts of the lives of children in a range of societies, including England, sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Ireland, France, Andhra Pradesh and Finland. They describe their studies in the light of Bourdieus key concepts field, habitus and capital to consider the social status of childhood, the tensions between schooling and work in the lives of children, childrens relations with adults, and the pressures on childhood resulting from globalization and from the professional discourse of those adults who aim to help them. The authors are all established researchers who are committed to improving the social status and well-being of childhood, in social, economic and political worlds that too often fail to accord children respect for their human rights.

‘Intersectionality’ and other challenges to theorizing childhood

The new stage in research on children and childhood (since the 1980s) has broadly coincided with what has been called the “postmodern turn” in the social sciences—in fact, this “turn” was well underway when the movement for a differently conceptualized study of childhood was started. It may be even the case that many of the ideas that have animated researchers to move into social studies of childhood, and which they have put into work in their research, may have originated in the discussions and controversies on and around modernity/postmodernity and what the (contested) postmodern condition was claimed to imply for understanding society and social life, and for social science research. For the development of the social sciences in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has been substantially shaped by key assumptions underlying theoretical approaches that defend both the epistemic validity and the historical significance of the “postmodern turn” (Susen, 2015: 1). In his comprehensive and systematic analysis of (and critical reflections on) the “postmodern turn” and its significance for today’s social science, Susen illustrates the far-reaching importance of this paradigmatic transformation that has been reflected in as many as five influential dimensions or “turns”: in (1) epistemology, (2) research methodology, (3) sociology, (4) historiography, and (5) politics. It is not difficult to recognize that particularly the first three of these five “turns” have been particularly influential to the re-formation of childhood research: the turn to relativism in the epistemology of social science, the turn to hermeneutics-inspired interpretivism in its methodology, and the turn to cultural studies in sociology. The engagement with postmodern thought peaked in the mid-1990s; the tide then started to change. Now postmodernism is thought to be “superseded” and has become “somewhat of an outmoded catchword” (Susen, 2015: 33). But even if its greatest influence is over, the presence of postmodernist modes of thinking continue in recent and current academic discourses—which provide exciting and inspiring ideas for childhood research to take on. This condition is important to keep in mind and to critically take account of. For postmodernism was never uncontroversial and continuities exist between modern and postmodern ways of theorizing. This being the case, the frameworks, approaches, concepts, and research questions that current academic—modern and postmodern—discourses suggest come with no guarantees. Theoretical challenges impose on us, and instead of relying on any given form of orthodoxy, we would do well to clarify what are the tacit assumptions and implications inherent in the conceptual tools and frameworks that we enthusiastically use in our research. Such a self-critical position of course applies to any serious researcher whatever his or her disciplinary field or research 410.11 CHD001–410.1177/0907568216631055ChildhoodEditorial editorial2016

Disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and childhood studies

From its beginning in 1993, this journal was ‘intended to act as a forum for research on childhood and children, as a forum where disciplines can meet, where findings can be presented and where new understandings and new perspectives can be generated’ (Frønes, 1993). By providing a meeting-place for researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, the journal would assist in developing the study of children and childhood into a multidisciplinary field and, with increasing familiarity with the work of others and enhanced collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, even towards interdisciplinarity. In his editorial to the first issue of Childhood, the journal’s first editor Ivar Frønes noted that ‘we could already speak of such disciplinary subfields as the sociology, the anthropology and the history of childhood’, and that ‘considerations of childhood and children were beginning to come to the front also in other disciplines, such as economics and political science’. (Developmental psychology is of course the oldest among ‘childhood disciplines’ within the social sciences, and did not get a mention in Frønes’ short list of emerging ‘new’ childhood disciplines.) In 2012, as the journal will soon start its 20th volume, the field of childhood studies seems to have become a truly multidisciplinary one. Today the field is populated not only by psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and historians, but also by geographers, philosophers, ethicists, economists, and many more. The recognition is that that childhood and ‘the child’ are indeed complex phenomena; understanding them properly, and not just partially, compels any disciplinarian to consult researchers from other disciplinary fields, and to develop efficient forms of communication and collaboration with them. The goal would be to integrate the central guiding vision(s) of the social study of childhood with compatible notions of children and childhood originating in other major disciplines concerned with children: an integrated, overarching framework for interdisciplinary childhood research. How far are we from reaching such a goal? Or even from establishing and solidifying links of meaningful communication and collaboration with colleagues in other disciplines, to start with? Many of us already seem to describe the field as an interdisciplinary field of study (cf. Thorne, 2007). Frequently – and increasingly so in recent years – one can read in articles published in Childhood mentions such as the ‘growing body of interdisciplinary childhood studies’ or the ‘interdisciplinary umbrella of childhood studies’. But also arguments are being made to the effect that childhood studies would now need to start engaging in a conversation across disciplinary boundaries and to start working to make the field genuinely interdisciplinary (cf. Morrow, 2011; Prout, 2005).1 In preparing ourselves for a true beginning we need to ask questions that Barrie Thorne raised in her editorial (2007) on what this claim of the field’s interdisciplinarity might mean. What animates 461592 CHD19410.1177/0907568212461592ChildhoodAlanen 2012

Are we all constructionists now

In the introduction to a book titled Politics of Constructionism, the two editors begin by claiming that a characteristic feature of the human sciences is that they eagerly respond to conceptual and linguistic innovations and new terminologies, and that new terminologies and their underlying theoretical presuppositions are in constant movement across both time and disciplinary boundaries (Velody and Williams, 1998: 1). They note that sometimes such innovations attract few users and their influence remains only local, whereas others have longer periods of popularity and gain sufficiently strong hold to last for more than a decade or so, and also attract scholarly interest from a variety of differing human science enterprises (Velody and Williams, 1998). Constructionism clearly is one fairly recent innovation in the social science, although by no means for philosophy with its long history of debating constructivism. (This is the term that philosophers use [see, for example, Kukla, 2000; Stam, 2014], whereas constructionism has been the term in the social sciences. Both are frequently used interchangeably.) Since the 1980s at the latest, the popularity of (social) constructionism has grown enormously in the social sciences and there are no signs today that its growth is set to diminish, despite simultaneous increase of critical discussion. Social constructionism has become a near transcendent perspective that appears in a variety of disciplines from sociology and psychology to geography, political science, and more. As to the social study of childhood, it is hard not to see that social constructionism has been exceptionally successful here. This can be evidenced simply by noting the numerous recurrence of social construct(ion), as a verb or noun, in the articles published in this journal. Take any recent number, for example, Childhood 21(4), and you will find that its eight articles mention the noun or verb form of construct(ion), sometimes accompanied by the epithet social, altogether 60 times. A search on all the issues of Childhood available online in turn will show altogether more than 400 mentions of social construct(ion) in the pages of the journal, their number increasing volume by volume.1 Also reading across the broader childhood study literature easily gives one the impression that the social study of childhood, ever since its “birth,” has been based on social constructionism. Michael Wyness (2015), for example, in his newly published textbook on childhood, notes that so much has been said in childhood studies about the socially constructed nature of childhood that social constructionism has in fact become its “theoretical orthodoxy” (p. 19). Why has the social constructionist perspective been so attractive in childhood studies? First, it has presented a novel way of understanding children’s (and their others’) lives and perceptions, and that these lives and perceptions can be changed. Social constructionism 580624 CHD0010.1177/0907568215580624<italic>Childhood</italic>Editorial research-article2015

Teoria do bem-estar das crianças

O texto discute as contribuicoes dos novos Estudos sobre a Infância em face da importância que tem assumido as criancas e a infância nos processos de reconfiguracao do bem-estar social nas sociedades ocidentais avancadas.

Early Childhood Education as a Social Field: Everyday Struggles and Practices of Dominance

In the dining room several small groups of children are sitting at their tables, having breakfast. The preschool teacher is also having breakfast, sitting at the adults’ table. Every now and then the children get noisy. The teacher reminds them about keeping quiet during meals. She puts two fingers in front of her lips and signals that during meals you should keep quiet. The buzzing stops and the children continue their breakfast silently. Then Laura, sitting in her chair, starts a conversation with the teacher, telling her what’s new. The teacher listens, answers and asks Laura for more. The children eat up their breakfast, get permission to leave the table and give their thanks. Two boys remain at one table, laughing and chatting loud. They have finished their breakfast and the teacher comes to them and says: ‘Matti, why are you running so wild? You never behave like that!’

Cross-disciplinary conversation in childhood studies: Views, hopes, experiences, reflections

LEENA ALANEN: Thank you all for agreeing to participate in this Special Anniversary Conversation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this journal. The theme of this second anniversary conversation is cross-disciplinarity in the study of childhood. To give a sense of context to our discussion could you please describe your career in terms of the academic disciplines which you have traversed. Have there been cross-disciplinary meeting points on the way? CLAUDIO BARALDI: I started my career studying social systems theory. For this purpose, I also looked at different approaches, including systemic theories of physics and life. Without abandoning my primary interest in theory, in a short time I learnt the importance of applying theories to empirical research. In the 1980s, in Italy, adolescents were addressed as an important social issue. Against this background, I started doing research on adolescents’ involvement in informal and formal groups, in collaboration with local administrations. This was an opportunity to focus on adolescents’ participation in groups as communication systems, mixing social systems theory with social psychology and studies on education. At the beginning of the 1990s, I started to focus on the ways in which socialisation may be explained through participation in communication. For this purpose, I analysed different theoretical viewpoints in sociology, communication studies, clinical psychology, social psychology and cybernetics. In the middle of the 1990s, I came across childhood studies during an international conference and research on childhood became my primary interest. I was fascinated by both the idea of exploring the meaning of children’s participation in communication systems, and by the possibility to combine different theoretical approaches in the field of childhood studies, for example, the Reggio approach to early childhood education, the Italian educational experimentation of children’s 760326 CHD0010.1177/0907568218760326ChildhoodAlanen et al. 25th anniversary special section: Conversations2018

Childhood studies: Conversation(s) in a conversational community

Disciplines are commonly discussed using certain metaphors. Along with arboreal metaphors (each discipline a branch on the tree of knowledge), what we might call real estate metaphors are ubiquitous in the discourse of disciplines. We speak of disciplinary ‘foundations’, ‘fields’ of knowledge, ‘turf wars’ among disciplines with competing claims to overlapping curricular ‘territories’ and so on. (Craig 2008: 8)

Childhood studies and the challenge of ontology

Does ontology matter in childhood studies? In their thinking and their research, should childhood scholars be actively concerned about matters of ontology? Might such a concern even hold a promise of contributing to theoretical and methodological progress in the multidisciplinary field of childhood studies? Such questions are certain to come up to childhood scholars when observing how in recent years distinct novelties have surfaced in scientific vocabularies. Prominent among them is the term ‘ontology’, often appearing in the context of discussions on ‘an ontological turn’. Since at least the late 1990s, ‘ontology’ has emerged and quickly spread in the literature and discussions of the social sciences and humanities, and well beyond them, up to computer and information sciences, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics. The quantitative growth in the use of the term has been spectacular, as is shown in a study based on a search of the Web of Science (Van Heur et al., 2013). For the 20-year period up to the year 2008, the study shows an increase by more than 770% in the number of scientific articles, review essays and other documents which contain the term ‘ontology’ or some of its variants. The authors of the study then ask whether such an ‘explosion’ can be taken to signify, effectively, a ‘turn to ontology’ as has been claimed.1 And if indeed there has been a ‘turn’, what kind of a turn are we witnessing? Has a fresh way of thinking been opened, perhaps even a new paradigm? Or alternatively, is the turn best considered as a case of introducing ‘ontology’ as another ‘buzzword’ – a ‘modern flowery phrase’ which is put into the place of some other concepts formerly used in academic research and discussion, as has also been argued? 2 A close look at the recent move to ontology makes it clear that whatever the move signifies, it is anything but a single, unitary endeavour. Taking stock of the so-called ‘ontological turn’ in the field of economics, Pratten (2007a, 2007b) notes that a range of individuals and groups in the field are dealing with ‘ontology’ but in fact pursue quite distinct projects with varied intellectual ambitions. The conceptions of ontology that they deploy are distinct, and the ontological projects also come to competing conclusions concerning what ontological theorizing can or will contribute to the discipline. Similar conclusions are drawn practically in any other discipline or research field: different notions of ontology are deployed, with the result that it is not easy to understand which field of research the subject of ontology belongs to and how the notion might be useful for research. How has childhood studies fared in relation to such a turn? A tentative overview of the main journals that publish childhood research would seem to suggest that matters of ontology have hardly surfaced within this field. In Childhood, for instance, even the term 704539 CHD0010.1177/0907568217704539ChildhoodAlanen research-article2017