World Yearbook of Education 2009

Childhood Studies and the Impact of Globalization: Policies and Practices at Global and Local Levels

Marilyn Fleer, Mariane Hedegaard, Jonathan Tudge

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415505345
• eBook ISBN: 9781135848552
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

The World Yearbook of Education 2009: Childhood Studies and the Impact of Globalization: Policies and Practices at Global and Local Levels examines the concept of childhood and childhood development and learning from educational, sociological, and psychological perspectives. This contributed volume seeks to explicitly provide a series of windows into the construction of childhood around the world, as a means to conceptualizing and more sharply defining the emerging field of global and local childhood studies. At the global level there has been increasing discontent with how children have been reified and measured. Prevailing Eurocentric and North-American notions of childhood and development across the North-South boundaries show vast differences in how childhood is constructed and how development is theorized.

The World Yearbook of Education 2009 volume provides comprehensive research from Asia-Pacific, the Americas, the African region and European communities and is presented with a special focus on education. It examines childhood from birth to twelve years of age, across institutional contexts and within both poor majority and rich minority countries. Cultural-historical theory has been used as the framework for investigating and providing insights into how childhood is theorized, politicized, enacted, and lived across these communities. A range of theoretical orientations informs this book, including cultural-historical theory, ecological theory, and cross-cultural research.

The World Yearbook of Education 2009 volume is organized into 3 sections:

Section 1: Examines the global construction of childhood development and learning

Section 2: Discusses the local conditions and global imperatives that arise from a broadly based analysis of the studies presented within this section

Section 3: Draws upon cultural-historical theory and ecological theory and brings together the themes explored throughout the preceding two sections.

The World Yearbook of Education 2009 volume seeks to make visible the cultural-historical construction of childhood and development across the north-south regions and scrutinizes the policy imperatives that have maintained the global colonization of families.

1 Constructing Childhood

Global—Local Policies and Practices

Marilyn Fleer, Mariane Hedegaard and Jonathan Tudge

At the global level there has been an increasing discontent with how children have been named, reified, and measured. Prevailing Eurocentric and North-American notions of “childhood” and “development” hold sway in how “childhood” is constructed and how “development” is theorized. Benchmarks about progression are viewed as universal, and little has been done to disrupt the colonization of families who have children who do not fit the Eurocentric milestones and who are asked to change their family practices in order to be “ready for learning.” In this book, we explicitly provide a series of windows on the construction of childhood around the world, as a means for conceptualizing and more sharply defining the emerging field of “global—local childhood studies.” Providing research evidence of the nature and range of childhood contexts across countries provides a conceptual platform in which to draw comparisons and to build new understandings of the concept of childhood.

The agenda that is developed throughout this book is concerned with the specificdimensions of contemporary construction of “childhood,” specifically the way globalized discourses constitute instruments (e.g. practices of policy and marketization) which disrupt, re-shape or contest family practices that educate and care for children. In this way, the book seeks to actively explore childhood studies from a range of perspectives, including those derived from education, sociology, and psychology. We begin this critique by drawing upon cultural-historical and ecological theory in order to build a dialectical relationship between global and local contexts to provide a conceptually rich discussion of “childhood” and children’s development. This perspective lies in contrast to the globalized practices of policy and marketization that we criticize. In providing a perspective of “global—local” that is dialectically framed, we move beyond the binary concepts of “individual” and “universal” or “general” and “particular.” Through this, we seek to give insights into how different countries address contemporary global politics shaping local childhoods.

Initially, it might be helpful to consider two of the ways in which the word “global” has been conceptualized. At times it has been used to mean “universal,” in the sense that development is sometimes viewed as occurring in much the same way in any part of the world. From this point of view, understanding how development takes place in any one group of human beings adequately explains how development does, or should, occur in any part of the world. In this perspective, a single measuring stick is adequate to determine who has developed optimally and who is deficient in one or more ways.

But the term “global” has also been used in the sense of globalization, or the spread of ideas from one part of the world (typically conceived as the United States or western Europe) to the rest of the world, in an apparent process of economic, ideological, or educational colonization (see Nsamenang, this volume). These two senses of the word are linked, to the extent that if development is thought of as universal and a certain way of thinking, or behaving, or believing is viewed as the best among one group of people in one part of the world, it makes perfect sense to export conditions likely to allow more people in other parts of the world to attain the same ways of thinking, behaving, and believing.

In our view, and that of the authors of the following chapters, these two related senses of the term “global” are dangerous. Culture is so heavily implicated in developmental processes that one has to consider local considerations about what should be viewed as optimal in children’s development. In other words, many measuring sticks have to be employed, rather than just one, to assess development in different cultural groups. If this is the case, one clearly must be cautious about the spread of ideas, or economic or educational institutions, from one society to others (or from a dominant group within a society to others that have been marginalized), whether in a form of active processes of colonization or by creating the conditions under which local or marginalized groups come to value aspects of the “modern” world.

What Does Global—Local Mean Across Communities?

It is important to note, however, that we are not advocating a local versus global approach to study children’s development. The global—local distinction can lead to a dichotomization of the understanding of what is meant by “global—local studies of childhood and children’s development.” In psychology, education, and sociology dichotomies (such as mind– body, nature—nurture, society—subject, etc.) have flowered. In ecological and cultural-historical approaches these dichotomies are transcended and turned into dialectical and complementary relationships. As Branco (this volume) argues, to understand children’s development one must consider “the intertwined nature of both general (species specific) and local (socioculturally specifc) aspects of human development.” Problems arise when “global” is only conceptualized as:

• universal, transcending specific times and place
• general laws, transcending unique cases and events
• theoretically abstract practices

and local as:

• specific places and time
• unique cases and events
• concrete practices.

The aim is to understand how a global approach to childhood and children’s development always has to include reference to specific times and places, and at the same time how general laws of children’s development have to encompass unique cases and events, and theoretical conceptions of children’s development have to relate to concrete practices. The particular events in a child’s development cannot be understood in themselves without using theoretical concepts, and theoretical conceptions of childhood and children’s development are worthless if they cannot be related to concrete practices in all their complexities.

In this book we present research that draws upon a theoretical wholeness approach in researching “global—local policies and practices”

• that provide insights into and critiques policy imperatives, pedagogical processes, and cultural contexts
• that provide insights into how different countries address contemporary global—local tensions
• that foreground the educational context, through research in institutions such as family, school, child care and preschool.

The chapters in this book examine research from birth to twelve years, across institutional contexts (families, schools, child care, informal learning centers, community spaces), and within both poor majority and rich countries from the industrialized (minority) world. Contributors to this book provide many different windows into the global—local study of childhood and children’s development from birth to 12, and through these presentations of research, provide new insights into how studies of children’s development can be framed. However, the periodization of childhood is not uncontested, and in drawing upon sociological theories, the next section seeks to explore the tensions found in the naming of “childhood.”

Are Globalized Views of “Childhood,” “Children’s Development,” and “Learning” Being Constructed or Politicized?

Traditional critiques have foregrounded the problems with uniformity and coherence in relation to the concept of childhood. Henricks (1997) argued that in the 1800s childhood had not been conceptualized as universal. It was the early 1900s that saw middle-class communities determine an identity for children constructing a “modern view of childhood.” “Childhood” became constructed and reconstructed into age periods and took on a public identity. However, constructions of “childhood” evolved over time from Rousseauian Naturalism, Romanticism, and Evangelicalism. Similarly, wage-earning labour was transformed into a period of “childhood,” the term “juvenile delinquent” was created, a “child study” movement was founded, “children of the nation” was conceived as a public phrase, “psycho-medicine” emerged, and finally “children of the welfare state” was invented (see Henricks, 1997, pp. 35–36). Henricks determined that modern childhood was “legally, legislatively, socially, medically, psychologically, educationally and politically institutionalized” (p. 35). Kincheloe (2002) argued that along with the institutionalization of childhood came a way for describing children in universal terms. For example, young children were referred to as “non-social” or “pre-social,” and later came the notion of “normal” and “abnormal” phases of children’s development, which were taken up into the public psyche in relation to children’s growth and development in many Western countries. Kincheloe (2002) wrote:

By undermining an appreciation of the diversity and complexity of childhood, such viewpoints have often equated difference with deficiency and sociocultural construction with the natural. The complicated nature of childhood, child study, child psychology, social work for children, and childhood education demands rigorous forms of analysis. (p. 76)

Each of these disciplines has now embarked upon a serious critique of how children and therefore “childhood” has been positioned within their field.

We are now seeing an overwhelming number of critiques that have been undertaken within and across early childhood education, developmental psychology, history, and cultural studies that suggest that “childhood” is a cultural construction (Cannella & Kincheloe, 2002; Prout & James, 1997). Much of this literature states that the “child” as a construct is “reified as the ‘other’ and is seen as innocent (i.e., simple, ignorant, not yet adult), dependent (i.e., needy, unable to speak for themselves, vulnerable, victims), cute (i.e., objects, play-things, to be watched and discussed)” (Cannella, 2002, p. 3). In line with more recent, postmodern studies of childhood (Cannella & Kincheloe, 2002), this book takes an interdisciplinary, critical, and international view of “childhood.” Indeed, because of interdisciplinary research, how children are viewed has changed and, we argue, will continue to change, over time. In this book, children have been positioned as central agents within the studies reported in the chapters that follow. For example, in Section I, Fleer and Quiñones discuss the concept of “children as researchers” from both a sociological and cultural-historical perspective.

Some authors in international cultural studies have suggested that as researchers we must remember that any discourse can be dangerous and that it should continually require historical and political examination. Cultural-studies scholars suggest that the discourses can be used to “generate a childhood studies that critiques itself, attempts to decolonize, and struggles to construct partnerships with those who are younger in the generation of human possibility” (Cannella, 2002, p. 8). Others (see Kasturi, 2002, p. 41) have argued that critical cultural studies seek to emphasise the “political dimensions of culture and society” and to examine the relations among culture, knowledge, and power in relation to children.

Postmodern critiques of “childhood,” in putting forward the notion of “postmodern childhood studies,” emphasize the need for the “disruption of the adult/child dualisms that predetermine people and generate power for one group over the other” (Cannella, 2002, p. 11). This line of critique moves beyond simply rejecting dualisms, but constructs the child as a political agent. In challenging universalism, postmodern childhood studies attempt to generate new possibilities for children. For instance, researchers have critiqued “children” and “childhood” in relation to policy development (Newburn, 1996; Oppenheim & Lister, 1996; Parton, 1996; Pilcher, 1996; Winter & Connolly, 1996), the children’s rights movement (Franklin & Franklin, 1996), representations in art and popular print such as cards, magazines etc (Higonnet, 1998), education, entertainment and advertising (Kenway & Bullen, 2001).

As scholars have critiqued and debated the cultural construction of “children” and “childhood,” the corporate world has actively used the construct of “childhood” to “create, sustain, and legitimate a type of consumer ethic that has come to dominate the landscape of childhood imagination” (Kincheloe, 2002, p. 42). Steinberg and Kincheloe (1997) and Kincheloe (2002) have argued that few scholars have noticed what they call the “corporate construction of childhood.” In recognition of the immediacy and depth of information made available to children through new technologies, and through the broadening worldview of children as a result of easy exposure to information, corporations have actively targeted and redefined “childhood.” Kincheloe (2002) stated

Corporate producers, marketers, and advertisers, recognizing the dynamics before other social agents, have reduced prior market segmentations based on chronological age to only: (a) very young children and (b) all other youth. Abandoning divisions suggested by developmental psychology, such business operatives realize how blurred age categorization has become. (p. 79)

The corporate world has redefined childhood in relation to marketing criteria. Market research by the corporate world has shown that in Western (Jipson & Paley, 2002; Kasturi, 2002; Scott, 2002) and also some Asian communities (Shon, 2002; Viruru, 2002) children are enjoying a “kidworld” (Cannella & Kincheloe, 2002) or “Kinder-culture” (Steinberg & Kincheloe, 1998) that runs covertly in parallel with the “adult world” (Kasturi, 2002; Pollock & Van Reken, 1999; Scott, 2002). Kincheloe (2002, p. 103) argued that when children are “[d]rawing on this technology-enhanced isolation, children turn it into a form of power. They know things that mom and dad don’t. How may parents understand the relationship between Mayor McCheese and the French Fry Guys in McDonaldland?” Children are enjoying the power of generating their own discourse (Scott, 2002), worldly input, and technological knowledge expertise (as a result of being able to operate technologies more easily than adults) (Provenzo, 1998), and through this children have problematized the traditional beliefs of “childhood” as “innocent,” “cute,” and in “need of protection” (Cannella, 2002; Henricks, 1997; Higonnet, 1998). Kincheloe (2002, p. 83) stated that “traditional notions of childhood as a time of innocence and adult-dependency have been challenged by children’s access to corporate-produced popular culture.”

Alongside arguments that center on children’s agency has been a growing number of studies that also have shown the impact of the corporatization of childhood. For example, Petterson (2005), in researching consumption and identity in Arabic cultures through an analysis of Arabic children’s magazines, noted that Egyptian communities are concerned for how their children can simultaneously be modern and Egyptian. He argued that a form of hybridity of cultures prevails—that is, rather than dualities of “galabiyya vs. jeans and button down shirts,” “veil vs. the salon hair style,” and “sermon vs. TV” what is observed is “the sheikh with a cell phone, the televised sermon, the veil, selected for color and pattern, as style accessory” (p. 196). For some groups in the corporate world, the hybridization has become a form of colonization. For instance, “Disney’s geographies appropriate and commodifes space, while the histories restructure time for corporate convenience. Disney is viewed as constructing and presenting specific, ideologically loaded stories and lessons for consumers to learn” (Kasturi, 2002, p. 44). Through this process, cultural groups become invisible or stereotyped. Kasturi (2002) suggested that “the unproblematized representations of race, class, and gender in Disney ‘stories’ (e.g., movies, comics, parks)” and on their websites (p. 45) scale up the U.S. set of highly questionable values to a global form of colonization. She argued that “Disney’s power lies in this subconscious form of colonization” (p. 43). However, the tensions between local and global forms of colonization are well known to the corporate world, as argued by Kincheloe (2002):

So concerned is McDonald’s about implanting this perception of localization/personalization in the mind of the public that the company actually employs a vice-president for individuality. The stated function of this office is to make “the company feel small” despite the reality of globalization. In Beijing, McDonald’s markets itself to the Chinese people not as an American but as a Chinese company. (p. 87)

Similarly, in the course of researching popular children’s culture, through an analysis of the Beanie Babies, Scott (2002) argued that along with many other artefacts are products “that have lubricated the wheels of materialist globalization, a complex site of both agency and control. Beanies join with many other Euro-American artefacts in the construction of a global capitalist hegemony…” (p. 72).

The authors of various chapters in this volume make similar points about the impact of these colonizing tendencies. Citing their previously published work (Artar, Onur & Çelen, 2002; Göncü et al., 1999), Göncü, zer and Ahioğlu (this volume) state that:

children’s games are influenced by their economic and cultural context, and that decreasing frequency of games and children’s reliance on ready-made toys revealed that the local meaning of childhood is being replaced by that which is introduced to Turkey through the free market economy and globalization.

Nsamenang (this volume) also mentions these problems in relation to the global impact of poor country worldviews of childhood, particula...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Series Editors’ Introduction
• 1 Constructing Childhood: Global–Local Policies and Practices
• Part I The Constructions of Childhood Development and Learning
• PART II Global–Local Childhood Studies
• PART III Global Politics Shaping Local Childhoods