The impetus for this edited collection grew out of a desire to highlight the work of scholars in and affiliated with the Childhood and Social Institutions (CSI) Program at Kingâs University College, London, Ontario . The book takes as its focus the contexts of childhood and youth, both in terms of geography and in the encounters of everyday life. The CSI program at Kingâs was the first university college program anywhere in the world, but particularly in North America, to offer a three- or four-year undergraduate degree in what has become known as the ânew paradigmâ of the social study of childhood . Faculty teach a range of critical theoretical approaches to childhood and the program is multi-disciplinary in focus. More recently we have introduced certificate or diploma courses in Childhood and the Justice System, and in Child Advocacy. Our program combines a unique focus on identifying often-overlooked child competencies and capabilities, a constructive questioning of existing understandings of childhood , and an exploration of the changing status of children and childhood in Canada and internationally. We take a critical view of the social institutions of childhood âthe home , the school, the legal system, the educational system and others. Students can take exchanges in Sweden and in the UK . Our students engage with the opportunity to gain skills in critical thinking and social and historical analysis as well as in understanding how childhood is experienced by children. We concentrate on issues around childrenâs rights , childrenâs agency and power relations exercised by and experienced by children. Our stance is that here, we take childhood seriously. This year Dr. Alan Pomfret, who was instrumental in setting up this program in the late 1990s, retires. It is in celebration of the thinking that he has inspired but also with an eye on what is next that we present the following chapters to you.
What the following chapters offer are a range of voices that reflect the multi-disciplinary nature of Childhood Studies . Some of the chapters and responses highlight views from those who might not even associate themselves with the discipline , and yet find themselves advocating for ideas that are deeply rooted in the theoretical journey that has developed over the last 20+ years. Indeed, part of the ambition here is to increasingly make those connections and allow for a more meaningful partnership between academics and practitioners from a range of backgrounds to unite behind an awareness of both the contextualised nature of childhoods but also the active way in which children come to make meanings within those spaces where they experience their everyday lives.
In the dialogue that follows we simply aim to shine a light into partial yet significant areas of childrenâs lives. As a result, this book will pursue a sense in which Childhood Studies needs to zoom out from a predisposition to isolate the child, which has been seen as a necessary part of conceptualising childhood . As a result, our ambition is to focus on the place of the child through a consideration of both structure and agency, and by this seek to recognise the interconnected nature of the arenas within which children live their everyday lives, âthis shifts the social study of childhood from a political stance, which was necessary in the early days of the formation of the new paradigm, to a more nuanced research agenda which represents more closely the reality of childrenâs⌠livesâ (Seymour and McNamee 2012: 104).
It is by establishing a sense of the context within which children live their lives that this book will argue that we can come to understand the processes of agency more effectively. It is a perspective that has application much wider than simply children in Canada and is reflected in discussion in Sweden and the UK as well; thus reflecting the variable and changing construction of childhoods and the implications this has for childrenâs everyday experiences. The discussions that follow are not meant to capture a comprehensive view of childhoods across North America and Europe , but rather through some focused exemplars offer a basis for dialogue, which if explored more widely will enrich the tapestry of our understanding.
Contextualising Childhoods
Why âcontextualising childhoods?â A growing feature of the Program which we introduced above is the extent to which students are showing an interest in applicability (as seen through our certificates and diplomas in Child Advocacy, and in Childhood and the Justice System). However, what has become clear is that for these courses to have meaning , and we would argue to ultimately be effective in providing a foundation for challenge and change, students need to embrace the theoretical connections between social structure and the agentic processes that come to inform action. Much debate within the academy, has in years past, reflected the sparring (both gentle and at times more aggressive) between camps that have raised a banner in support of one of these elements over the other as they make their case for the value of the discipline to the wider world.
However mutual exclusivity is not, in our opinion, where the value lies but rather in the interrelationship of structure and agency. None of this is new. The work of Habermas (1987) for example on Lifeworlds and Systems Worlds shows the interconnection between institutionalised spaces and relational spaces, which in its simplest form reflects the way in which tradition and culture come to impact everyday life. The notion of colonisation that exists within this is also of particular relevance to a discussion on childhood, where adult attitudes come to dominate and define childrenâs experiences. Such thinking invites a reflection on the notion of capability spaces and the extent to which the nature and type of opportunities that there are in societyâinform ongoing attitudes and ways of thinking about self . Here structure shapes agencyâwith implications for experiences.
Last year we published a paper (McNamee and Frankel 2017) in response to a framework that one of us had been exploring as part of a new publication (Frankel 2017). What the framework presented was a view of the structure-agency connection developed through a reflection on Adrian Jamesâ (2010) notion of a fabric, in which structure represents one strand and agency, interwoven with it, the other (more on this and the framework in Chap. 6). However, what this paper did was that it allowed us to argue why, in the context of research analysis, this relationship was of such value. At the heart of it was a recognition of the way in which the individual was positioning themselves within a certain setting and how their interactions could be reviewed in light of a constant process of reflection and refractionâshaping their actions or reactions. As such it highlighted the contextualising of the agentic process, as the children responded to perceived interpretations of how they should behave (as children) in this interaction . Out of this the notion of Contextualising Childhoods emerged as we wished to explore the extent to which we can increase our awareness of this interactive process of meaning making in relation to different settings. What the following chapters therefore offer are illustrations of the extent to which recognising a âcontextualisedâ back drop offers a basis for analysisâboth in terms of what this âmightâ mean for childrenâs experiences and what this âdoesâ mean for some.
Structure of the Book
As such the chapters in this book reflect a range of examples that show how the notion of contextualising childhoods has application to furthering understanding in different settings but also at different stages within a process of analysis. To start, therefore, our focus reflects how understanding the structural dimension helps to build a backdrop from which we can come to understand or at least begin to assess childrenâs experiences. We begin this by foregrounding the chapter contributed by the person to whom this text is dedicated. Alan Pomfretâs chapter brings together a comprehensive overview of theoriesâseveral from outside of Childhood Studiesâwhich nonetheless aid in the project of contextualising childhood . Many of these will be pointed to in the chapters that follow, although his discussion of capabilities (Sen 2011) brings a new focus to the discussion of competence and its links with agency. It allows us to see how context matters in that capabilities require not only the individual having the capacity to make choices and impose them on the world (James 2010) but there also being a situational opportunity within which to act. The discussion of thin and ...
