Childhood Vulnerability: Systematic, Structural, and Individual Dimensions

Abstract

This article examines the concept of vulnerability as an analytical category to be applied in childhood studies. It takes neither a clinical nor a psychological perspective, but one based on the theory of childhood. The focus is on which elements in the shaping of society make childhood particularly vulnerable and place children at risk. Modern childhood and adolescence are based on ideas of development, education, protection, and rights. But this implies that these very goods are always endangered, insecure, vulnerable, and threatened. Therefore, this article starts by formulating an approach within the theory of childhood that links vulnerability to an important idea in social theory, namely, that of insecurity. It then reconstructs the use of the concept of vulnerability and discusses its potential as an analytical category in childhood studies. The final section sketches a provisional taxonomy that differentiates between system-related and structural dimensions and can be used to address the question of vulnerability in the childhood life phase.