Reflections on the Sociology of Childhood in the UK

Abstract

The emergence and development of the sociology of childhood in the UK is strongly connected to the establishment of this area of study in the Nordic countries. However any account of this must also look at the wider context of political and cultural constructions of childhood, children and young people, and intergenerational relationships in the UK. In the early stages of childhood studies there was a synchrony between the orientation of the new social studies of childhood in the UK and changes in how children came to be politically positioned, particularly with respect to an emphasis on children’s voices, their capacity to be agentic and their status as social actors. Since then the political status of childhood has become more problematic. In the last few years there has been a notable shift towards the demonization of teenagers (adolescents) along with rising levels of anxiety concerning children generally. This represents something of a divergence between the orientations of UK policy and politics and contemporary orientations of the sociology of childhood.