Response to Review of Rethinking Childhood

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments 15(2), 2005 Response to Review of Rethinking Childhood Peter B. Pufall Richard Unsworth Khan Liberal Arts Institute, Smith College Northampton, Massachusetts Citation: Pufall, Peter B. and Richard Unsworth. “Response to Review of Rethinking Childhood.” Children, Youth and Environments 15(2), 2005. We are delighted with CYE’s thoughtful and enthusiastic review of Rethinking Childhood. The reviewer’s closing evaluation of the book as “present(ing) an outline for a radical new paradigm and methodology for studying and working with young people” captures our guiding theme and goal of the collected contributors. In stark contrast, Jan Qvortrup, reviewing our book in Science and Society, states that “it is misleading to launch (our book) as presenting a new paradigm.” Curiously both views are valid, but only if within the context of contemporary European scholarship. Qvortrup’s intellectual roots are in Europe where what we call the new paradigm of Childhood Study was born and now flourishes among European scholars representing a variety of behavioral and social science disciplines. This emerging European tradition provides guidance for the future of child study in the U.S., and we urge readers to view Alison James’ contribution to our book as an introduction to that emerging tradition. The new paradigm is still gestating—or at best neonatal—in the U.S., and, where it is developing, it was born in and remains attached to a single academic discipline, namely, applied developmental psychology or cultural psychology. Although these fledgling US efforts share the interdisciplinary ambitions of the European tradition, these ambitions are only beginning to be realized. In our view, the new paradigm will yield a new understanding of children and an ethical relation between socialbehavioral science and society only if it is interdisciplinary. In short, the intellectual transformation of individual scholars is not enough; that transformation has to be coupled with a social-intellectual restructuring of academies. Neither of these goals is easy. Moreover, the conceptual facets of new paradigms are difficult to absorb as a whole; typically, when first encountered, one facet attracts more attention than others. The present CYE reviewer focuses on the proposition that children are agents. What they do has consequences for their own growth and the organization of the immediate social world within which they are 424 developing. Further, they have a unique voice, i.e., their views of the world are not always coincident with those embodied in adult beliefs and institutions. Being charmed by the words of children is not new; however, by insisting that we listen to what children say and making them part of our human dialogue, we abandon the cannons of science. When we listen to children, we enter their world. We are accepting that childhood is not simply a social construct into which children fit or by which they are guided. Rather, it is something that they mutually construct. If we are to listen and to respect their agency, we must realize that the methodology of the new paradigm means we are engaged in social experimentation. The latter is the most challenging facet of the new paradigm, and, in our view, even European scholars are only beginning to understand the implications of being simultaneously scholars and activists. This does not mean we are not without a systematic example: Richard Lerner’s Liberty: Thriving and Civic Engagement Among America’s Youth offers a thoughtful and well-structured introduction. There is less ambitious guidance within our book. Several chapters speak directly to how education and legal institutions constrain agency and voice. These writers suggest ways in which social institutions should be reconstituted so that children’s agency and voice are utilized in the mutual construction of their childhood. Peter B. Pufall is an emeritus professor of psychology and a senior fellow of the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute at Smith College. He is co-editor with Harry Beilin of Piaget's Theory: Prospects and Possibilities. Richard P. Unsworth is a senior fellow of the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute at Smith College where he was dean of the chapel and a professor of religion. ...