Childhood A Social Comstruct Sociology

Running head: CHILDHOOD: A SOCIAL COMSTRUCT
Sociology: Theories and Concepts
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Author Note

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CHILDHOOD: A SOCIAL COMSTRUCT
Childhood is often considered to be a concept which is socially constructed. They are of
the opinion that the concept of childhood has been constructed by society. The argument is about
that, what is meant by childhood is a construct. The ideas which are associated with childhood is
not fixed and differ according to varying culture, times and places. The ideas which re associated
with culture in various parts of the world and across cultures (Prout 2016). Even though there is
nothing more universal than a child. Every person in this world is born as a child from their
mother.
It is the phase in life in which a child is powerless, helpless and cannot speak. Babies also
cannot control their actions and bodies. Although human bodies are biological which cannot be
entirely perceived in any other way except for the physiological one. However, a child is born
into a social world and there are several expectations which regarding a child concerning various
others aspects of society, such as race, ethnicity, gender, disability as well as class. Childhood is
not entirely a biological or static phase but a global social construct (Prout 2016). The social
construct allows adults to control children and their actions. This has been possible because of
the social construct of childhood. Adults enjoy social powers over the children as they can
exercise their social power over the children as they are often marginalized within the society.
Children are institutionalized and their contributions to the society are discredited by adults from
the public space.
The history of social construct has history of evolving over time due to interpretation and
differences across cultures. Children have great influence on the culture of children as well as
society as a whole. The most active factor for societal construct of children are children
themselves. The children of the society are not modelled into important people of the society
during their childhood phase. The process of being productive members of the society involves

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CHILDHOOD: A SOCIAL COMSTRUCT
time as it is part of their growing up process (Prout 2016). Children who are very young
contribute to the social construct much more than the young teenagers who are ahead in the
process of growing up and maturing to be adults who are productive members of the society. The
meaning of childhood is different in varying societies and cultures across the globe. In order to
build healthy childhood among children it is very important to allow women to have voices
rather than being controlled by the adults through institutionalized marginalization.
There are fundamental differences between children and adults globally on the basis of
their maturity and physiological developments which the children are yet to achieve as they
mature with age. They also undergo psychological changes which they develop eventually and
not in the initial years of their childhood. The children tend to be dependent when they are young
and cannot control their action and themselves entirely. They need assistance of their parents and
adults for range of needs in their life, especially emotional, physical and biological (Wells 2015).
They learn about society, conventions, norms and expectations which are pre-established in the
society and they come to know about, eventually. It requires a long period of time for the
children to learn about the ways for socializing and being part of the society as a productive
member. It can, thus be stated that children are not entirely capable of running their own lives
which makes them be accountable for their own actions.
The position which the children are ascribed to, are set by the society more than their
actions. It cannot be said that it is fixed but differ from one culture, time and place to another.
There is difference of thought and perception concerning children primarily because of the
societal and cultural differences. These societal values and expectations tell about what the
children should do and should not do. Children are often expected to not do certain things at
certain age, which become part of the dominant societal construct of the society (James 2017).