Abstract
Analyses of globalization, children, and childhood are currently only in the initial stages. From a superficial perspective, children belong in the “private” or domestic sphere. They are part of local environments and not directly influenced by globali-zation. In the eyes of many, globalization is part of the “public” sphere – it impacts macro processes and deals with shifting political economies, emerging markets, politics, and institutional arrangements. Upon closer examination, one finds that there is, actually, a multi-dimensional relationship between children, childhood, and globalization, and that it is analytically incorrect to dichotomize children and globalization into categories such as public vs. private, or domestic vs. international (Ruddick 2003). Also problematic is the current Western conceptualization of children as an age-specific group requiring the same resources, stimuli, and attention the world over. In the words of one prominent scholar on children and childhood, “In a period of scholarship emphasizing the historicization and de-naturalization of virtually every category of social identity (prominently including race, ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality) childhood has remained one of the most persistently biologized and universalized” (Stephens, 1998, p. 3).
Universalizing and biologizing approaches to children and childhood negates all we have learned about the importance of context, access to resources, and the variability of human nature. Globalization has produced a popular vision of what childhood is, and what children should do (Kuznesof 2005). From a Western perspective, children need to be “protected” from harsh environments and complicated issues, they need to “play,” and they ought to go to school. However, this conceptualization of children and childhood does not mesh with the experiences of children in many parts of the world, raising complex questions about their lives and rights.
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Notes
- 1.
Annette Lareau refers to this as concerted cultivation. She argues in her book Unequal Childhoods (2003) that middle- and upper-middle class families in the United States raise their children in a highly scheduled and regulated manner in order to provide them with the tools to be successful in life. She calls this concerted cultivation, while working class and poor families allow their children more freedom, termed by her as “natural growth.” However, according to Lareau, “natural growth” results in working class and poor children not being able to function as well in society as children raised with “concerted cultivation” which impedes them from moving out of their social class.
- 2.
This representation becomes highly problematic in the U.S. legal arena, where there is constant dispute around the issue of trying children as adults, or as a unique category.
- 3.
In fact, there is some evidence that in certain very poor areas in the U.S. in particular, the lives of children are not that different from those of children from poor families in the developing world.
- 4.
This is particularly true in China where a whole literature on how to educate your children so that they will be able to study in the U.S. has become increasingly popular. In some of the most famous books, Chinese visitors to the U.S. have upon their return documented all of the “methods” that American parents use in order to prepare their children for higher education. Woronov (2007) reports that books such as How Americans raise their daughters, How to raise your child to get into Yale, or Sports and art classes in American schools draw enormous Chinese audiences.
- 5.
Regio Emilia is a child-focused approach to early childhood education that originated in Northern Italy.
- 6.
See Hoffman and Zhao (2007, p. 71) for an expanded discussion on this issue.
- 7.
The complexity of preparing children and adolescents in the U.S. to enter elite universities attests to this phenomenon. A whole industry has now built up around SAT preparation, college essay writing and preparing for college interviews. These services are only available to an elite group of children due to the high cost associated with them.
- 8.
In The U.S. Hall in 1929 was one of the first to identify adolescence as a specific phase in the life cycle requiring specialized attention.
- 9.
It is important to note that historically in the U.S., there was also a great deal of variation with respect to marriage and the like due to early death of parents, financial dependence of younger siblings, etc. In fact, scholars such as Hareven (2000) have argued that life course timing was much more erratic in the past than in our contemporary world. However, in the pre-World War II example, I am referring primarily to the mainstream, accepted norms of the society.
- 10.
I have purposefully added the discussion on linking children rights and women to this chapter due to the fact that these discourses are almost always separated. While this is understandable from a Western feminist view, I believe it leads to false conclusions when applied to other parts of the world.
- 11.
It is important to note the ungendered nature of most work on children.
- 12.
Northern and Southern are often used as synonyms for industrialized and developing nations. There are no agreements on terms in the social sciences and there is much ambiguity related to this terminology.
- 13.
Our current 9 months school model is a remnant of predominantly agrarian times when children were expected to assist with the farming work and especially the harvest. Despite this knowledge, the school calendar in the U.S. has not adjusted to the contemporary reality of most parents working outside the home, year round.
- 14.
In fact, having “street smarts” often has a somewhat “lower class” connotation in English speaking societies.
- 15.
In Vietnam, all children must be officially registered. For example, when a child is born in the countryside, it may only live in the local region and not move to any other city. See Burr (2002) for greater details.
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Trask, B.S. (2010). Global Conceptualizations of Children and Childhood. In: Globalization and Families. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-88285-7_6
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