Abstract
Challenges stemming from childhood sociology for developmental psychology and vice versa are raised. It is argued that a shift now is highly needed from the isolated parallel “redefining the child”-process within the two sciences to an integrative redefinition of childhood, children, and child. Promising future integration of the sociological and psychological positions building common conceptual platforms for a child perspective is proposed. Which concepts are particularly imperative to such an interdisciplinary integration? As a starting point this may be the shared understanding of children as experiencing, meaning-making actors in their actual life-worlds. In addition the integrative potentials of groundbreaking research within the realm of early intersubjectivity stemming from developmental psychology are underscored.
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Notes
- 1.
Once again, this brings up an earlier raised issue. Neither childhood sociology nor modern developmental psychology has presented directly applicable child perspectives. These can only be derived through careful analysis.
- 2.
In the beginning, this research did not enjoy much attention outside the closed circuit of the research communities. But the situation was very different when childhood sociologists launched their theories as the antithesis to the model of the incompetent child – a paradigm that a growing number of developmental psychologists had long discarded.
- 3.
It shall be pointed out, however, that some childhood sociologists had links to ethnography from the outset. This is evident, for Example, in their use of the ethnographic, interpretive approach.
- 4.
To our knowledge, the sociology of childhood has made no further overtures to developmental psychology since then.
- 5.
With Corsaro, we saw, however, that this is not the case in the early stages of ontogenesis. Here, according to Corsaro, parents must pretend “as if” it is the case in order to initiate the activity. The questionable nature of this thesis was pointed out in the Corsaro section.
- 6.
Qvortrup’s “by-choice” phrase also suggests this latter point, i.e. that children have real choices in childhood. Accepting a “choice” presupposes volition, and that brings us close to the Discussion about the more or less free will of the individual. However, this is not addressed in Qvortrup’s theory.
- 7.
These difficulties do not just stem from the different views of the child perspective in sociology and psychology, they are also present for Example in research concerning child culture. Tufte et al. (2001) acknowledge that there is no common understanding of the concept of child culture. They suggest that the agency perspective might offer a potential common platform, but this interesting idea is not pursued further. We will attempt to do that in this section.
- 8.
It is important to note that intentions often “start” from the outside derived from an interpersonal process and then within the child as an intra-psychological category that might both drive and direct new behaviour.
- 9.
Age differences in the development of intentionality are not addressed here; see Krøjgaard (2002).
- 10.
It should be noted that the theories mentioned here do not claim to be specific child perspectives. Any inherent child perspective therefore has to be derived by analysis.
- 11.
The classical-modernist definition of the “object” of the discipline is often based on dichotomies. An Example: An ethnographic approach views children’s statements as “cultural signs” and rejects the notion of interpreting children’s activity as “psychological signs” (Gulløv & Højlund, 2003). As previously mentioned, traditional child psychology takes the opposite view. But applying just one interpretive “filter” to children’s activity does not imply that the phenomena that are not studied are non-existent or unimportant, which only means that the purist scientific lens ignores them. This does not support attempts at integration.
- 12.
Ironically, James et al.’s (1998) term the “inner psychology of the self” – perhaps unintentionally – reflects the classical polarization between inner and outer worlds.
- 13.
In this context, there is only room for a brief Introduction. Interested readers are referred to the reference list.
- 14.
In relational self-psychology, the child’s self is not a “nucleus” but a relational experiential product. The existence of multiple selves is a possibility, although this is still being debated (Sommer, 2005a).
- 15.
One contemporary example of interdisciplinary and integrative endeavours is the EUROCORES Programme (2005): “Consciousness in a Natural and Cultural Context” (CNCC).
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Sommer, D., Samuelsson, I.P., Hundeide, K. (2010). Childhood Sociology and Contextual–Relational Psychology – Common Platforms for a Child Perspective?. In: Child Perspectives and Children's Perspectives in Theory and Practice. International perspectives on early childhood education and development, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3316-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3316-1_4
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