Introduction

Abstract

In compiling this book, our principal aim has been to offer a contribution to work on the sociology of childhood. For us this means considering the social status of childhood in relation to the large-scale influences, sedimented in history, that condition childhood’s social status in any given society or setting. Carrying out this work can be understood as requiring analyses of societal institutions and agencies, over time; thus, to refer to an important instance, Jens Qyortrup (1985) considered the social status of childhood in minority world societies nowadays, through consideration of the history of children’s contributions to the division of labour in those societies. In this work at macro-level, Qvortrup was pointing out that childhood is a structural component in society; and that the social grouping represented by the term childhood has to be considered in interrelations with adulthood. This set of propositions can be contrasted (to some extent) with a strand of work that starts from the lived experiences of children, as recounted by children; and that seeks to foreground children’s agency. What we see as especially exciting and challenging is to put together these two sorts of work, with the aim of reaching better understanding of why and how childhoods on-the-ground are as they are, through interrelating private troubles with public issues.