Publication details
Social Representation of Childhood in the Rapid Social Change
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2004 |
| Type | R&D Presentation |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The post-socialist era of rapid changes in the political and economic systems had also an impact on the social micro-world of everyday-life. The current research into discursive images and practices concerning children and childhood asks how much the era of post-socialist transformation has touched the social representation of childhood in discourses on childhood, which socially construct and reproduce this field of everyday-life. This paper analyses the ways in which the child and childhood were constructed in Czech socialist discourse and compares it with the discursive construction of childhood in the post-socialist present. Socialist discourse constructs childhood as a coherent model of the socialised sphere of the state and expert control. The child in this discourse is a pre-social being, which is mouldable, apt to be planned out, homogeneous, passive, dependent, protected, and subject to adults authority. This complex model of childhood as a social institution subjugated to ideological state control changes in the post-socialist era. In post-socialist discourse the image of the child is as an active, informed, consuming, differentiated, socially participating and boundaryless being. The post-socialist child transcends the limits of adults control. In fact, these limits are not even clearly delineated. Furthermore, adults, in their relationships with children, transcend these limits and destroy the image of the innocent childhood. (This may be seen in the emergent themes on child abuse, media, or sales of consumer goods for children). Beside this discontinuity in the image of childhood, the modernist image of childhood as a rationally planned project of adults still persists. (This may be seen in discourses on planned parenthood, material support and childcare, or the responsibility of adults/parents for a happy childhood.) One can find also in the post-socialist discourse on childhood discontent with the changes grasped in this way and calls for the re-establishment of certain boundaries as well as of a return to certain elements of the socialist model of childhood. The swiftness of the changes in social reality, which also touched childrens lives, confronted the rigidity of the social models and cultural images of the socialist Czech society. In this way the new uncertain, fluid and boundaryless image of post-socialist childhood is created. This new image makes problematic not only the earlier images of childhood itself, but also another socially constructed age category of adulthood. The analysis is based on the following sources: 1) qualitative interviews with representatives of two generations (aged 30 and 50), in which respondents were asked to talk about their own childhood in 1950s and 1970s as well as about the childhood of their children, grandchildren or pupils. 2) Certain discussions concerning childhood on the web site www.rodina.cz were also used. The first two groups are representative of the lay discourse. 3) Publications concerning childhood, representing the expert discourse, were also reviewed |
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