Outlining sociology's distinctive contribution to childhood studies and our understanding of contemporary children and childhood, The Sociology of Children, Childhood and Generation provides a thought provoking and comprehensive account of the connections between the macro worlds of childhood and the micro worlds of children's everyday lives.
Examining children's involvement in areas such as the labour market, family life, education, play and leisure, the book provides an effective balance between understanding childhood as a structural phenomenon, and recognising children as meaning makers actively involved in constructing, co-constructing and reconstructing their everyday lives.
Through the concept of 'generagency' Madeleine Leonard offers a model for examining and illuminating how structure and agency are activated within interdependent relationships influenced by generational positioning. This framework provides a conceptual tool for thinking about the continuities, challenges and changes that impact on how childhood is lived and experienced.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Becoming and Being - Developments in the Sociology of Childhood
Chapter 3: Macro Childhoods - Prioritising Structure
Chapter 4: Micro Childhoods - Prioritising Agency
Chapter 5: From Rights to Citizenship - Transformations and Constraints
Chapter 6: Bridging Structure and Agency - Bringing in Inter-generagency and Intra-generagency
Chapter 7: Conclusion - Blurred Boundaries