Unequal Childhoods -- A Childhood-Sociological Approach

An approach to the differences inherent in childhood should take into account the generational order as it is defined by society and at the same time be attentive to social inequalities with respect to status of the family of origin, gender and ethnicity. This is the claim of the new sociology of childhood, which in this way is gaining sociological potential as well as analytical distance from normative biases relative to traditional class-specific research on socialization as well as current measurements of "child well-being". Increasing attention is being paid to actors, interests and processes of exclusion associated with the pattern of "good childhood" and its unequal realization, and childhood becomes manifest as a mode of reproducing fundamental social inequality. Adapted from the source document.