Tagged: Children

Opinion / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Social Welfare / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Health & Illness

Discussing the ‘obsession’ with childhood disorder labelling

In recent decades, we have too often passed the buck of social problems to children who lack the power to say no to stigmatizing psychiatric labels. Laura Batstra and Ernst Thoutenhoofd call for reflection on these non-evidence-based, ineffective and sometimes even harmful practices. The instability of labels Recently, a well-designed cohort study reported that nearly 40% of 213 toddlers classified with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) no longer met the criteria for ASD at the age of 5-7 years. ‘Recovery’...

Opinion / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Health & Illness

You are what you swallow? Considering the moral implications of psychiatric diagnosis for children

It’s not easy to question things that have been life changing for some people. As more and more people seek or receive psychiatric diagnosis, it becomes a very personal thing to question its validity. When I wrote an opinion piece in 2023 suggesting moral implications associated with increasing psychiatric diagnosis of children, I felt nervous. Nervous of invalidating the experiences of others but also nervous of the implications of questioning medical hegemony without undermining the hard fought for systems of...

Opinion / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Social Welfare / Sociology of Children / Sociology of the Family

Growing up in the shadow of domestic violence: impacts upon children & cost to society

When domestic violence takes place in families with children, it is not just the abused mum or dad who is a victim. The children are also victims and the consequences for them can be severe. In 2017, the United Nations Children’s Fund reported that worldwide, one in four children under age 5 (176 million) live with a mother who is a victim of domestic violence. Because of this widespread occurrence and the profound impact it has on both its survivors...

Opinion / Sociology of Children / Sociology of the Family

‘Doing family’ in adversity: exploring children’s and families’ experiences of alternative care in Thailand.

Family is a fundamental social institution that plays a vital role in shaping individuals’ identities, relationships, and well-being. Traditionally, the concept of family has been associated with blood ties and shared genetic heritage. However, the understanding of family has evolved over time, acknowledging the diverse forms and dynamics that exist within it. A key sociological concept that challenges conventional definitions or models of family is the idea of “doing family.” “Doing family” refers to the actions, behaviours, and relationships that...

Applied Sociology / Opinion / Social Theory / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Health & Illness

Can young children give or withhold consent to heart surgery? Obstacles to innovative research

When we began to research children’s consent to non-urgent heart surgery in 2019, we were surprised by the healthcare professionals’ enthusiasm for consent with the right to refuse. In the first of our 45 interviews with practitioners and related experts, an anaesthetist said: “As a group, we would like to be the best in the world at doing some kind of evidence-based consent that is great for patients and legally robust.  We’re aiming to be amazing at it…Definitely some four-year-olds...

Opinion / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Health & Illness

Classroom babies more at risk for ADHD

Max and Julian are starting kindergarten this year and they are very looking forward their entrance at elementary school. Max will be turning 5-year-old on September 12th and Julian will be 6 on October 12th. They have one year apart, but they have so much fun together, they are delighted to be in the same classroom! This one-year gap between children in a same classroom is common. To determine when a child should enter school, his/her birthdate is compared with...

Class & Stratification / Opinion / Research Brief / Sociology of Children / Sociology of the Family

UK Secondary Education Social Mobility and Links to the PATA Theory

Financial disadvantage for children and families in the UK is a historical, persistent, and increasing issue, which affects young people’s long-term future well-being and life chances (The Equality Trust, 2022; Social Mobility Commission, 2014). For students in secondary education the achievement gap between those from low socio-economic (SES) households and their more affluent peers continues to increase, amplifying inequalities and disrupting opportunities for progression (HM Government, 2015; 2017, 2021).  Social mobility in an educational context focuses on how best to...

Opinion / Social Welfare / Sociology of Children / Sociology of Media & Communication / Sociology of the Family

Marketing Children: Overcoding Indigenous Children with Colonial Happiness in the Child Welfare System

In 1964, the Today’s Child column began in the Toronto Telegram, written by Helen Allen at the behest of then-Deputy Minister of Welfare in Ontario, Dr. James Band. In 1972, the column moved to the Toronto Star. The Today’s Child ran weekly until 1982 and featured over 4,000 daily advertisements of children who were available for adoption. Each column would feature a photo of the child or multiple children and offer descriptions of each child’s appearance and disposition. A television...

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Children's Exposure to Violence: The Need to Acknowledge Their Plight

Every day, children in the United States are exposed to violence. Whether they are personally victimized or bystanders to the victimization of others, youths across the U.S. are frequently subject to traumatic crimes. From headline-grabbing school shootings to often unreported acts of domestic violence, adolescents are not immune to the violent acts of others. While it may be easy to say that children are resilient and are better able than adults to overcome the consequences of being exposed to violence,...

Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

Identifying "play" as normalizing practice: Connecting LEGO's Prison Transport Vehicle to the prison-industrial complex

By Rachael Liberman In a recent critique posted on The Huffington Post (18 January), Bestselling Author and Speaker Rebecca Walker (note that this “title” introduction comes from The Huffington Post and fails to include her work as a prolific feminist) poses the following question, which also serves as the title of her article; “Does This Lego Toy Send the Wrong Message to Children?” Stemming from her concern over the possible normalization of the prison-industrial complex,” Walker points out that one...

Class & Stratification / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Dangerous Dogs Revisited

Following the recent sad news of the death of 4 year old John Paul Massey, after he had been attacked by his uncle’s American bull mastiff, media attention has refocused on the ownership of ‘dangerous’ dogs. As part of the BBC ‘Pledge Watch’ series of articles, Justin Parkinson has taken the opportunity to revisit the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Following a spate of dog attacks on children in the early 1990s, media coverage focused on various breeds of dogs as...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Psychology & Lifecourse

$221,190 Dollar Baby

U.S. department of agriculture has released a report about expected expenditures for raising a child from birth to age 17 in U.S. . Several news sites refer this news as “quarter-million dollar baby” – about a quarter of a million dollar is spent for a child born in 2008 through birth to age 17 (the expenditures vary across family income, region, or household structure- See the report ). The amount of money has been increasing in since 1960 when the...

Social Psychology & Lifecourse

Rethinking Childhood Gambling

by theoryforthemasses A recent article in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests that children who display impulsive behavior in kindergarten are more likely to engage in gambling at a young age. Researchers asked kindergarten teachers to rate their students’ inattentiveness, distractibility, and hyperactivity; six years later the students were asked to report the frequency with which they participated in activities such as buying lottery tickets and placing bets at sporting events. The researchers identified a positive relationship between...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

"Those are the GIRLS' stuff!"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRZyymYe-FQ] By linanne There is a long tradition of using gender and sexual dualism as marketing strategies in industries from technology to entertainment. Discourses in advertisements are often framed as “targeting at” whether male or female consumers. Products are also packaged in ways that are gendered according to certain sets of binary codes. Such dichotomous gender representations not only reproduce the existing social and cultural structures of gender segregation, but also inform individual and collective activities which oftentimes are responses...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Up Close and Personal: The Effects of Violence

By rbobbitt Children in Tijuana, Mexico went about their normal morning routine on a school day only to be confronted with twelve dead bodies dumped in the field directly across from their school. At other times, students have had to flee school in a panic as gunfights have broken out between police and drug traffickers. In Tijuana alone, 99 bodies have been discovered since September 26th in a rash of violence that has a death toll higher than that of...