Children and Society

Abstract

In Western societies, we can observe a social order of knowledge between adults and children which involves the adults’ knowledge (e.g., on social matters) being investigated, made accessible, and distributed. Children’s knowledge, on the other hand, has not been studied in its own right. In this article, we therefore wish to focus on children’s social knowledge by analyzing passages from qualitative interviews with 15 elementary school children (age 8-10; different social backgrounds) on their understanding first, of differences in academic achievement, and second, of wealth and poverty, as well as their ideas on how these two topics are related and (therefore) their belief in meritocracy and knowledge about inequality. By exploring the children’s perspectives, we aim to get a better understanding of societal power structures and dynamics. Our findings reveal a distinct understanding of societal stratification issues on the part of children which is strongly linked to their position as children and not so much to their social class affiliation. Moreover, the results hint at children making a stabilizing contribution to the generational and social order of society.

Keywords

children children’s perspectives education generational order social class social order meritocracy

In wide areas of sociology, educational science, political science, and psychology children were and still are frequently conceptualized as “becomings” (Betz, 2013; Prout & James, 2015) and “future citizens” (critically: van Deth, Abendschön, & Vollmar, 2011). This predominant understanding of children—as opposed to adults—is interlinked with several ideas about children as incompetent, unaware, passive, and vulnerable. In line with this view, the child is seen foremost as a developmental being and one in the process of socialization, a person in the making, a future adult, and, therefore, “not yet” a fully competent and active member of society (e.g., Hasselhorn et al., 2015). This widespread scientific perspective on children—and its equivalent in broader societal contexts—has already been criticized extensively from a Childhood Studies perspective (e.g., Betz, 2013; Bühler-Niederberger & Sünker, 2009; Esser, Baader, Betz, & Hungerland, 2016) and will therefore not be discussed here in detail. Moreover, it has to be said that an impressive move is observable from mostly adult-oriented research about children to more and more research with children (e.g., for social reporting in Germany: Betz, 2008), which indicates that there are at least some new conceptualizations and representations of children (e.g., Betz, 2013). However, we would like to point out that the still dominant understanding of children as persons in the making affects ideas not only about what constitutes appropriate methods when conducting research with children (e.g., Christensen & James, 2008) but also what are considered suitable topics. Regarding the latter, Betz’s analysis (2008) reveals that the topics in quantitative research with children are closely linked to the dominant socialization contexts in which children grow up: the family, school, living conditions and the neighborhood, media and leisure time, or peers. Within these areas, the studies look at children’s respective experiences and opinions. For example, the children are asked about their well-being at school and in their family, about their activities with their peers and parents such as sports or computer games, or if they have conflicts with their parents or peers.

From the point of view of the sociology of childhood and knowledge, the above approaches can, first, be interpreted as an expression of the generational order which forms a powerful and constitutive part of the social order of society (Bühler-Niederberger, 2011). Second, they reveal that adult researchers attribute knowledge to children predominantly in the context of children’s immediate experiences and focus on their inside view (Zeiher, 2005). This reveals a social order of knowledge which is, again, connected to the generational order, a hierarchy between the two social groups of adults and children (Zinnecker, 1996). This social order of knowledge is particularly observable when it comes to knowledge about social problems such as educational, generational, and economic inequalities and when it comes to the belief in meritocracy as a relevant and widespread societal principle to legitimate inequalities (Hadjar, 2008; Solga, 2005). There is a large amount of general research on perceptions of social inequality and also about belief in meritocracy among the “population”, a technical term which, without exception, automatically refers to adult society (e.g., Becker & Hadjar, 2011; Hadjar, 2008). In stark contrast, we have relatively little knowledge about children’s perceptions and beliefs in this regard.

Following this line of investigation, it becomes apparent that certain topics are frequently left out when doing research with children (e.g., societal issues and social problems such as the children’s perceptions of inequalities or their belief in meritocracy). However, our thesis is that these left-out topics could give important insights into children’s societal knowledge. This would not only shed light on the knowledge of a distinct group of social actors who have been held back and oppressed (Zinnecker, 1996) but could also help us better understand societal power structures and dynamics in general (such as processes of social stratification and widely accepted beliefs of meritocracy) which are produced and reproduced by all members of society.

Against this background, children’s perspectives and perceptions on these matters, their social knowledge as children, on the one hand and the perspectives of different subgroups of children as social actors (de Moll & Betz, 2016) on the other hand are of considerable interest.

Since only a handful of studies have so far dealt with children’s ideas and perceptions on the aforementioned social issues, in this article, we set out to explore children’s social knowledge. Our first step is to outline our conceptual framework and the findings of corresponding studies with children. Then, based on qualitative data from the German EDUCARE study, we explore elementary schoolchildren’s understandings of differences in academic achievement, and in wealth and poverty, their ideas about the key factors linking the two areas and their belief in meritocracy. The article ends with a short discussion and points out prospects for further research.

Conceptual Framework

There are a multitude of studies (with adults) and theories which show that a person’s academic achievement (their cultural capital) is closely linked to their subsequent occupation and is highly relevant for people’s positioning in (adult) society, especially in terms of income or economic capital (e.g., Becker & Hadjar, 2011). There are also many investigations of the ideal of meritocracy in (adult) society (Hadjar, 2008; Solga, 2005). Little is known, however, about children’s perspectives on these connections, or their understanding of societal issues in general. Following the sociology of knowledge in the tradition of social constructivism (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), it is worthwhile to gain insights into children’s knowledge—though not in terms of its “validity” and “correctness” or in terms of its accordance with adults’ knowledge or theoretical or empirical knowledge (which is also mostly produced by adults). Instead, “‘what everybody knows’ about a social world” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 46) is of particular importance. Within this theoretical frame, knowledge is understood as socially distributed and constructed. Children’s societal knowledge as children, and therefore as a distinct group of social actors in society, makes an interesting area for childhood research. This perspective brings children’s current thinking into the focus of research. It takes into account the fact that children, as well as adults, are not only “becomings” but also “beings” and that “children must be seen as actively involved in the construction of their own social worlds, the lives of those around them and of the societies in which they live” (Prout & James, 2015, p. 4). When children are conceptualized as social actors, attention must be paid to differences within their population. This is especially important regarding their social class affiliation in light of studies that show evidence of the interconnection of social class and educational, generational, and economic inequality (Betz, 2010; de Moll, 2016; Lareau, 2011).

Previous Studies

While there are a number of studies on children’s experiences with living in poverty (e.g., for the United States: Weinger, 2015; for Germany: Chassé, Zander, & Rasch, 2010) and on children’s experiences in school (e.g., for Germany: Maschke & Stecher, 2010), relatively few studies deal with the ideas children have about the nature and causes of poverty (for the United States: Ramsey, 1991) or about the factors for success and failure in school (for the United States: Skinner, Wellborn, & Connell, 1990); or about social stratification in a more general way.

However, the few studies at hand offer important insights into children’s perspectives on the causes of income differences and thus their societal knowledge. Short (1991) found that older children in Southeast England were more likely to link a person’s social position to (un)employment and educational qualifications than the younger children in his study (age range: 6 to 11 years). A similar result appears in the most recent study from Finland on children’s perceptions of poverty and its causes (Hakovirta & Kallio, 2016). Here, it was also the older children (8th grade upward) that related money to education, professional hierarchies and (un)employment and thus placed a stronger emphasis on wider social matters than the younger ones (age group in the sample: 10 to 15 years). The findings of two of the oldest studies on this issue reveal that children’s (and adolescents’) perceptions of these differences as legitimate also increase with their age (Emler & Dickinson, 1985; Leahy, 1990; Moll, 2004).

Studies also found that the appraisal of income differences as legitimate is more likely for children with a middle-class background than for children from a poorer background (Short, 1991). Weinger’s (2000) U.S. study on children’s and young people’s character/personality associations for rich and poor people and their friendship choices found that middle-class children (age 5-14) view the poor in more negative terms and, in contrast to the poor children, blame the poor for their economic situation. Weinger (2000) concludes as follows: “The respondents have already learned the realities of the socioeconomic hierarchy, and at very young ages have to negotiate with each other from unequal status positions” (p. 145). From this, she concludes that children perceive existing “social norms” and internalize the logics of unequal income divisions (p. 146). In a reconstructive study on children’s understanding of money and finances, Moll (2004) draws a similar conclusion and points out that social differences are seen as legitimate. She shows that children’s knowledge (age 8-12) reflects the dominance of money as well as the widespread idea that individual effort (merit) leads to a good job and thus money; both are rarely called into question (Moll, 2004; on the principle of merit in adult society, see Becker & Hadjar, 2011).

In contrast to the formerly stated relevance of children’s own social position for their perceptions of social inequality, Chafel and Neitzel (2004; Neitzel & Chafel, 2010) find similarity rather than differences in 8-year-old children’s perceptions of poverty. They reconstruct a “common ideology about the poor” (Neitzel & Chafel, 2010, p. 33) which they contrast with the dominant, rather negative, societal view of poor people. According to Schroeder, Picot, and Andresen (2010), all the children in their German sample (age 6-11) know that there are poor people. Beyond that, there were no typical patterns concerning the children’s perception and understanding of poverty and wealth.

Some of the studies also point to the great variety of explanations children offer for differences in income (Chafel & Neitzel, 2004; Hakovirta & Kallio, 2016) and that “many of the children’s descriptions are quite realistic. In addition, the reasons they [the children, TB and LK] gave are relatively consistent with factors and mechanisms underlying vulnerability as presented in previous studies on poverty” (Hakovirta & Kallio, 2016, p. 330).¹ These findings hint that children’s awareness of dominant societal explanations and views on income differences go beyond mere factual or theoretical knowledge. Studies from the field of political socialization also point out that children have a substantial knowledge and comprehension of societal and political issues (e.g., Bandt, 2011; van Deth, Abendschön, & Vollmar, 2011). With reference to this body of literature, Bandt (2011) notes that children seem to be less concerned with specific terms; rather, they are aware of social differences and societal relations, and want to speak about them.

The studies mentioned here offer important insights into the experiences and awareness of different children in different countries about economic issues such as wealth and poverty, and their explanations. At the same time, researchers often explain and contextualize their findings from the point of view of socialization and development, and thus from an adult-centric point of view. However, as Lange and Mierendorff (2009, p. 90) point out, in Childhood Studies, data “is collected and interpreted from the perspective of a child or from the perspective of a group of children, and less from the viewpoint of an assumed and desirable outcome of socialization processes.” From this point of view, the children’s understanding of social stratification and their belief in meritocracy are relevant. These issues have not been analyzed so far.

The EDUCARE Study

The data analyzed here is part of the larger and ongoing EDUCARE study on “Models of a ‘good’ childhood and inequality in children’s lives.” In a quantitative part of the study, 985 students in third and fourth grade at elementary school in two metropolitan regions in West and East Germany participated in an extensive questionnaire study² (see de Moll, 2016; de Moll, Bischoff, Lipinska, Pardo-Puhlmann, & Betz, 2016). Between June 2013 and December 2014, guided interviews were conducted with 15 elementary school children (plus their parents and teachers) and 13 interviews with children aged 3 to 5 years. The findings in this article concentrate on this qualitative part of the study.

Most of the interviews took place in the children’s homes, usually their own rooms. The duration of the interviews with the children ranged from 40 to 80 minutes. Due to the research interests, we selected the participants for the qualitative interviews to cover a wide range of social class affiliations. The sample consists of seven girls and eight boys from two different cities in Germany (Dresden [East]: 8; Frankfurt [West]: 7)³ and from diverse social backgrounds (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Sample in Relation to Social Class (According to Parents’ Highest Educational Qualification).

≥University degree	University entrance level and/or university of applied sciences degree	≤Middle school certificate
Luigi, Paul, Theresa, Marita, Tanja, Sophie, Luisa, Nico	Matthias, Susanne, Sascha, Cai	Patrick, Leon, David

While the interviews spanned a wide range of topics regarding children’s everyday life at home and in school, we focus on the children’s answers to questions that touched the subject of social stratification and thus children’s knowledge on (unequal) societal issues. We selected two major areas for the analysis and children’s according explanations:

(a) differences in children’s academic achievement at school and

(b) differences in the distribution of wealth and poverty.

To analyze the children’s knowledge on both academic achievement and economic issues such as wealth and poverty, and how the two relate, as well as their ideas on the decisive factors for both domains, for example, their belief of meritocracy, the relevant interview passages were grouped thematically for further analysis and abstraction. Recurring and dominant topics and ways of referring to them were then inductively derived from those sets by way of abstraction and comparison using content analysis (Mayring, 2015). The results given below provide an insight into the most dominant and common patterns of the children’s statements. In addition to this, the interviews were analyzed concerning the relevance of children’s, or their parents’, differing social class positions (lower, middle to higher social background)⁴ to their understanding of social inequality. Thus, another kind of social knowledge emerged in the children’s statements on social stratification that bears references to their classed (as well as gendered) life-worlds, which will also be presented below.

Findings

The way children express and explain differences in the distribution of educational and economic resources and their entanglement can show us the children’s understanding of relevant societal issues and their view on social stratification in society, as well as the reasons for this. In connection with their respective knowledge and based on the current research, we also took a closer look at differences within the group of children based on their social class affiliation.

Explaining Children’s Academic Achievement

Overall, the children’s explanations show that their knowledge reflects widely shared societal beliefs on the nature and causes of social and educational inequality, such as the ideal of meritocracy, which have only been analyzed in adult samples so far (Becker & Hadjar, 2011; Hadjar, 2008; see above). Given the high importance, many of the children place on educational success as a factor in later life chances (see below), the explanations they give for children’s differing academic achievement are highly relevant to comprehend their conception of inequality in education and elsewhere, and its reproduction. In the following section, we examine what children perceive as the cause or causes for children’s differing academic achievement. To this end, we analyzed children’s statements regarding the questions of (a) why some children do better at school than others and/or (b) what children need to do in order to succeed in school. Their responses cover a wide range of factors, but can be grouped into two main categories: external factors and individual characteristics of children—with the latter being far more widespread. It is especially noticeable that in the majority of answers referring to individual causes, those are mostly seen as related to the children and only in some cases to the parents. Here, the most dominant and widespread theme in the children’s statements is children’s ambition, merit, and diligence.⁵ In line with this, it is mostly individual children’s behavior at school and their attitudes toward learning and school that serve as explanatory factors. The following passages show this:

umm that some disturb or talk to others during class that they don’t, they don’t understand what the teacher is saying? Or when others, when they bother adults that is also not exactly a very good thing. (Nico, age 9)

actually yeah, no matter what country you’re from, no matter what school you’re from umm you can always be the same if you do make a real effort. (Tanja, age 9)

for example, there was someone in my class, my old one, who was real nice and a model student. But then he gradually become more and more of a, well, someone who does nothing but goofs up. (David, age 10)

and the others, two of them do have a math disability and with those I get it, and the other one she always clowns around during break time with Anthea instead of practicing times tables. All they do is clown around, and laugh, sometime they even, well the whole class got praise except for those two. Because they didn’t do a proper break activity. They always have a worse grade for behavior, or a B instead of an A. (Theresa, age 9)

First of all, it becomes apparent that the children repeatedly bring up inappropriate behavior or mistakes on the part of the respective children as causes for their (limited) academic achievement. Theresa, for example, directly links the “clowning around” of two of her classmates with their being given lower grades by their teacher. One common theme is children who do not pay attention or try and study hard enough, instead fool around, cause trouble or make a mess. As we can see in Theresa’s statement, this set of factors needs to be distinguished from another category of causes that are not seen as caused by the children themselves. This second category of individual factors include learning or physical disabilities (e.g., math disability) as well as language abilities (mainly of non-native speakers). Regarding one boy in his class who is not doing too well, Nico states,

yes and he’s from another country too, like many in our class and he cannot follow the lesson too well, he cannot talk too well too? German that is, and then also not write too well. (Nico, age 9)

While the former causes are presented in a negative light and basically as failures to adopt the right attitude toward school and learning—from which the speakers distance themselves—the children seem to have more sympathy for this second kind of cause. It is talked about in a much more favorable light and framed as a skills deficit instead. The following statement by Paul highlights this as well:

well umm, one [boy] was born too late and he simply cannot do any better and the others, so there’s one that practices an hour every day but he’s just not that clever [ . . . ]. (Paul, age 9)

It is striking that even this seemingly innate cognitive inability is evaluated in light of efforts made and children’s willingness to get better.

Apart from individual characteristics on the part of the children, in some cases, parents are brought into the picture too. They also appear to be seen as relevant to children’s success in school. In some accounts parents appear as a disciplining factor, as in the following statement by Luigi, who names reasons why children might not do well in school:

if the parents (1sec) let you do, I mean if the parents let the child do what he feels like (1sec) and buy everything he wants to have. (Luigi, age 8)

In other instances, children bring up parents as a possible source of help for studying as well as emotional support. In the following passage, Tanja tells the interviewer what a child needs to do well:

umm that it, that her, his parents help him, with the studying and if there’s something the child does not understand, that she can look for help, from somebody else umm, and that others can help, like class mates and she can work with her class mates (more quietly) and then it should actually work. (Tanja, age 9)

Unlike the first set of explanations, the latter represent a different dimension of causes for differences in academic achievement. Namely, they refer to external factors that are located outside children’s individual conditions and effort. It is interesting to note that all of these external aspects consist of references to children’s parents. An example for this can be found in an interview in which a girl brings up a divorce as a reason for a friend not doing well at school. While even those external aspects are located on the level of the individual, another important finding from the children’s accounts is that only very few structural factors are brought up. There is only one exception where a change of school made a difference to school success. It must be noted, however, that the account refers not to a classmate but to his parents. Apart from that, the children mentioned no factors for academic achievement related to school or teachers to explain children’s differing success.

Explanations for Having More or Less Money

While the first section dealt with children’s understandings of academic achievement in the educational system, in the following, we aim to present how the children explain “success” in society. It is about their understandings of differences in the distribution of wealth and poverty, and therefore of economic issues. Thus, the analysis was concerned with a kind of knowledge which refers to a relatively discursive kind of social knowledge.

In response to the question “Why do you think some people have more and others less money?” the children offer a whole range of explanations. However, one explanation is particularly prevalent in the children’s statements. More than half of the children explicitly create a connection between school performance and later financial situation as adults. The following passages from the replies to this question serve as examples for these references:

well what I think why some people have a lot of money is because, because they maybe were extremely good at school and now have an extremely good job [ . . . ]. (David, age 10)

so there are people who make no effort at all, have poor grades in school and only get to go to a medium level school [Realschule]. (Matthias, age 8)

umm because some of them umm maybe did have not such a good school-leaving certificate [ . . . ]. (Paul, age 9)

While all of those examples relate to academic achievement (and thus to an individual’s effort rather than to structural aspects, see section above) as the crucial factor for later wealth or poverty, it also becomes apparent that the children refer to quite diverse aspects in conjunction with school success. These range from the more general “being good at school” (e.g., David) to individual grades, the relevance of studying, paying attention and trying hard (e.g., Matthias), or school-leaving qualifications (e.g., Paul).

In some of the interviews, the children bring up additional aspects which explain the links between school performance and wealth or poverty in adult life: (a) the type of secondary school one attends and (b) the occupation obtained. Both are evaluated as either “good” or “bad.” In this regard, an underlying argument can be identified. If someone not only graduates from elementary school but performs “well”, she or he goes to a “good” secondary school and will subsequently have a “good”, that is, a well-paid, occupation—and vice versa.

umm, because (1 sec), for example, the rich have paid close attention in school and then got to go to a good school and then finished school well and then got a really good occupation. and umm the poor who, for example, maybe did not go to such a good school and therefore did not get to finish school so well and did not get such a good job, or none at all. (Sascha, age 9)

As we can see here, the three aspects of “school performance”, “secondary school”, and “occupation” are the building blocks that make up a person’s social positioning from the children’s point of view. This relevance of occupational status in connection with wealth can be found in most of the remaining cases that do not directly refer to the relevance of school in this matter. Here the children primarily explain differing financial situations as due to a person’s occupation—whether one has a good or a “bad” (or “not so good”) job. By attributing occupations with different qualities (good vs. bad/not so good; see above, Sascha), the children’s statements reveal a nuanced perception of occupations along the lines of associated income levels. In line with this emphasis on occupation, several children also bring up the issue of unemployment. Those statements show that they clearly associate it with poverty.

On an analytical level, this reveals not only that children’s understanding reflects the connection between academic achievement and social positioning (as either rich or poor) in later life but also highlights another interesting aspect underlying the children’s assumptions. It becomes clear that being rich or poor is something that concerns adults, as the interview passages show. The children interrelate the stimulus “Why do you think some people have more and others less money?” directly with adults and not with children themselves. In Sascha’s reply, for example, we can see that he talks about school success as something that has already taken place. Similar patterns can be found for most of the other children, too. Being rich or poor is something that the children habitually connect with having an occupation. This underlines the children’s perception that being rich or poor is a feature linked to adulthood and not to childhood. The following response to the “poor/rich” question shows that this may also affect children by addressing a special subgroup of adults, namely parents.

because some parents don’t work, and some do, so those that work get more money and those who do not get no money. (Cai, age 9)

Here again, the crucial factor for the ascription of wealth and poverty is an issue that concerns and relates to adults: their occupation.

Unequal Children’s Knowledge: References to Children’s Classed Lifeworlds

While several studies point to differences in children’s knowledge on societal (and political) issues based on their social background, our analysis revealed only few instances where social class seemed to have an effect on their social knowledge. Nevertheless, some of the children’s statements on the “poor/rich” question bear references to their classed (and gendered) lifeworlds. Those will be discussed in the following section.

In addition to the children’s prevalent explanations as discussed above, there are two other approaches to explaining poverty that both seem to relate to children’s differing social backgrounds. Each of these can only be found in the accounts of children from similar social backgrounds (privileged vs. low social class affiliation).

Luisa and Sophie, two girls from very privileged social backgrounds, explain differences in wealth as follows:

and for the poor well it could be that they are, well, unemployed and therefore just go broke, of course? And simply cannot pay the rent anymore and or umm well that they have spent so much money that they are broke at some point. (Luisa, age 8)

or maybe they themselves are a little, the poorer people I mean, a little sometimes maybe a little to blame themselves because they have wasted their money. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case [ . . . ]. (Sophie, age 9)

In their replies, both girls introduce a new explanatory factor for poverty. They suggest that poor people might have already spent their money. Even though Sophie’s statement presents this as the poor’s own fault, whereas Luisa’s account is rather about necessary expenses during unemployment, they have one idea in common. Both children seem to share the idea that money is something that is generally present at the onset and is gone once it is spent. The finding that this understanding comes from two children with relatively high financial resources hints at a certain kind of knowledge that comes with this kind of position: a categorical existence of financial resources.

This becomes particularly apparent when contrasted with an alternative explanation for wealth or poverty from two boys from lower social backgrounds. In their replies, David and Leon bring up gambling (or, in one case, criminal activities) as another possible means to make a lot of money:

or because maybe they have won the lottery or some that have been bad at one point that maybe gained the money doing whatever, for example, by smuggling or something like it, I think. Or maybe through stealing. But I think the main reason is that they umm they, well, did win something maybe. (David, age 10)

umm the rich they are really, did really do well in school and umm they take part in playing games somewhere somehow, and the poor people that did poorly in school and have umm then did not play any games anywhere (1sec) Poker or something like that. (Leon, age 8)

Games of chance are cited alongside children’s school performance and thus as a feasible and presumably likely option to become rich from those two boys’ perspectives. The fact that this is, again, a similarity between two children from a comparable social background—a similarity which cannot be found in any of the other interviews—offers an important clue to its relation to a possibly classed lifeworld. One that may offer a different set of knowledge than Luisa’s and Sophie’s life. Since these different explanations are given by two girls or two boys, they also hint at the relevance of gender.

Besides these additional explanations (money spent and games of chance), another type of reference to children’s lifeworlds becomes apparent in the way the children relate to questions on inequality. Details of their families’ everyday lives (and their working lives) seem to be reflected in children’s responses to the “rich/poor” question. Therefore, these details also seem to be linked to the children’s understandings of societal issues. While this may perhaps be true for all children, there are only a few instances in which those links become apparent in the interviews. One of those can be found in Sophie’s explanation for poverty: a reference to her father as an employer adds a specific explanation to her response. Some people might not have the jobs they want because their future customers might not like them, or even due to racism.

umm that the boss of this office maybe does not, umm say ‘no I don’t like the way he looks’ umm there’s no law that says this is forbidden, right, or he simply says ‘nah, I don’t like umm I don’t like the color of his eyes or umm I don’t like his name, the customers won’t like it’ [ . . . ] or if he’s from another country and then he says ‘no I don’t want foreigners working here.’ (Sophie, age 9)

Another example of the relevance of children’s different family lives and the differing experiences they thus gain, contributing to their knowledge on societal issues such as inequality, is Matthias’ (middle to low social class affiliation) response to why people are poor while others are rich and whether he considers this just.

well actually, it depends (1sec) there are people who make no effort at all (2 sec) then that’s their problem. But sometimes they did something good in the first place. My mum did actually have a good occupation and she did quite well at school and all. She was a straight A student. She also had a good job with a lot of money once. But that decreased over time and now she has only little money. (Matthias, age 8)

The way he relates to the topic is also characterized by a more differentiated understanding of social inequality in terms of wealth that, here, is clearly linked to biographical experiences from within his family: his mother’s job loss and subsequent decrease in income despite her good school performance and occupation. His mother, who despite her talent has very limited financial resources, seems to form a relevant point of reference for his knowledge on societal issues such as social inequality. It adds another aspect to the reasons for income differences that do not fit into the dominant understanding of the meritocratic ideal (while this ideal the same time still serves as an important point of reference here).

Discussion

One initial result of our analysis is that all children had something to say on societal matters which, until now, were mostly investigated with adult populations and never with a German sample of children, aged 8 to 10 years. The children’s respective knowledge about the nature and causes of poverty and wealth as well as about success and failure in school can be characterized as being deeply social. This runs against the assumption that topics in research with children have to be exclusively limited to the children’s immediate experiences and to their opinions concerning their socialization contexts such as their peers, their family, and so on. It shows that children—as actual members of society—have a pronounced understanding of societal issues.

Our analysis, second, illustrates the children’s marked internalization of the meritocratic ideal and its conception of distributive justice, highlighting individual causes and thus individual responsibility for educational success or failure. Besides this, the children understand school and educational outcomes as crucial for an occupational status in the future and a corresponding income. Both are determining factors for social stratification and a person’s social position in (adult) society, as has been revealed in many studies (for an overview, see Becker & Hadjar, 2011; Hadjar, 2008).⁶ On an empirical level, we can only speculate on the reasons for this finding of a widespread belief in meritocracy, since our study is cross-sectional and an empirical explanation would require a longitudinal study to retrace the development of this belief and its onset. However, on a theoretical level, socialization and habitus theory clearly point to the relevance of children’s experiences and practices, especially in their families, to the interdependency of their parents’ dispositions and beliefs and to the children’s habitus producing different forms of familial transmission processes (for details, see Bodovski, 2013; de Moll, 2016).

However, in contrast to some of the existing studies (this is our third result), relatively few effects on children’s understanding could be identified as based on children’s social background. Some of the children’s statements do bear references to their (classed) lifeworlds, for example, that money is a matter of course in a privileged context and something that is instead connected to luck or chance for those with a lower social background. But children’s societal knowledge seems to be more strongly intertwined with their generational knowledge as children than with them being a member of a certain social class, as we have shown above. This finding shows that the theoretical and empirical connection between Childhood Studies and theories of social class and habitus, such as a Bourdieusian approach, needs to be strengthened and deepened in future (see Alanen, Brooker, & Mayall, 2015; de Moll & Betz, 2016).

Since the data offers only a limited number of insights into the meaning of those classed lifeworlds, those observations are only exploratory for now. Nevertheless, as our findings show, the children did not seem puzzled or confused when confronted with the unequal distribution of cultural and economic capital. This is consistent with results from the quantitative part of the EDUCARE study, in which 963 children attending elementary school were asked about their meritocracy beliefs regarding their success or failure in school.⁷ The majority of children believe that there is equality and that merit and effort lead to success. In other words, differences in academic achievement and (later on) in the distribution of wealth and poverty are merited and not seen as problematic. In this connection, our results show that children give plausible explanatory models which are very similar to those of adults, which mainly point at external factors (which include bad luck or an acceptance of the “inevitable”) or rather, and this is even more pronounced, at an individual’s self-responsibility. As in the adult population, meritocracy also seems to be a principle among children to legitimate inequalities. They do not see inequalities as unjust or problematic. The same is true for the temporality of social phenomena such as the acquisition of educational certificates, an occupation and income and a subsequent, legitimate social position as adults (not least characterized in economic terms). The children’s knowledge therefore reflects common explanations which have previously been investigated in adult populations (see Hadjar, 2008), and does not question them. It can, therefore, be concluded that investigating children’s social knowledge helps gain a better understanding of societal power structures and dynamics. This is because research with children reveals on the one hand their specific beliefs and understanding of social phenomena as children. At the same time, it emerges that their understanding in the domains requested is predominantly analog to adults’ beliefs. Therefore, on the other hand, our research reveals the children’s understanding as actual members of society and therefore as knowers. Both groups of society, adults, and children, have the tendency to produce and reproduce the existing social and generational order and therefore stabilize it through their knowledge. It is a worthwhile task for future childhood research to explore these entanglements and mechanisms.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

This research project took place at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in the Department of Educational Sciences and at the Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk (IDeA).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research is based on work supported by a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation, which has funded the research project EDUCARE (“Models of a ‘good’ childhood and inequality in children’s lives”) since 2010.

Notes

Author Biographies

Tanja Betz is Professor for Childhood Studies and Elementary and Primary Education in the Department of Educational Science at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. In her research, she focusses on actors (children, parents and professional staff) and institutions of childhood (primary schools, families, ECEC) and how they re-produce or overcome social inequalities. Her publications include “Reconceptualising agency and childhood. New perspectives in childhood studies” (Routledge, 2016; co-edited by Florian Esser, Maike Baader and Beatrice Hungerland); and a paper on “Risks in early childhood. Reconstructing notions of risk in political reports on children and childhood in Germany”, Child Indicators Research, 2013.

Laura B. Kayser is a research associate and PhD student in the Department of Educational Sciences at Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. Her main research interests are childhood and social inequality studies, children’s participation and lived citizenship as well as qualitative research methods. In her PhD project she examines the interrelation of social class and generational order in the context of children’s in- and out-of-school lives from childrens’ perspectives. Recently, she has published a paper on “Context matters! On non-working children’s citizenship in South Indian children’s rights initiatives as a practice” (published in “Reconceptualising agency and childhood. New perspectives in childhood studies”, Routledge, 2016; edited by Florian Esser et al.).

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