Abstract
The succinctness of this book title conceals the richness of ideas presented in this refreshing contribution to childhood studies. Through weaving global experiences of childhood into the discussion of key concepts, the book succeeds in questioning some of the core assumptions of Eurocentric notions of childhood and public policy provision for children. Three particularly timely messages emerge, relevant for those who theorise, devise and implement public policy for children. Firstly, Wyness – who is a Professor of Childhood Studies at the University of Warwick – highlights the importance of understanding childhood as a relational, interdependent and networked experience. Secondly, he emphasises children’s capacity and creativity in exercising agency, even in severely constrained circumstances. Thirdly, the book challenges us to recognise the structural inequality that children face as a result of their location in the generational hierarchy.
The first two chapters take stock of how the social sciences increasingly recognise the different aspects of children’s agency, including the ‘social, moral and embodied aspects of children’s lives’ (p. 33). By drawing on literature, which allows children’s voices to emerge, the picture presented defies romanticised notions of children’s agency. Rather, Wyness provokes us to remember that ‘children’s political voices are sometimes at their most potent when they are calling for the return of adult authority’ (p. 31). Importantly, the concept of agency is stretched beyond the popular notion of ‘officially sanctioned and legitimised channels of children’s participation’ (p. 59). Children thus also exercise agency through experiences that are often considered as deviant forms of participation, including poverty, family breakups and so on.
Chapters 3 and 4 create an interesting juxtaposition of global standards of childhood vis-à-vis the lived experiences of many children in both the global South and North. The dominant understanding of children’s agency is critiqued for being a construction of more affluent contexts, based on the principles of ‘individual rights, adult regulation and future orientation’ (p. 77). As a consequence, it excludes other forms of children’s agency, such as child labour, and children caring for family members. In a way that some readers might find provocative, the book forces us to question whether our understanding of child labour as deviant reveals how ‘normative modes of participation gravitate towards pre-existing institutional arrangements where adults have critical roles in structuring the form and direction that participation takes’ (p. 76).
Chapters 5 and 6 contribute to theoretical and reflexive debates in childhood studies. The importance of conceptualising generation as powerful a structuring element as gender or class, is effectively highlighted through the example of child abuse. Wyness contends that different policy regimes, including welfarist, punitive and managerial/preventative approaches to dealing with child abuse, have ‘made it difficult to recognise child abuse as a structural problem potentially affecting all children’ (p. 121). Thus, despite official policy rhetoric, he argues that children often remain powerless in different private and public contexts, due to their location in the generational structure. On a more hopeful note, it is the deploying of a generational lens that allows the shift from viewing children as individual social beings towards constructing them as interdependent agents. Intergenerational dialogue in policy, research and practice has the potential, Wyness maintains, to ‘embrace the possibility of responsibility as a reciprocal relationship between adults and children, with the latter able to modify concepts of responsibility’ (p. 134).
An interesting comparison is drawn in likening the possibilities and challenges for interdisciplinarity in childhood studies with interagency collaboration in childhood policy and practice. The conclusion remains pessimistic, arguably due to the ‘difficulty to reach an agreement amongst various disciplines as to the precise nature of the problem being tackled’ (p. 149). This assertion allows us to critically reflect on how it can be ensured that childhood studies do not become the playing field of new class intellectuals (Kelly, 2007), interested in further disassembling the child, but where children’s interests are kept at the core of the agenda. Similarly, in a policy and practice context, it would mean that agencies’ managerial goals have to be displaced by clear child and family centred practices. These are arguably more cost-intensive and take time to bear fruit, but they are ethically coherent, have the potential for long-term results and are arguably in the best interest of children (see e.g. Featherstone et al., 2013).
Childhood offers an insightful perspective on some of the main premises of childhood studies, policy and practice. What emerges is a picture that successfully diminishes the distance between what are often seen as highly differential contexts of childhood and public policy provision in the global South and North. It also offers a powerful critique of viewing what are often considered deficit-based childhoods as distinctive and as a consequence responding with nuanced rather than broad-brushed policy responses.