Tag: Childhood

  • How has Increased Life Expectancy Affected the Experience of Childhood…?

    Life expectancy in England and Wales has risen dramatically over the last 100 years, increasing from around 55 in 1920 to 80 today for men and from 60 to 83 today for women. … This means that children who grew up in the 1920s and 1930s would, on average, not have had the experience of…

  • Paedophile-Priests and the Declining Signficance of Religion…..

    A recent report found that there have been at least 216 000 child victims of sexual abuse since the 1950s at the hands of clergy and other officials working for the Catholic Church in France. The victims are mainly teenage boys and the figures are probably an underestimate. There could well be over 300 000…

  • Good videos showing the social construction of childhood

    Below are some relatively recent examples of documentary video evidence which demonstrate how attitudes to children vary across cultures, supporting the view that childhood is socially constructed. This post has been written primarily for students studying the families and households module within A-level sociology Child Brides In India, teenage girls aged 14-15 are sometimes pressurized…

  • Paranoid Parenting

    In 2001, Professor Frank Furedi wrote ‘Paranoid Parenting’, arguing that a ‘culture of fear’ pervades parenting today, with parents perceiving their children as vulnerable, and as being perpetually at risk from several threats: from strangers, traffic, toys, and from the threat of falling behind in their development. Parenting today has become an ordeal in which…

  • Timeline of Social Policies which changed childhood

    Below is a timeline of some of the social policies which changed childhood, from the early 19th century through to the present day. Most people would adopt a ‘March of Progress view‘ and argue that these polices improved the lives of children, however there are some sociologists who see these policies as placing too many…

  • Changes to childhood since Victorian Times

    How has childhood in the UK changed since the 19th Century, and have these changes been positive?

  • Generation Anxious

    700 000 children in the U.K. are currently registered with an emotional disorder, that’s 7.2%, of 5-19 year olds, or about 1 in 13, according to a recent survey by NHS Digital. And that’s just those children who have been formally diagnosed. That figure of 7.2% represents those children who have reached the clinical diagnoses…

  • Bringing up Britain – A useful resource for A-level sociology

    If you’re struggling to find useful resources to update the childhood topic within the sociology of the family then you should check out ‘Bringing Up Britain‘, a weekly radio 4 show/ podcast hosted by Mariella Frostrup. Each episode lasts 40 minutes and consists of debate among ‘experts’ on an aspect of contemporary parenting and childhood.…

  • What should we do about childhood obesity?

    What should we do about childhood obesity?

    Some arguments for the government’s recent policy proposals to tackle childhood obesity.

  • How do we explain the 500% increase in prescriptions for Cow’s Milk Allergy between 2006 to 2016?

    How do we explain the 500% increase in prescriptions for Cow’s Milk Allergy between 2006 to 2016?

    In a recent BBC documentary: ‘The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs’ Dr Chris Van Tulleken (Dr CVT) set out to answer the above question. Here I summarise this documentary and throw in a few links and additional commentary You can watch the documentary on BBC iplayer until Late June 2018, although TBH you may as…