In what ways can 'childhood' and 'youth' be understood as social Essay

In what ways can 'childhood' and 'youth' be understood as social constructions - Essay Example The objective of this essay is to identify the different ways childhood and youth is because of social construction. The essay will mainly use Kehily’s book understanding youths. Kehily is one of the most popular sociologists in the world today. She has researched on many issues relating to childhood, youths, gender and sexuality. In the book Understanding Youths, she has used history and sociocultural approaches to prove that childhood is a social construction. The use of history and sociocultural approaches is important in her book since in part one, she talks about perspective. She has used past researches by other sociologists in trying to show the changes that childhood has undergone based on the time period, culture and the economic activities during the time stated. She has used Aries findings that in the 15th century, children even at the age of 5 years were free to do anything that the adults were doing (Classen, 2005, p. 171). This changed in the 16th century, where children were for economic purposes since they could work to boost the family’s income. During the industrial revolution, childhood changed since the law against child labor was introduced thus children suffered from separation with their parents. In 1950, childhood took another twist and it was the beginning of children being very dependent on their parents (Veerman, 1992, p. 58). The second part of Kehily’s book is self-identity; she has based her argument on the historical findings that childhood is different due to the social status (Kehily, 2007, p. 19). She claims that in the West; whose occupants were wealthy spoilt their children, this is different with the Western region where childhood had no meaning since their parents were poor thus they had to work. The third part of the book covers the activities and that the youths engage in thus gaining experience. She states that

Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 3

Research Paper Example The article is informative and updated and could therefore be useful to support or validate arguments to be used in the current study which aims to determine the effect of gender in which children deal with bullying. The research conducted by the authors sought to determine â€Å"to what extent have the correlates and consequences of bullying victimization been misspecified due to an emphasis on direct forms of bullying, such as physical violence, which disproportionately affects boys† (Carbone, et.al, 332). The study was participated by 1,222 youths from 15 schools in the United States and the findings revealed significant similarities and differences in either direct or indirect bullying in terms of gender. Gropper & Froschl (2000) indicated in their findings that â€Å"boys initiated more than three times as many direct forms of teasing and bullying as girls†¦ there was a comparable number of boy and girl recipients, regardless of whether the initiator was male or female† (55). Another interesting finding was that â€Å"both boys and girls were more physical than verbal in their initiation of the incidents, but a difference was observed in the responses of the recipients. Boys were more physical in responding to boys, while girls were more verbal in responding to boys† (Gropper & Froschl, 2000, 55). The official website for James Cook University provided relevant information pertaining to reasons for the bullying behavior. Findings from the research and surveys indicated that bullying could be due to any or a combination of the following reasons: desire for power, lack of skills to communicate, scapegoating, a desire for self-aggrandizement, attempts to increase perceptions of self worth, vindictiveness, distrust of others and overvaluing of control, compliance and hierarchy (JCU, 2010, par. 1). The study indicated that â€Å"people who have been identified as bullies believe that their bullying behaviour causes them to be