Abstract

SIROTA, Régine. The indetermination of the frontiers of age. Perspectiva [online]. 2007, vol.25, n.01, pp.41-56. ISSN 0102-5473.

How has our perspective on childhood evolved? The classic definition that established clear borders between generations, which conceived socialization in a vertical manner, has been replaced by a sociology of childhood that introduces the vision of an "interpretive socialization" in which the child appears as an actor. This conceptual change will introduce the perspective of a horizontal socialization at the level of the peer group and between children. It considers the child not only as a future being, but as a being in the present. Childhood is seen here as a social construction that is certainly variable in form, but is first a structural component of all of society. The statute of "paradoxical equal" of the childhood of modernity is constructed based on a puzzle of complex and uncertain references. This is realized in the light of the reflexive mirror of the expert discourses that model norms, social policies and childhood imaginaries.

Keywords : Childhood; Sociology of Childhood; Socialization; Children Social Aspects.

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