ABSTRACT
This short chapter recapitulates the manifestations of constructivism which can be identified in the six novels. Putting the book’s methodology into perspective, it clarifies that while Foucauldian discourse theory provides an insightful mode of reading the contemporary childhood novel, it can only serve as one approach of many. Foucauldian discourse theory is not a dogmatic lens with which to reveal certain theories of childhood to be false. Were this the case, the idea of childhood as a discursive construct would assume the status of an absolute truth. The book closes by making a case for more poststructuralist approaches in childhood studies. Even if other subfields of literary studies have adopted more tangible concepts of reality in recent years, in the context of childhood, poststructuralism continues to confront us with unquestioned assumptions, ideological limits and theoretical inconsistencies.
