ABSTRACT
It is widely acknowledged that until the mid-1980s there was surprisingly little sociological interest in childhood. Where children appeared in the main body of sociological writing, this was largely in the context of a wider investigation of something else; most frequently the family, the community or the educational system. Children were not actually invisible in sociology; rather they were marginal – adjuncts of their parents, their carers or their teachers – with little recognition that they might have a place of their own in sociological knowledge and enquiry (Corsaro 2004). Moreover, sociological surveys and official statistics frequently did not consider even the presence of children in their data collection and analysis, further increasing their invisibility in sociological discourse (Qvortrup 1994). The ‘adultism’ (Alanen 1994) in sociology has had important consequences for sociology and for social work. Most importantly, the absence of children in traditional sociological discourse presented a significant gap in the knowledge and understanding of society. This can be likened to the historical position of women within sociology. As explored in Chapter 1, feminist sociologists argued that sociology was not simply sexist, it was flawed sociology; its knowledge base and its research practices
lacked validity because they ignored or sidelined the experiences of women (Harding 1991, Stanley 1990). Similarly in recent years, sociologists who are interested in children and childhood have struggled to make sociology reflect better the experiences and perspectives of children and young people.
