ABSTRACT
Against the background of the range and depth of children’s competence, the idea of socialization as a process of creating group members emerges as a process that would seem to require children’s participation, whether that participation is actually recognized or not. Children’s views of this process might fruitfully be studied. Socialization as a process of creating a self also requires re-examination. If children are active participants in the creation of their own selves, then the nature of that participation becomes available for detailed examination. Sociological focus on adults as determinative of this process seems questionable in the light of Mackay’s explicit and Sacks’ implicit recognition of the competence which children must have in order to understand the very things they are being taught and in order to do the very things they do.
