ABSTRACT
In this final chapter we focus on the issues of time and childhood touched upon briefly in the first chapter of this volume. The social construction of time in and through social relationships is a relatively neglected theoretical theme within contemporary sociology. In recent years, however, there has been a re-awakening of interest in the temporal dimension of social relationships (see, for example, Young and Schuller, 1988) and in this chapter we will take up the invitation implicit in such work to suggest that the social construction of time may be crucial to the study of childhood. Such a move is important, we suggest, in facilitating a wider and more critical thinking about childhood as a social institution and about the lives of children themselves.
