Towards a Critical Ecology of Child Development: Aligning the Theories of Bronfenbrenner and Bourdieu

Bronfenbrenner’s model of bio-ecological development has been utilized widely within the social sciences, in the field of human development, and in social work. Yet, while championing the rights of marginalised families and communities, Bronfenbrenner had under-theorized the role of power, agency and structure in shaping the ‘person-context’ interrelationship, life opportunities and social well-being. To respond to this deficit, this paper firstly outlines Bronfenbrenner’s ‘person, process, context, time’ model. Secondly, it then seeks to loosely align aspects of Bronfenbrenner’s model with Bourdieu’s analytical categories of habitus, field and capital. It is argued that these latter categories enable social workers to develop a critical ecology of child development, taking account of power and the interplay between agency and structure. The implications of the alignment for child and family social work are considered in the final section.

Understanding the 'production' of the schooling identities of young working class boys: time to move beyond the sociological/psychological divide?

In recent times the sociology of childhood has played an important role in challenging the dominance of Piagetian models of child development in shaping the way we think about children and childhood. What such work has successfully achieved is to increase our understanding of the socially constructed nature of childhood; the social competence and agency of children; and the diverse nature of children’s lives, reflecting the very different social contexts within which they are located. One of the problems that has tended to be associated with this work, however, is that in its critique of developmentalism it has tended simply to replace one orthodoxy (psychology) with another (sociology) rather than providing the opportunity to transcend this divide. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate some of the potential ways in which the sociological/psychological divide might be transcended and the benefits of this for understanding, more fully, the ‘production’ of children’s schooling identities. In particular it shows how some of the key sociological insights to be found in the work of Bourdieu may be usefully extended by the work inspired by the developmental psychologist, Vygotsky. The key arguments are illustrated by reference to ethnographic data relating to the schooling experiences and identities of a group of 5-6 year old working class boys.

The Sociology of Children, Childhood and Generation

Outlining sociology’s distinctive contribution to childhood studies and our understanding of contemporary children and childhood, The Sociology of Children provides a thought provoking and comprehensive account of the connections between the macro worlds of childhood and the micro worlds of children’s everyday lives.

Examining children’s involvement in areas such as the labour market, family life, education, play and leisure, the book provides an effective balance between understanding childhood as a structural phenomenon, and recognising children as meaning makers actively involved in constructing, co-constructing and reconstructing their everyday lives.

Through the concept of 'generagency' Madeleine Leonard offers a model for examining and illuminating how structure and agency are activated within interdependent relationships influenced by generational positioning. This framework provides a conceptual tool for thinking about the continuities, challenges and changes that impact on how childhood is lived and experienced.