Abstract
A growing body of research across the social sciences draws attention to the complex geographies of children and young people’s relationships. This chapter provides a critical introduction to the geographies of children’s and young people’s relationships. The notion of “generationings” is developed as a useful concept for understanding the ways in which particular generational positions in a society (e.g., adult/child) are constructed and sustained, rather than taking these positions as natural or unproblematic features of society. The chapter then proceeds in three primary sections based on different types of relationship. First, familial relationships and the home are explored, focusing particularly on family practices, parent/child relations, sibship and other intragenerational relationships within the family, and the concept of negotiated and constrained interdependencies. Second, extrafamilial intergenerational relationships and spaces are explored, focusing on the opportunities for and constraints on intergenerational relationships between children/young people and nonrelated adults. Finally, issues related to children and young people’s friendships, peer group relations, and sexualities are examined, stressing how researching children and young people’s relationships among themselves has much broader significance for understanding wider social processes.
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Punch, S., Vanderbeck, R.M. (2017). Families, Intergenerationality, and Peer Group Relations: Introduction. In: Punch, S., Vanderbeck, R., Skelton, T. (eds) Families, Intergenerationality, and Peer Group Relations. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 5. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-92-7_15-1
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