Abstract
Recent approaches in childhood studies emphasize the strengths and actor status of children, problematize the power hierarchy in the relation between the generations, and view the childhood phase as a social concept that is also shaped by specific interests. Research on child well-being also proceeds from a paradigmatic shift in perspective from well-becoming to well-being as well as from a focus on adults to a focus on the child. This orientation toward children in the here and now and children as autonomous actors links up in terms of the theory of children’s rights. This chapter starts by taking a sociology of science perspective on a childhood studies oriented toward educational science. It then clarifies how one can systematically focus on the relation between well-being and well-becoming when carrying out childhood studies. Here it focuses on the Capability Approach with the theory of the “good life.” Based on this theoretical discussion the chapter includes empirical analyses: first children’s own childrearing concepts and second children’s concepts on freedom and the “good life”. It concludes with ideas on children’s concepts as an important perspective on the development of the Children’s Rights Approach.
Translated from the German by Jonathan Harrow.
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- 1.
In her postdoctoral habilitation thesis Kinderalltag—Kinderwelten [Children’s everyday life—Children’s worlds], Karin Bock (2010) points out that Honig nonetheless goes far beyond viewing childhood as just a childrearing childhood and determines that the generational order is an object of research in childhood studies.
- 2.
Secondary virtues mean characteristics of a person which help him or her to cope with the all day tasks but which do not have any ethical contents.
- 3.
All names are anonymized by Katharina Gerarts.
- 4.
Sie and Du are the formal and informal forms of address in German. Sie is used for all strangers and superiors; Du for the family and close friends.
- 5.
“Duhu” is the trivialized form of the German “Du”.
- 6.
For a detailed analysis of the position of the discourse on virtues in educational science, see Timo Hoyer (2005).
- 7.
The term autopoiesis comes from ancient Greek (αὐτός“self” and ποιέιν“create, build”) and means the self-creation and self-maintenance of a system. While originating in biology, it became a key term in Luhmann’s systems theory in the 1980s (see Böhm 2005).
- 8.
Although compulsory education starts at the age of 6 years in Germany, there is a degree of variation in the age at which children first attend elementary school.
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Andresen, S., Gerarts, K. (2014). Reconstructing Children’s Concepts: Some Theoretical Ideas and Empirical Findings on Education and the Good Life. In: Stoecklin, D., Bonvin, JM. (eds) Children’s Rights and the Capability Approach. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9091-8_5
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