The concept of agency in childhood studies

The editors of the Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies, which was published in 2009, note that sociology and anthropology are 'the two most obvious forerunners in the now interdisciplinary social studies of childhood’ (Qvortrup, Corsaro 8i Honig, 2009, p. 3). Sociology and anthropology, not psychology, have been most associated with focusing scholarly attention on 'children’s agency’. Positioning children as social actors, not as passive recipients of moulding by their environments, most particularly the actions of their parents, was a key tenet of ‘the new paradigm of childhood’ that emerged in the late 1980s, and this tenet has been one of the most influential foundation stones of contemporary scholarship in childhood studies. In their book Reconceptualising Agency and Childhood, published in 2016, the editors, Esser, Baader, Betz and Hungerland, start their introductory chapter by saying: ‘Agency is without question one of the key concepts, possibly the key concept of Childhood Studies’ (p. 1). In any treatment of children’s agency sociological and anthropological perspectives must be seen as important, both historically and currently. It is of course the case that there are multiple perspectives within these disciplines and those sociological and anthropological theories about children’s agency that are associated with the field of childhood studies have changed and developed over the past four decades.

Disagreement with the perceived principles and methods of child and developmental psychology was one of the main motivations for the emergence of the new paradigm for the study of childhood, now labelled childhood studies. There is no doubt that psychology dominated the academic conceptualisation of children throughout the twentieth century. This dominance was reinforced by its utility in shaping and informing the practice of applied psychologists and other practitioners working with children in areas such as education, mental and public health. Sociology and anthropology appeared to have little to contribute to child management. Also, until the 1980s, the study of children and childhood was neither common nor valued within these disciplines. For example, in 1990 James and Prout noted that it is certainly true that sociologists have devoted little attention to childhood as a topic of interest in itself.

In the years when the new paradigm of childhood was coming into being, its novel perspectives were highlighted by pitching them against the perceived prescriptions of child psychology and child development. For most of the twentieth century psychology, with few exceptions, promoted a view of the child as the passive recipient of forces from within or without that shaped his or her behaviour or destiny. Because of this stance and because of psychology’s commitment to ‘“rationality", “naturalness” and “universality” ’ (James and Prout, 1990, p. 10), child psychology was seen to stand for all that was toxic to children both theoretically and in the many forms of practice that leant on psychological theories.

Sociology and agency: the tension between structure and agency

To understand the sociological meaning of agency it is necessary to understand the long-standing tension in sociological theory between theories that emphasise ‘agency’ and those that emphasise ‘structure’ as explanatory concepts in shaping social processes. As Jensen states, ‘the relationship between structure and agency is at the core of sociological controversies’ (2009, p. 152). Emile Durkheim is often seen as the founding father of sociology and as an influential proponent of the view that societal structures dictate and shape individual behaviour. His theory is labelled structural functionalism and is often contrasted with the symbolic interactionism associated with the work of George Herbert Mead and others. As Giddens states, ‘symbolic interactionism stresses the active, creative components of human behaviour’, whereas the other main theoretical approaches in sociology (functionalism, structuralism and Marxism) ‘emphasize the constraining nature of social influences on our actions’ (1997, p. 567). Theorists have typically tended towards one side or the other in the structure vs agency debate. Giddens (1979) has attempted to resolve the opposition between the opposing sides, sometimes labelled structuralists and individualists. He does so in his theory of structuration, which asserts that dualist thinking is unhelpful and that structure and agency are interdependent (Giddens,

1984). Although few contemporary sociologists would deny that individuals have some degree of agency, the strong emphasis on the causal role of structures can be seen in some of the influential theorists who write about children, such as Qvortrup (1987) and Alanen (2009). Both see childhood and adulthood as structural terms and emphasise the importance of the social structure, ‘generation’, in consigning children to a lesser and de-valued role.

As discussed later, many childhood studies scholars theorise childhood and children by means of theories that centre on structure versus agency or structure and agency. For example, Jensen (2009) links structure and agency by pointing out that in the Western pluralisation of family forms - exemplifying new social structures - children have very little agency, since adults make the decisions around marriage, co-habitation, divorce, re-marriage etc. Children’s agency is exercised at the micro level of adjustment to whatever family form their parents have chosen or ended up in. ‘Children have some agency but this is kept in a rather limited space, and a major space of this agency is traced in their capacity to adjust’ (2009, p. 153).