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Forthcoming in: Ethics and Education
Johannes Giesinger
The Special Goods of Childhood: Lessons from Social
Constructionism
Abstract: To what extent does the common claim that childhood is ‘socially constructed’ affect the ethical debate on the ‘intrinsic’ and ‘special’ goods of childhood? Philosophers have re- ferred to this kind of goods in their critique of overly adult-centred and future-oriented concep - tions of childhood. The view that some goods are child-specific, in the sense that they are only good for children, not for adults, seems to presuppose an understanding of what children ‘are’, and how they differ from adults. However, if the social-constructionist view is accepted, it can - not be assumed that childhood is a given. This essay claims that the social-constructionist un- derstanding of childhood does not undermine the debate on the moral status and the goods of childhood, but that nevertheless important lessons can be drawn from the insight that child- hood, as we know it, is not a natural and universal phenomenon. Moral philosophy has long neglected the issue of childhood.^1 In recent years, however, ques tions regarding the moral status of children and childhood have received growing attention. In the philosophical literature, it has become common to criticise those conceptions of childhood that do not account for children as children, but consider them only as the adults they will be come. In this adultcentred perspective, children are seen as defective adults. As Anca Gheaus puts it, childhood is considered as a ‘predicament, a stage of life to be overcome in order to enter adulthood, the truly valuable state of life’ (Gheaus, 2015a, 39; see also Gheaus 2015b).^2 It might be added that childhood is not seen as valuable in itself, but only as instrumentally valuable. Alexander Bagattini states that what he calls ‘the instrumental conception of child hood’ is the ‘preferred conception of the modern era’ (Bagattini 2016, 20). Bagattini, Gheaus, but also authors such as Colin Mcleod (2002), Samantha Brennan (2014), Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift (2014, 65), react to this conception of childhood by discussing the role of ‘in trinsic’, ‘distinct’ or ‘special’ goods of childhood. It should be noted, however, that in modern educational thought, the critique of the adult centred, futureoriented, or instrumental conception has been prominent from the outset. It was JeanJacques Rousseau, in his Émile (Rousseau 1961 , first published in 1762) who pro moted the view that childhood is a stage of life in its own right, and that children should be ac knowledged as children – not merely as future adults. Ellen Key’s influential book The Cen tury of the Child (Key 1909, originally published in 1900) proceeds in this spirit. Rousseau, Key, and other educational and social reformers shaped the view of childhood that became prevalent in the 20th century. Interestingly, this view – which might be called the modern conception of childhood – has itself been criticised in recent decades. This critique is inspired by Philippe Ariès’s claim that childhood, as we know it in our societies, is not a universal phenomenon (Ariès 1962). Against this background, it has been claimed that childhood is not naturally given, but ‘socially con structed’. My main question, in this essay, is whether or to what extent the constructionist critique of childhood affects the philosophical debate on the goods of childhood. The essay proceeds within
Johannes Giesinger the broadly ‘analytic’ philosophical framework in which the current debate on the goods of childhood is situated. It does not address the fundamental conflicts between analytic moral philosophy and those ‘continental’ approaches that rely to construc tionist ideas. Its aims are more modest: Given that the current normative debate on childhood goods makes sense at all, how can or should it account for constructionist claims regarding childhood? In a first step I provide an outline of this debate. In the second part, I try to clarify the basic ideas of the social constructionist view. In the third part, I bring these two lines of thought together. The core problem might be put as follows: The talk of (in trinsic, distinct or special) childhood goods seems to rely on some notion of what a child or childhood ‘is’, as distinguished from an adult or adulthood. The construction ist view calls into question that there ‘is’ such as thing as a child, independently of so cial contexts. On what grounds, then, should we discuss whether there are special goods of childhood? Roughly, I claim that while social constructionism does not un dermine the ethical debate on childhood, there are some lessons to be learned from it. The goods of childhood What is good for children, in the sense that it contributes to their wellbeing? This is the question that motivates the work on the goods of childhood.^3 Some authors (es pecially Mcleod 2002, and Brighouse/Swift 2014, and Gheaus 2015a) explicitly relate their considerations to the issue of distributive justice: determining distributive prin ciples must go along with the discussion of which goods are to be distributed. Talk of goods (of childhood) might also be connected to the question of what interests children have: as the terms are used in this essay, to say that something is a good for children means that it is in children’s interest.^4 In a first step, I consider the temporal dimension of the problem of children’s well being:children’s immediate interests can be distinguished from their futureoriented interests. This distinction is interrelated with another dimension of the problem. Here, the question is whether some goods are instrumentally or intrinsically valu able. Against this backdrop, it can further be asked whether some goods are child specific. Children obviously have immediate interests, such as the interest not to be in pain. It is bad for children in their present lives as children to suffer pain. However, children also have futureoriented interests, that is, interests regarding their future lives as adults. Some of their adult interests have nothing to do with their lives as
Johannes Giesinger The idea that some goods are childspecific is likely to be rooted in the view that there are relevant descriptive differences between children and adults. This is con firmed by Bagattini who mentions ‘distinct childspecific faculties such as imagina tion, curiosity, playfulness, openm indedness’ (Bagattini 2016, 27). His idea is, then, that reference to childspecific traits plays a role in the justification of childspecific goods. Gheaus ascribes similar qualities to children as Bagattini: Children are, in her view, small scientists, philosophers and artists. They are more imaginative, curious and openminded than the average adult. She also writes that ‘the real distinguishing mark of childhood is children’s superior ability to learn and change in the light of ex perience and their mental flexibility that allows them to imagine how things could be
- as opposed to how they actually are – better than adults’ (Gheaus 2015a, 41). Thus, against the picture of children as defective adults, Gheaus states that children are in some regards superior to adults. But although she seems to acknowledge relevant descriptive differences between children and adults in this regard, she denies that the intrinsic goods of childhood are specific to childhood. She thinks that enjoying unstructured play would also be valu able for adults, but that this good is more difficult to attain for adults. So, in her view, certain childhood goods are only childspecific in the sense that they are more easily accessible to children than to adults. This must be due the descriptive differ ences between the two groups. Gheaus also points out that some adults – philosophers or artists – have main tained certain ‘childlike’ qualities that are often considered as valuable. She further makes clear that the question of what is good for children or adults must be distin guished from the question of what we owe to them. It might well be, against this background, that unstructured play is good for adults, but that it is not demanded by justice to provide them with plenty of time for play. This can only be because it is, in some sense, more important for children than for adults. I do not want, here, to engage in a closer discussion of the various claims made in this debate. My aim is to relate the debate on the goods of childhood with the con structionist claim regarding childhood. In this regard, it is the debate on special goods of childhood that matters most. We have seen that the defence of childspecific goods must refer, in some sense or other, to childspecific properties.
The Special Goods of Childhood The social construction of childhood It is a commonplace in education studies, and even more in the sociology of child hood, to say that childhood is socially constructed.^6 So, for instance, the child sociolo gists Allison James and Alan Prout write about the basic assumptions on which their research proceeds: Childhood is understood as a social construction. As such, it provides an interpret ive frame for contextualizing the early years of human life. Childhood, as distinct from biological immaturity is neither a natural nor a universal feature of human groups, but appears as a specific structural and cultural component of many soci eties (James/Prout 1997, 8). James and Prout use ‘childhood’ as an exclusively social concept, but they do not deny that the first stage of human life is characterized by a particular natural condition (‘biological immaturity’). I propose to distinguish ‘biological childhood’ from ‘social childhood’.^7 This distinction, as well as the one made by James and Prout, is analog ous to the feminist distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. In a first step I now try to clarify the constructionist claim. For this, I do not discuss the educational and soci ological work on the construction of childhood. Instead, I draw on Sally Haslanger’s considerations on social construction that are focused on gender and race and do not refer to childhood (Haslanger 2012a and 2012b). Haslanger’s account has not so far been discussed either in the sociology of childhood, nor in the philosophical debate on childhood goods. Haslanger clarifies the notion of social construction by introducing two distinc tions: First, she says that the notion of social construction either refers to the practice of distinguishing or classifying, or to the objects of classification (Haslanger 2012b, 187). As far as our conceptual classifications have linguistic character and are embed ded in a wider cultural framework, it is clear that they are in this way socially con structed. They are not pregiven in nature, but were developed in social and cultural processes, and persons acquire them in being initiated in a cultural form of life. In this way, we learn concepts such as ‘man’, ‘woman’, or ‘child’. This does not mean, however, that what socially constructed concepts and distinctions refer to is itself constructed. Socially constructed distinctions might well pick out naturally given dif ferences – that is, differences that are not themselves socially constructed. For in stance, there is a feminist debate on whether sex – which is originally taken as a bio logical category – is socially constructed. With Haslanger, we can say that the distinc tion of two sexes (male and female) has social origins, but nevertheless refers to biolo
The Special Goods of Childhood status of persons in a framework of social relationships. In the same way, ‘being a child’ might be seen as expressing a particular social position in relation to adults, and to special groups of adults (parents, teachers).^8 To see childhood as socially con structed, in this sense, then means that a person cannot be a ‘child’ independently of certain social structures in which such a status exists. Relying on Haslanger, I would like to propose a threefold notion of what it means to be a child. Childhood is, first, a biological condition in the first years of human life. Second, childhood is discursively constructed: Children become children because cer tain childspecific features are attributed to them. Third, childhood is a social status concept. Being a child means to have a particular position in the social order. Theoretical functions of the constructionist claim The social constructionist claim regarding childhood can have different theoretical functions, as I would like to make clear. To begin with, the claim points to facts in the world: There is not one childhood. Childhood is not a universal and natural phe nomenon, but can take many social forms. Inspired by Ariès’s work (Ariès 1962), it is sometimes claimed that childhood did not exist in earlier periods of European history. This view is taken up by the child sociologist Jens Qvortrup (2005) who describes what he calls the ‘Arièsian vision of children’s representation in medieval and imme diate postmedieval society’. Qvortrup explains: ‘That was a vision of society which was not short of children, but lacked childhood. Children were plentifully (and vis ibly) there, but they did not constitute a conceptual category’ (Qvortrup 2005, 2). Dav id Archard (1993) reacts to this view by using Rawls’s distinction between ‘concept’ and ‘conception’. Archard states that any society knows the concept of childhood, but that there can be various conceptions of childhood. This may be explained with refer ence to the biological basis of childhood: Each society has to react to the fact that hu man beings are not born as grownups, but are in a weak, vulnerable, and dependent state at the first stage of their lives. In a second step, it can be pointed out that given the various social forms of child hood in different historical and cultural contexts, it is clear that childhood can be de signed in different ways. Childhood, as it exists in modern societies, is not an un changeable fact of human life. It does not have to be accepted as it is (see also Alanen 2005, 37). This line of thought is closely related to a third aspect. Given that childhood is a social phenomenon, it can be said that the current form of childhood is not justified by biology. It has often been assumed, in modern educational thought, that the mod
Johannes Giesinger ern conception of childhood mirrors the special ‘nature of the child’ and is therefore normatively justified. Reference to children’s nature was and is typically made with a normative undertone. In many usages of the expression, ‘nature’ is not used as a bio logical but as a teleological concept. In a similar way, talk of ‘woman’s nature’ was and sometimes still is used to justify a social order in which women are subordinated to men. The sex/gender distinction can be used to undermine this justificatory frame work. It points out that the social position of woman is not biologically pregiven, but socially constructed. From here, it is a short step to a comprehensive critique of regimes of gender or childhood.^9 The basic idea is that these regimes are constructed the way they are due to power interests of dominant groups – men in one case, adults in the other (Alanen 2005, 39–40). The suspicion is – with regards to childhood – that the social construc tion of childhood works out to the disadvantage of children as a social group, a group that is subordinated to adults and excluded from adult life (Qvortrup 2005, 2; Hood Williams 1990). Since the current settings could be changed (the second point) and are not justified by nature (the third point), the social order of childhood and adult hood might be radically modified. The (‘new’) sociology of childhood, as it has developed since the 80s and 90s, is mo tivated by this kind of critical impulse. Childhood is seen as a political and moral is sue. However, childsociologists do not aim at developing a positive account of how childhood should be designed. One of their main concerns is to change the research agenda in sociology and related fields. Their aim is to make children and their stand point more visible in social research. They criticise the view of children as incompet ent and in need of special protection. They also question the common focus on the de velopmental aspect of childhood that typically goes along with the view that children are not yet what they should be. As Alanen explains, the new sociology of childhood shows a ‘tendency to play down many presumed differences between children and adults. Children in and through this research, appear as “ordinary social beings”’ (Alanen 2005, 35). Interestingly, these child sociologists do not give much attention to those traits that are highlighted by the (philosophical) defenders of specific childhood goods, such as playfulness, curiosity, or imagination. They do not directly criticise the modern tendency to describe children as special in a positive sense, which sometimes amounts to the view that children are superior to adults. Sociologists focus on the view of children as defective adults. They state that the special attention for children in modernity has put them in a disadvantageous position. This view might also be
Johannes Giesinger fulness, imagination, openmindedness, but also innocence and and a sense of being carefree, are taken as childspecific properties. From constructionist considerations, we learn that making these kinds of ascriptions to children might be problematic. We must be careful in our statements as to how children ‘are’ or what childhood ‘is’. The picture of the child as imaginative or innocent might be just that – a picture that has nothing to do with real children. Rousseau’s or Key’s views have been criti cised for expressing an overly romantic picture of childhood. Moreover, many people have a nostalgic image of their own childhood; for instance, they imagine themselves as having known no problems in this period of their lives. Gheaus (2015a) provides a vivid example of this attitude in her description of the winters of her childhood. Oth ers have a dark memory of their childhood that might equally poorly reflect the real lives that they had as children. Haslanger’s notion of discursive construction makes clear that social or cultural images of childhood are often more than just images. They are realised in discursive processes of attribution. This means that the empirical properties of young persons are not necessarily naturally pregiven. They might well be the consequence of pro cesses of social construction: Children may be a certain way because they are treated as being that way. This, however, raises problems for the normative debate on child specific goods, to the extent that the argument for these goods relies on the assump tion of childspecific traits. Consider, as an example, the claim – made by Gareth B. Matthews (1994) and taken up by Gheaus (2015a; 2015b) – that children are small philosophers. It must be specified how this claim is meant. Is it an empirical statement saying that children normally ask philosophical questions, in their everyday lives? Here, it might be objec ted that many children spend a lot of time playing around with their smart phones, and do not have strong interests in engaging in intellectual or creative activities. Maybe the claim is to be understood in a weaker sense: Some children are inclined to do philosophy, and ask philosophical questions, without being prompted to do so. If only some children are like that, the question is whether philosophical talk should be seen as a good for all children. Moreover, it can be asked whether some children’s in clination for philosophy is naturally given or the result of discursive construction: Some parents react to philosophical questions in a much more encouraging way than to their child’s wish to play a game on the smart phone. Some parents, having read Matthews, expect their child to be a philosopher, and – so we might assume – thereby reinforce philosophical interests in the child. In this sense, then, the philosophical child is a social construction.
The Special Goods of Childhood It might be assumed that under the right social and educational circumstances, not only some but many children would engage in philosophy. This raises the ques tion of whether we should construct children as philosophers and thereby make them into philosophers. Obviously, as some children already engage in philosophy, there is the potential for philosophy in many or all children. It becomes clear, at this point, that the crucial question is a normative one. The question is whether philosophy is a valuable activity for children. If we adopt the view that engaging in philosophy is good for children, we will organize the relationship to children in a way that fosters their philosophyrelated capacities and attitudes, including imagination, creativity, openmindedness, clarity in thinking, or a critical attitude to one’s own and others’ thoughts. These properties might well be described as ‘socially constructed’, but this does not undermine the normative argument in any way. If we focus on features that are not seen as valuable – such as incompetence, or the lack of autonomy and rationality – things look different. From the constructionist standpoint, it can be claimed that these features, even if they are empirically there, are not naturally given, but the result of social construction.^11 With regard to these features, it is a matter of discussion whether the lack of valuable capacities is fully due to discursive construction. In the case of young children, for instance, it is un likely that they would be fully competent even if competence was constantly attrib uted to them. Obviously, the biological features of the early years of human life make it impossible for young children to have all the valuable capacities that older persons can have. This does not mean that the constructionist intervention is pointless: It might well be that some fourteenyearolds could lead the life of an adult if they were ascribed full adult competencies and responsibilities. Another important point is that discursive construction is interdependent with constitutive construction. This is clear with regards to competence and autonomy: Childhood, in our societies, is a social status with restricted autonomy rights and political rights. The ascription of childhood status goes along with the attribution of certain descriptive features – in particular the lack of competence or autonomy. In this sense, we can say that being in this particular social position has discursive ef fects. Children who are deprived of the right to autonomy will typically see them selves as lacking autonomyrelated capacities, and they will in fact lack these capacit ies. A similar consideration can be made with regards to being carefree. Having a steady sense of being carefree, Brighouse and Swift (2014) say, is a distinct good of
The Special Goods of Childhood intrinsic or special goods of childhood is often embedded in the context of considera tions of distributive justice. This debate, however, often neglects that ascribing spe cial goods to children tends to have structural and positional consequences. The worlds of children and adults tend to be separated. So, allowing children to live ‘as children’ is, on the one hand, good for them. Child hood status is, in some sense, a privileged position in society: Children are cared for and protected. They do not have to work. They do not have to take full responsibility for what they do. On the other hand, children are not taken fully seriously. They are not seen as fullblooded participants in adult society. These are the moral costs of providing them with childspecific goods: The attempt to account for their special needs confirms their subordinate position in society. The normative construction of childhood The core question of an ethics of childhood is: How should childhood be construc ted? Thus, we cannot take childhood as a given, and assume that normative argu ments can be based on a clearcut descriptive understanding of what a child is. Child hood is a biological condition, but there are also discursive and constitutive construc tion processes at work. The latter idea is especially important because it provides us with the insight that childhood is a status concept. The childliberationist position that some child sociolo gists might sympathize with can be expressed as follows: The status of childhood should be abolished. This means that persons of different age groups should have equal rights. This view is sometimes justified with reference to the idea that children should have full and independent moral status. It is assumed that ascribing an equal moral status to persons is tantamount to granting them equal rights. However, treat ing someone as an equal does not necessarily mean that he or she must be treated equally. Rather, it means that inequalities in the treatment of persons must be justi fied with reference to relevant descriptive differences. Modern philosophical and edu cational thought has acknowledged the equal moral status of children, but has in sisted that children should be treated specially due to their special condition. At this point, however, the socialconstructionist view of childhood raises problems: On what grounds should the special treatment of children be justified if childhood is socially constructed? It can be argued that the biological condition of childhood requires setting up spe cial arrangements for the care and education of children. These arrangements consti tute the special position of children in the social order. As children are ‘by nature’ de
Johannes Giesinger pendent and vulnerable, they have a special interest to be cared for. Care entails a paternalistic protection of their basic needs. Children cannot yet have the capacities necessary to decide for themselves. They are in a period of development and learning, and have to be supported in acquiring relevant capacities, attitudes, or forms of knowledge. Of course, it is not naturally given what children should learn. In determ ining the aims of education, we must refer to a normative notion of what it means to be an adult: Children must develop those capacities that are considered as necessary to live a fullblooded adult life. Educational arrangements designed to ensure this are part of what constitutes the status of childhood. I assume, then, that establishing childhood as a special status is justified, first, by biological facts and, second, by the requirement to develop adult capacities (however these are defined in detail). If it is agreed that childhood should be constructed as a status, important questions remain: a) How long should childhood last? In which way and at what point should the transition into the status of adulthood be organised? b) How should children’s form of life be designed? What goods should be provided to children? How exactly should they be educated? The debate on the goods of childhood refers to the second question. Those philo sophers who discuss this issue acknowledge that children must be cared for, paternal ized, and educated. They do not deny that futureoriented considerations are relev ant, but criticise an overly adultcentred understanding of childhood. It became clear in the first section that the adultcentred conception of childhood can be criticised without referring to distinct childhood goods. Children’s immediate interests can be seen as relevant even if they do not significantly differ from adult interests. It is also obvious that we can account for the intrinsic goods of childhood without assuming that these goods are childspecific. This means that the demand to see childhood as more than just a preparation for adulthood does not depend on the ascription of child specific traits that might be due to discursive construction processes. The critique of the adultcentred understanding of childhood might be based on the idea of children’s full moral status: On this basis, it comes natural to say that chil dren must be morally accounted for as children, not only as the adults they are likely to become. It is not that simple, though. Even if we start from the assumption of the equal moral standing of children, we might come to the view that their present wel fare can be sacrificed for future benefits, under certain circumstances. This might be the case if we adopt the consequentialist idea that a person’s overall welfare should be maximised (Birnbacher 2015). This view allows for intrapersonal tradeoffs: Imme diate interests might be subordinated to a greater gain of welfare in the future. In an
Johannes Giesinger could start from the idea that the social position of children might be improved by giving them more responsibilities than they have today. Instead of merely playing in the snow – to take up Gheaus’s example – children might help to clear the street of snow. From early on, children are able to significantly contribute to social life. They can take over responsibilities in the family, the school, or the wider community. 13 At the same time, it can be discussed whether providing children with more duties should go along with granting them additional rights, including some form of (child specific) autonomy rights, or rights of political participation that do not amount to a full right to vote. Providing children with additional responsibilities and rights might also be justi fied for educational reasons, as opening up new practical spheres to children gives them the opportunity to develop valuable capacities and attitudes. It should be noted, however, that providing new options to children within an educational setting con firms their subordinate status are addressees of education. As long as some persons (parents, teachers) are specially responsible for children, and have specific (educa tional and paternalistic) rights towards them, their social positions significantly dif fers from the position of adults, even if they can to some extent contribute to the life of the community. Concluding remarks How, then, does the socialconstructionist challenge affect the ethical debate on spe cial childhood goods? First, the view of childhood as socially constructed opens up space for normative debates on the question of how the status of childhood should be set up. Second, we must be careful, in the ethical debate, when it comes to descriptive assumptions about what childhood or a child ‘is’. Our own views are already influ enced by common conceptions of childhood. Moreover, empirical traits of children might be the result of discursive construction. Third, we can criticise the adult centred conception of childhood without relying on an account of childspecific traits, or childspecific goods. Fourth, when we discuss these goods, we should not only con sider distributive matters, but embed this debate within considerations on the social position of children. (^1) Here, I refer to the type of moral philosophy that has developed since the publication of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, in 1971. The work in the philosophy of childhood mentioned in this essay is to be situated within this tradition, that is, within a broadly ‘analytic’ philosophical framework. It should also be noted that the authors who have recently written on the (special) goods of childhood are mostly unfamiliar with the debates in the philosophy of education.
The Special Goods of Childhood (^2) The view of childhood as a predicament is defended by Tamar Schapiro (1999), and Sarah Hannan (2017). (^3) See also Sarah Hannan’s talk of the ‘bads’ of childhood (Hannan 2017). (^4) So, for instance, to say that children have an interest in unstructured play is tantamount to the claim that unstructured play is a good for children. (^5) For a recent critique of these ideas, se Hannan 2017. (^6) On the role of constructionist ideas in the sociology of childhood, see also the remarks of Leena Alan en (2015). (^7) A similar terminology is used by the child sociologist Leena Alanen (2005, p. 40). She distinguishes ‘natural childhood’ and ‘natural children’ from ‘social childhood’ and ‘social children’. Surprisingly, Alanen does not use this distinction in a recent handbook article on the concept of childhood (Ala nen 2014). (^8) This view is confirmed by Leena Alanen in an early paper (Alanen 1988, p. 63–64; my emphasis): ‘A more thorough analysis of Ariès’ historical method and his mostly implicit social theory, however, helps to produce another view for thinking about childhood. In this reading childhood emerges, not as an idea of the child in the first place, but as a particular social status within specially constituted institutional frames’. (^9) An alternative route that could be taken from here leads into relativism. The relativist position might be put as follows: There are different conceptions of childhood, and we cannot determine whether one of them is more adequate than others. In this regard, Gunter Graf (2015, 31) writes: ‘Even if childhood is socially constructed, it is important to acknowledge that some constructions might be more adequate than others. From the fact of diversity does not immediately follow that all conceptions of childhood are of equal value’. (^10) I do not deny, that many constructionist will see it differently – they consider normative discourse as some sort of social construction that might be analysed and criticised. (^11) This point is also discussed by Brighouse and Swift (2014, 68) (^12) Further inspiration for this debate might come from Friedrich Schleiermacher’s pedagogical lectures (held in 1826). Schleiermacher (2000, p. 54) states that futureoriented educational activities in childhood must also have their satisfaction in the present. In cases where immediate satisfaction is lacking, Schleiermacher adds, it might suffice that the child consents to an educational activity. (^13) Interestingly, Brennan (2014, 42) mentions ‘opportunities to meaningfully contribute to household and community’ among the goods of childhood. Alanen, Leena. 1988. “Rethinking Childhood.” Acta Sociologica 31 (1): 53–67. Alanen, Leena. 2005. “Women’s Studies/Childhood Studies. Parallels, Links and Perspectives.” In Chil dren Taken Seriously In Theory, Policy and Practice edited by Jan Mason and Toby Fattore, 31–45 , Children Taken Seriously in Theory, Policy and Practice, London/Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Pub lishers.
The Special Goods of Childhood Key, Ellen. 1909. The Century of the Child. G.P. Putnam’s Sons: New York/London. Matthews, Gareth B. 1994. The Philosophy of Childhood. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mcleod, Colin. 2002. “Primary Goods, Capabilities, and Children.” In Measuring Justice. Primary Goods and Capabilities, edited by Ingrid Robeyns and Harry Brighouse, 174–193. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press. Mcleod, Colin. 2016. “Constructing Children’s Rights.” In Justice, Education and the Politics of Child hood. Challenges and Perspectives, edited by Johannes Drerup, Gunter, Graf, and Christoph Schick hardt, 3–16, Springer: Dordrecht. Qvortrup, Jens. 2005. “Varieties of Childhood.” In Studies in Modern Childhood. Society, Agency, Cul ture, edited by Jens Qvortrup, 1–20, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian. Rousseau, Jean Jacques. 1961. Émile ou de l’éducation. Paris: Garnier. Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press. Schapiro, Tamar. 1999. “What is a Child?” Ethics 109 (4). Schleiermacher, Friedrich D. E. 2000. “Grundzüge der Erziehungskunst.” In Texte zur Pädagogik, by Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, edited by Michael Winkler and Jens Bachmann, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, vol. 2.
