Rethinking Children and Society – Children’s concepts of society and socialisation today

Abstract

This article is based on the question, how research findings on children’s understanding of society can be perceived and integrated with the development of children’s subjectivity against the background of social transformation processes. Scientific examination on this topic lacks most of all an examination of children’s sociality and their subjective development on different levels such as subjective experience, parental position and the constellation of societal conditions. In view of the currently prevailing tendency to socially monopolize children, the new research results can be read as an answer to socialisation processes of children requiring a new quality of confrontation with the environment. Such an argumentation is based on a point of view that does not ignore the relation between child and world, taking children seriously as human beings affected by, participating in and having to deal with society. This allows for possibilities to free the subject of children from existing constraints and to focus on the constellations of societal relevance causing problems for children and adults. At the same time it includes a change of perspective concerning opportunities for children to participate in and take responsibility for their living conditions.