This perspective presents children as social actors and childhood as social construction. James and Prout (1990, p.1) explain it as an interpretive frame of exploring the ways children are perceived and articulated in particular societies into culturally specific sets of ideas and philosophies, attitudes and practices. Researchers whose works are based on this perspective have presented children and their everyday life as culture-specific phenomena meaningful within the local social contexts, as opposed to the earlier psychologists who presented childhood as a universal phenomenon (Alanen, 1988; Corsaro, 1985; James and James, 2004; James et al., 1998; Jenks, 1982; Prout and James, 1990). Prout and James (1990, p. 26) assert that ‘Childhood … is neither a natural nor universal future of human groups but appears as a specific structural and cultural component of many societies.’ What I mean by ‘culture’ in this scenario pertains to Marianne Gullestad’s concept of ‘culture’ which she defined as the social meaning dimensions in everyday life. This refers to social and political organizations, family life, friendships, neighbourhood relationships and communications (Gullestad, 1992). The implication of presenting a childhood and children`s everyday life as socially constructed phenomena, according to Prout and James (1990, pp. 8-9), is promoting the idea that ‘children’s social relationships and cultures are worthy of study in their own right and children are actively involved in construction of their own social lives’. This perspective, which emerged as a new paradigm in the 1980s, has continued to influence later researches such as Kjørholt (2004), Lancy (2008), Montgomery (2009) and Wyness (2006) to present childhood and children’s everyday life as a discursive phenomenon embodied in cultural practices and social interactions. For example, based on an analysis of contemporary global discourses on children’s right to participation, Kjørholt (2004) argues that childhood is a social and symbolic space. The central idea illuminated by Kjørholt’s argument is that childhood is a component of culture and its meaning varies across social and cultural circumstances. Within the frame of the socially constructed child, I further discuss two of the key concepts on which this perspective is built. These concepts are ‘childhood as relational phenomena’ (studying children and childhood in relation to adults and adulthood) and ‘children as social actors’.
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The concept of ‘childhood as a relational phenomenon’ was introduced by Leena Alanen and Berry Mayall and pertains to dynamics in intergenerational relationships (the relationships between children and adults) based on cultural values and norms (Alanen, 2000; Mayall, 2002). With their position in social constructionist epistemology, these studies contend that the social construction of childhood should focus on generational relations (of which the relation between adults and children is one) for knowledge about the everyday life of children is understood as a result of the interactions and negotiations between these generations. In other words, children and their parents are social relational beings and are often engaged in interactions in which the meaning of childhood is symbolically constructed. For example, the concept of ‘generationing’ which Leena Alanen coined to express childhood as a relational phenomenon represents the process through which generation is constructed, with its accompanying roles and behaviours in a particular culture. Alanen (2000, p. 15) asserts that, ‘To theorize childhood would mean to arrive at a conceptual understanding of childhood as a generational condition.’ As emphasized by Mayall (2002), viewing childhood as a relational phenomenon is to place children in the system of generation through which some people are identified as adults and the others as children. According to this perspective, children and their social actions are shaped by the interaction between generations and the impact that one generation has on the other. Viewing childhood as a generational condition and children’s everyday life as the interplay of intergenerational interactions in a specific situation is more relevant in researching rural children, particularly children of rural Africa as the intergenerational relationships in Africa are more vigorous than the ones in Europe and America (Katz, 2004; Moritz, 2008; Poluha, 2004). For example, among the Guji people in Ethiopia, the norms of generational relationship, embedded in the social and cultural practices, shape the social places and roles of boys and girls (Beriso, 1983).
The concept of ‘children as social actors’ had emerged as a new paradigm in research with children by engaging children as active participants in the research process about their everyday life (Corsaro, 1985; James et al., 1998; Lancy, 2008; Montgomery, 2009). Based on this concept, researchers involved children as active subjects who are competent to shape each other as well as to influence their social situation which shows that they have rich perspectives about their social world. Kjørholt`s (2004) analysis of children as social participants in Norway, for instance, illuminates how children are social actors in construction of national identity, in creating their places in the society and perpetuating
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intergenerational relationships. Corsaro (2011) also asserts that children, through their peer culture and routines, achieve their autonomy and reduce adult control. This study emphasizes that the fact that children, in their play activities, demonstrate their desire to achieve freedom from the rules and authority of adults and to gain control over themselves shows that they are social actors. In line with this concept, researchers in the social studies of childhood argue that children are not seen as passive recipients of adults’ perspectives but are active actors in the construction of their own childhood realities. Alanen (2000, p. 12), for instance, says that: Children are seen to act in the social world and to participate in on-going social
life and are centrally involved in the construction of their own childhood through their negotiation with the adult world and among themselves.
Thus, Corsaro’s and Alanen’s notion of children as social actors as well as Kjørholt’s analysis of children as social participants show us that children are subjects with the capacity to construct meanings in response to the social practices in which they find themselves. Following this concept, I observe the roles that the Guji children play in the performance, interpretation and transmission of oral tradition and construction of knowledge through these processes.