Beyond the modern 'Norm' of childhood: Children at the margins as a challenge for the sociology of childhood

Abstract

The normative conception of modern childhood is an underlying subject, largely taken for granted. Childhood was assumed as a generational group under adult control and children as social actors building their life trajectories on family, compulsory schooling and symbolic administration of their rights and duties. Nevertheless, there are “children at the margins” of this process: street children, children outside school, working children, children outside social protection systems, ethnic minority’s children of non-western societies, children from the “Great South”. We question whether these children are also at the “margins” of theoretical thinking of the sociology of childhood. As we experience processes of intensification of social crisis (namely, in southern European countries, with intensified situations of child poverty), we reflect on the possibilities for a critic of the modern norm of childhood.