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DOI: 10.1177/0907568207078327

2007 14: 193ChildhoodMichael King

from a social systems perspectiveThe Sociology of Childhood as Scientific Communication: Observations

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THE SOCIOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD ASSCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION

Observations from a social systemsperspective

This article begins by identifying a close relationship

between the image of children generated by several

sociologists working within the new sociology of

childhood perspective and the claims and ambitions of

the proponents of childrens autonomy rights. The

image of the child as a competent, self-controlled

human agent are then subjected to observation from

the perspective of Niklas Luhmanns social systems

theory. The new sociology of childhoods

constructivist approach is compared and contrasted

with Niklas Luhmanns theory of operational

constructivism. The article applies tenets of

Luhmanns theory, to the emergence of the new

childhood sociologists image of the child as a

competent, self-controlled social agent, to the

epistemological status of this image and, in particular,

to claims that it derives from scientific endeavour. The

article proceeds to identify two theoretical

developments within sociology sociology of identity

and social agency which have brought about

fundamental changes in what may be considered

sociological and so scientificand paved the way forsociological communications about what children

really are. In conclusion, it argues that the merging

of sociology with polemics, ideology, opinion and

personal beliefs and, at the level of social systems,

between science and politics represents in Luhmanns

terms dedifferentiation a tendency he claims may

have serious adverse consequences for modern

society. This warning is applied to the scientific status

of sociology its claim to be able to produce factsfor society, upon which social systems, such as politics

and law, may rely. Like the mass media, sociology

may now be capable of producing only information,

and not facts, about children.

193

MICHAEL KINGUniversity of Reading

Key words:children as agents, childrens autonomy,

childrens rights, Luhmanns theory ofsocial systems, new sociology of

childhood, sociology of identity

Mailing address:Michael King

School of Law, University of Reading,Foxhill House, Whiteknights Road,

Reading, RG6, 7BA, UK.[email: [email protected]]

ChildhoodCopyright 2007SAGE Publications. Los Angeles, London,

New Delhi and Singapore, Vol 14(2): 193213.www.sagepublications.com

10.1177/0907568207078327

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The new childhood sociology

It would appear that academic sociology has now fully embraced into its fold

the theoretical approaches to issues concerning children known in English-

speaking countries as the new sociology of childhood. It is now over 10 yearssince this new perspective for the study of childhood and children first appeared

on the sociological scene. During that time, it has consolidated its position, not

only in the English-speaking world but also in Germany and Scandinavia, as the

dominant theoretical framework, for anyone seeking a sociological understand-

ing of childhood and children (see, for example, Corsaro, 1997; James and

Prout, 1997; James et al., 1998; Jenks, 1996; Qvortrup et al., 1994).1 For a meas-

ure of its success one has only to open any recent social scientific book or art-

icle on an issue concerning children, where one is sure to find acknowledgements

and references to theorists and researchers writing within this all-prevailingframework.

In this article I wish to focus attention on those theoretical aspects of the

new sociology of childhood that rely heavily upon the creation of a new image

of the child. It may seem strange that so far they appear to have escaped any

serious critical analysis from within sociology or social policy.2 This may in

part be due to the current enthusiasm for childrens rights in legal and political

circles. The suggestion here is that there may well be some disinclination gen-

erally to make adverse comments about any sociological account of children

and childhood that promotes and maintains an image of children, as people intheir own right, lest such criticisms are interpreted as encouraging a return to

paternalistic attitudes towards children with all their authoritarian connota-

tions. Moreover, anyone who subjects this view of children to critical com-

ment, may also risk being seen as doubting childrens competence to make

decisions for themselves or, worse still, as a childrens rights sceptic. As far as

sociological theorists specifically are concerned, there could also be some

reluctance to criticize a theoretical approach that had successfully dethroned

those functionalists and developmental psychologists who had for so long thor-

oughly dominated the study of children and childhood.One of the difficulties faced by the new sociology of childhood has been

that of establishing a clear demarcation line between what claims to be a new

theoretical understanding of children and the discourse of childrens rights.

Clearly, it would be naive to suggest that the simultaneous occurrence of this

renewed theoretical interest in childhood and the growth of childrens rights

as a global phenomenon was a mere coincidence.3 The two relate to each

other symbiotically in that, the more competent and autonomous children

appear to be, the more unjustified adults paternalism and the refusal to rec-

ognize childrens capabilities appear and the more appropriate it is for chil-

dren to be given similar rights to adults (see, for example, Alderson, 2000;

Lansdown, 1995, 2001). It is, therefore, not surprising to find some childhood

researchers welcoming this new sociological theory as a scientific bolster to

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the campaign for enhancing childrens rights and countering what they iden-

tify as societys mistreatment and undervaluation of children, for example:

. . . we need a sociology of childhood . . . to draw attention to certain neglected fea-

tures of childhood, to provide a better account of how the social order works; and to

use this knowledge as a basis for righting childrens wrongs. (Mayall, 2000: 246)

Such a blatantly instrumental use of theory may not be typical of those

researchers who apply this new approach to children and childhood. However,

it does typify their widely expressed belief that their theoretical approach is

able to provide a better understanding of childhood and introduce a firmer

scientific basis for policy issues based upon recognition of the capacity of

children for autonomy, competent decision-making and of their role as social

agents.4 Even if some of the new childhood theorists do attempt to distance

their theory of childhood from the rhetoric of childrens rights,

5

it cannot bedenied that in the writings of many English-speaking new sociologists of

childhood the two are intricately interconnected (see, for example, Alderson,

2000; Corsaro, 1997; James and Prout, 1990; James et al., 1998; Prout and James,

1997). Seen in the context of the widening of the boundaries of sociology and

the relaxation of its criteria for research validity,6 the closeness between

demands for childrens autonomy rights and the evidence of competence and

agency generated by the results of research applying a new sociology of child-

hood perspective might well raise concerns.

An interesting and original way of observing sociologically such rela-tionships between disciplines or discourses that has emerged in recent years is

Niklas Luhmanns theory of autopoietic systems. In the remainder of this art-

icle I present an account of aspects of this theory and the ways in which it

may be applied in order to observe, from a systems perspective, the develop-

ment within sociology of this particular theoretical stance with regard to

childhood and children. As a matter of shorthand, I continue to refer to this

theoretical stance as that of the new sociology of childhood, although I am

aware that some of those who work within the childhood sociology frame-

work may well reject in whole or in part the claims of the construction of anexplicit or exclusive image of childhood autonomy, competence and agency.

Social construction and Luhmannian systems theory

The social construction of childhood and children

Like so many social theoretical critiques of the taken-for-granted world, the

new sociology of childhood relies heavily upon a social constructionist

approach (see James et al., 1998: 8; James and Prout, 1997: 3). Indeed, one of

the new sociologists of childhood describes the social constructionist natureof childhood as one of the key features of the theory (James and Prout,

1997: 10). The notion that childhood is a constructed concept may well seem

uncontroversial. As Ian Hacking points out, it could mean simply that the idea

K I N G : S O C I O L O G Y O F C H I L D H O O D A S S C I E N T I F I C C O M M U N I C A T I O N



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of childhood has been constructed, but it could also mean that a certain state

of person, or even a period in the life of a human being has been constructed.

Some thinkers, he adds, may even mean that children as they exist today

have been constructed(Hacking, 1999: 102). The new childhood sociologists

base their theory on this third proposition, that children should be regarded asconstructions of their particular society. Clearly, they are not suggesting that

children do not exist as physical entities or that their existence depends upon

whether or not people believe that they exist. Rather, the argument is that

what a society expects of children, the way that they are perceived, what is

seen as good or bad for them and what they are competent or incompetent to

perform depends upon the particular concept of childhood that society has

constructed. There is no definitive or universal account of what childhood is

or what children should be. All is relative and depends upon the particular

constructions of childhood of different societies or of the same society at dif-ferent times and the expectations associated with children (and adults) result-

ing from these constructions.

When this notion of a constructed childhood was first proposed by Aris

(1962), it may have been a surprising proposition, but it was seen as not an

unreasonable one. However, the new childhood sociologists, or at least some

of them, have taken the construction idea much further. They argue that by

revealing (or deconstructing) the artificial nature of these constructions and

the power interests that are being served by their existence, sociologists, such

as themselves, are able to gain access to the truth about childrens social rela-

tionships or, at least, to take themselves and us closer to that truth, independ-

ent of the perspective and concerns of adults.7 According to them, therefore,

the truth about childrens understanding of the world around them is access-

ible and, moreover, sociologists of childhood are able to assist in the task of

gaining access to it, first through its theoretical deconstructionist accounts

and, second, through the facts about children revealed in the research carried

out by those who apply their theory. According to them, therefore, the truth

about children is accessible and, moreover, sociology is able to assist in thetask of gaining access to it, first through its theoretical deconstructionist

accounts and, second, through the facts about children revealed in the

research carried out by those who apply their theory.

Luhmannian systems theory

Niklas Luhmanns theory of social systems also relies upon a constructionist

account of society (e.g. King, 1993; King and Schtz, 1994; Luhmann, 1995;

Mingers; 2002; Sciulli, 1994; Teubner, 1993; Vanderstraeten, 2000), but his

constructionism takes a very different form. His general approach portrayssociety as consisting, not of individuals, but of communications that are organ-

ized socially within societal systems. Society is the sum total of all meaningful

communications. The system of society consists of communications. There

are no other elements; there is no further substance but communications

C H I L D H O O D 1 4 ( 2 )



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(Luhmann, 1990a: 100). Events in the world are random, contingent and chaotic.

Through these systems, and only through these systems, is the impression of

order, understanding and control within society possible. Each of societys sub-

systems (social systems) codes its otherwise inaccessible environment in ways

that enable it to formulate and generate meaningful communications.The organization of societys subsystems has been subjected to radical

change over the centuries. Modern society stands in sharp contrast to tradi-

tional societies in that it has no central core and no hierarchical structure;

instead it is organized according to functional differentiation. Each of those

systems that are functional to the organization of meaningful communications

for society (science, law, politics, economy, etc.) has its unique, non-replicable

function, which determines the form and nature of its communications. Each

exist within the environment of the other systems to be reconstituted within

those systems according to their own unique ways of processing their world.There can, therefore, be no direct, inputoutput, communication between them

only structural coupling, the co-evolution of different systems (King and

Thornhill, 2003: 323).8

Operational constructivism

One way of entering Luhmanns complex theory is through operational con-

structivism a concept which Luhmann sets out in his bookThe Reality of the

Mass Media (Luhmann, 2000: 6), but which is also to be found in various guises

throughout his theoretical writings. The approach to social phenomena that

Luhmann adopts in his theory of operational constructivism contrasts sharply

with that of the new sociology of childhood, which applies social construction

selectively. It claims access to the reality of modern childhood that corresponds

to the perceptions, beliefs, capacities and understandings of children themselves.

Luhmanns theory does not deny the existence of reality there is a world out

there, but it sees this world as accessible only through the medium of societys

social systems. In other words, it can never be observed directly. The world is

not an object but rather a horizon in the phenomenological sense (Luhmann,1990a: 32). What reality is depends entirely on the different ways that it can be

described and accounted for within a society consisting of social systems.

Operational constructivism does not attempt to present reality, but describes

rather how other systems undertake this task. It starts, therefore, from a very

different position both to that of social scientists, who accept the idea of ultim-

ately accessible truth, and that of the relativists, who believe that social reality is

a construct of those individuals, groups and cultures who believe in and rely

upon it, and see their task as exposing the myths and delusions that form the

basis of their constructions. Operational constructivism by contrast sees any sys-tems version of reality as a product of that systems operations. Moreover, it

treats these operations themselves as constructions of the system. Systems then

construct their version of the external environment reality using specific

codes and programmes, which they themselves construct.




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From the perspective of operational constructivism, it is not possible for

society to communicate about childrens bodies or childrens minds without the

intermediary of some social communication system. Any observations of chil-

dren are always then second order observations (see next subsection), that is

observations by way of an observing system, which may then communicatewhat it observes. There can be no facts about children in society, only obser-

vations that may or may not be accepted by other systems in society as facts.

Observing systems

If one envisages a system observing the external world, reality for that system

consists of what it takes to be its environment, that is, the world, including

other systems and what it understands as its own identity within that environ-

ment. This means that it can observe itself and its own operations only from

within its own boundaries, that is from its own limited perspective. It requiresa second observing system to be able to see the first system observing its

environment, that is seeing both the system and environment from a position

outside the first observing system. Put another way, only a second observing

system can identify the ways in which the first system makes sense of its

environment. Yet even what a second order observing system may take to be

facts or reality is just as much constructed as the beliefs and assumptions of

the first system the system that it is observing. In other words, this second

order observer is no more entitled to claim access to objective reality than the

first. Indeed, it would be possible for a third observing system to identify the

limited vision of the second system in its observing operations. Its observa-

tions would appear no less an artifice of that systems own making as those of

the second observing system. No matter at what order or level observations

take place, therefore, there can be no all-perceiving, all-knowing system that

is able to provide ultimate truths about the world.

Communications and communicating

What then is the nature of the social systems upon which different versions ofsocial reality depend? As I have explained, within Luhmanns version of social

systems theory, society consists only of communication, where communication

means the process of transferring meaningful information; it occurs only when

someone watches listens, reads and understands to the extent that further com-

munication could follow on (Luhmann, 1990a: 4). Anything that takes place

outside society has necessarily to be transformed into a communication before it

can become part of society and society consists of the sum total of communic-

able meaning.

Social systems in the generic sense may be defined, therefore, as differ-ent ways of communicating, of giving communicable meaning to what other-

wise would be regarded as mere noise. The essential point is that anything

that takes place outside society, that is outside the universe of communicable

meaning, has necessarily to be transformed into a communication before it

C H I L D H O O D 1 4 ( 2 )



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can become part of society and, as indicated earlier, this can be achieved only

by social systems.

Luhmann further distinguishes between different types of communica-

tion, depending upon the location in which they are uttered. These are:

1. Interactional the transient communications between individuals,

which may at some later stage be reconstructed in a more permanent

form (for example, writing, print, film or collective memory) as organ-

izational or societal communications.

2. Organizational these include communications within businesses,

universities, courts, ministries, factories, parliaments, financial markets

as well as less formal bodies such as families, sports teams, clubs, etc.

The communications within these organizations may go beyond mere

interactions and take on an institutional nature, that is they may conveyinformation that has significance for all members of the organization.

3. Societal that is uttered or produced by societys social function sys-

tems. These are very specifically those subsystems that at any one time

organize those meanings and understandings necessary for society to

exist as society and to reproduce itself. It is on these systems that the

continued existence of society depends. In modern society, they include

politics, law, economics, science and education. While these systems

(like all systems) are closed and self-referring, the operations of each of

them are dependent upon the communications produced by the other

systems. Of particular concern to the issues to be raised by this article, is

the dependence of both law and politics upon scientific communications,

on which they rely for facts. They need scientific facts to justify and

legitimate their own communications, which take the form respectively

of legal decisions and legislation.

Communications about children

In the terms of the theory, any communicable statements about children, theirnature, their capabilities and the difference between them and adults are neces-

sarily, therefore, products of a system. From a Luhmannian standpoint, such

communications concerning children could well be seen as emanating from a

system of pedagogy or (using the French term) ducation, which makes it pos-

sible to communicate about the specific period of life between birth and adult-

hood. Such communications are achieved by reducing and transforming the

myriad of complexities, contradictions and indeterminacies into a coherent

and consistent account of what children are, what they need, how they differ

from adults, what causes them to develop in different ways, and how adultsmay influence and control these causes, etc. The system of pedagogy thus

codes its environment into the binary code children/adults, so that everything

that it sees as existing in its environment enters the system in these binary

terms either it pertains to children or it pertains to adults. There are always




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present within this system differing accounts of, for example, childrens true

nature, childrens needs or childrens abilities. These constitute the systems

programmes, enabling it to process its environment in a meaningful way to

produce understandable communications about children and their behaviour.

Its programmes may include any of a wide range of conceptual frameworks or,in Luhmanns terms, programmes. Examples range from psychoanalytic theor-

ies, religious constructs of children as inherently good or inherently bad, chil-

drens rights or, for that matter, any social theory that conceptualizes childhood

or children in particular ways.

Seen in these terms, the current discourse on childrens autonomy and

their rights to self-expression and participation in decisions represents one

such programme within modern society. It is a programme that emphasizes

childrens capacity for agency or to act in adult-like ways. In doing so it min-

imizes differences between them and adults, while at the same time retainingthe children/adults distinction as the binary code of the system. The new soci-

ology of childhood represents the reproduction within sociology, a reconstitu-

tion in scientific terms, of a programme of pedagogy, which generates images

of children as competent beings to whom autonomy is denied by adults. In

this way it hopes to be able to gain societal acceptance for its communica-

tions. Its image of children is accompanied by a parallel image of adults as

people who subject children to frustration and oppression by failing to recog-

nize and denying them their agency and autonomy.

The reconstruction of these images of children and adults within scien-

tific, sociological theory means that it cannot be dismissed merely as ideol-

ogy, idealism or polemic. As sociological theory, the notion of childrens

competence and potential for autonomy contained in these images is insulated

against counter-images from other disciplines, such as psychology or from

the subjective experiences of children expressed by parents, teachers and so

on. In Luhmanns terms, a self-referring theory need only take notice of evi-

dence that it itself regards as pertinent and legitimate to its own account of

reality, that is to communications that it recognizes as belonging to itself inthis case sociological communications about childhood and children.

Some readers may wish to ask at this point how this pedagogic pro-

gramme came to be accepted as scientific. Suffice it to refer at this stage to

the absence of any overriding authority in modern society and the consequent

ability of each function system to determine its own boundaries. Thus only

law can decide what law is, only politics can determine what is and what is

not a political issue and only science is capable of defining what is meant by

scientific. The definition of this new theory of childhood as sociology is

thus self-evident by its acceptance within sociological books and journals. Ifthe communications of sociology are treated by social science as scientific,

the theory and the results of research into childhood and children generated

by theory may also be treated as scientific. They may be taught and examined

in schools and universities and referred to in the media as existing within the

C H I L D H O O D 1 4 ( 2 )



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scientific discipline of sociology. They become scientific communications

rather than political or legal communications or mere statements of personal

values or opinions. As scientific communications they may, in Luhmanns

terms, be relied upon to provide the truth and facts on which other systems in

society, law, politics, education, family, economics, depend.Indeed, the way in which childhood sociologists define their task cer-

tainly indicates that they believe themselves to be engaged in a scientific

enterprise. The new sociology of childhood is premised on a belief that it is

possible to acquire real knowledge and understanding of children, their

behaviour, perceptions, beliefs and capacity for rationality and autonomy

through the device of listening to and reporting on their communications. The

mission statementof this new sociology is thus,first, that of providing scien-

tific facts about children: what they are, the levels of decision-making compe-

tence they have achieved and are capable of achieving, and second, that ofexposing the obstacles to children fulfilling their capacity for autonomy.

The new sociology of childhood tells us that the concept of childhood

should be treated as a social construction that reflects the historical, culture,

values and the power structure of the particular society in which it occurs. It

explains how in todays society both the concept of childhood and the image

of the child have been formulated by developmentalists and structuralists,

whose insistence on treating children as passive objects or as human becom-

ings rather than human beings (Qvortrup et al., 1994: 4) has blinded society

to childrens true abilities and deafened it to their authentic voices. The fact

that there may serious doubts over, for example, the basic assumptions of the

theory and the generalizability of the evidence on which it relies do in them-

selves not make the theory itself any less sociological or scientific. Such con-

troversies occur within every system, including science, and can be resolved

only within the system itself.

Theories of childhood within sociology

Nothing that I have covered so far explains or accounts for the acceptance bysociology of the new sociology of childhood as sociological theory. At this

point I return in rather more detail to another aspect of Luhmanns theory, that

offunctionality. In Luhmannian theory this functional differentiation of mod-

ern society, with its closed systems, based on the distinct and unique function

of each one of them in disseminating or organizing communications is seen as

both an obstacle and a facilitator. On the one hand, it presents insurmountable

problems for putting into effect any concerted programme for social control

or steering. On the other, it helps to facilitate almost boundless creativity and

a capacity to manage rapid change, as each system strives to recreate andcommunicates about the others, but always on its own terms.

Systems functions relate, as I have explained, not to some notion of the

body politic, but to the organization of societys communications. Whereas for

Luhmannian theory the function of the political system is that of producing




11/22

collectively binding decisions and that of law, the stabilization of counterfac-

tual expectations over time, for science it is to establish facts for society (that

is other social communication systems) to rely upon. Furthermore, functional-

ity consists not only as a general facilitator for a society consisting of commu-

nications; but also, more specifically, each subsystem of society depends forthe effectiveness of its operations on the performance of other subsystems in

producing their function-specific communications.

The system of science will often play an essential role, therefore, in pro-

ducing communications that are able to be used in a reconstituted form within

other function systems. Yet What is decisively important [for scientific com-

munications] is that specific meanings can be isolated vis--vis uncontrolled

interferences from the sphere of truths generally accepted in the life-world

(Luhmann, 1984: 133). For science to be accepted as science, there needs, in

other words, to be a clear demarcation between subjective experience (thelife-world), moral beliefs or political opinions and what is claimed as scien-

tific objectivity (Luhmann, 1984: 133). To be accepted by society (that is, other

social function systems) as capable of producing facts, scientific knowledge

needs to be based on a different kind of quest for certainty than that based on

experience, law, morality or politics. The problem facing any set of beliefs,

which wishes to claim the privileged status of scientific respectability for its

way of seeing the world, is to how to distinguish itself from non-science. For

social sciences, this problem may be more severe than for the natural sciences,

but this does not make the task of policing its scientific borders any less

essential. Even the social sciences, or perhaps the social sciences especially,

need to maintain their separate identity, to distinguish themselves from their

environment, to reassure themselves that they are doing science a task that

other systems are unable to perform.

Let me return at this point to the concerns I expressed earlier in this article

over the emergence of a sociological theory about children that clearly has

much in common with the notions of childhood agency, competence and

autonomy disseminated by childrens rights activists. It is not sufficient in thelight of both social construction theory or Luhmanns theory of operational

constructivism to accept the contention that both the new sociologists of child-

hood and the childrens rights activists have in their own distinct ways stumb-

led across the same universal truths about children. If, in Luhmanns terms

specific meanings are to be isolated vis--vis uncontrolled interferences from

the sphere of truths generally accepted in the life-world (Luhmann, 1984:

131), one would expect some formidable obstacles to be erected by science to

keep polemics, unproven beliefs and superstitions about childrens true

nature out of sociology. As I argue in the next section, however, recent devel-opments within sociology have made it virtually impossible to erect any such

obstacles or formulate any clear demarcation between itself and its environ-

ment. I should add that what is being described in this section are events that

sociology itself identifies and defines as significant developments.

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Children, childhood and the recent evolution of sociology

Identity groups

A sociology or sociologies of identity: One of the most significant socio-

logical phenomena to emerge in the latter half of the 20th century has beenthat of identity politics (Calhoun, 1994). The grand ideologies and the politics

of commitment that they inspired appear to have given way to political group-

ings that reflect a particular aspect of the identity of the participating individ-

uals: feminist women, gays, black people, Muslims, born-again Christians, as

well as groups based on minority national, regional or linguistic identities

have campaigned for recognition, dignity, equality and the advancement of

what they see as their interests. The formation of these group identities and

the importance given to them in legal and political communications has co-

evolved with distinct groupings based on these identities being establishedwithin the social sciences. Racial, sexual, gender and religious divisions have

inspired their own theories and research. Feminists sociology, black socio-

logy, Islamic or Muslim sociology, Christian sociology and lesbian and gay

sociology, have all made their appearance within the social sciences within

recent years. Although these diverse groups within sociology may address

issues that go well beyond identity, what makes them distinctive is the fact

that the theories that they offer and the research based on those theories tend

to enhance the separate identity of their particular grouping, making that

group the centre and starting point of their sociological enquiry. They alsotend to be critical of other sociologies that, they claim, fail to give sufficient

recognition or attention to these identities.

The arrival of children as yet another such identity group may be seen as

an obvious or inevitable next step in the steady process of fragmentation into

identity groups. However, there is a fundamental difference between those

who press for recognition, dignity and equalityfor themselves and those who

campaignfor children, to be granted these privileges, where no discernible

benefits accrue to the campaigners themselves. Nor is the case of activists for

childrens rights quite analogous to that of campaigners who seek to makethings better for others such as those who want to free slaves, release political

prisoners or liberate laboratory animals. Unlike these other campaigners (or

the vast majority of them), childrens rights activists have actually experi-

enced what it is like to be in the position of those whose interests they wish to

promote. They have all been children.

Children as a group identity: In the case of the structural coupling of chil-

drens rights and sociology one finds a somewhat different relationship between

individual identity and social group membership, whether the group exists forthe promotion and protection of those possessing the identity or is a support

group existing in the social sciences. While identity group membership may

be nominally reserved for children, those who take it upon themselves to

protect and promote the interests of these members are predominantly adults.




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For societal (or social system) communication, the identity group consists of

adults who identify with children. Indeed, the age constraints on entry into

higher education ensure that the academic support group that provides socio-

logical knowledge on the oppression of children and on ways of improving

their situation in society, consists entirely of adults. In general terms, it isadults, and not the children themselves, who promote childrens rights as a

movement and it is adults who theorize about children. Communications about

children may also come to represent a way for society to reformulate itself so

as to conform to idealized, but unrealized, self-images projected by the com-

municative systems of morality and religion. Children come to be seen as a

vehicle for social transformation, for the reinvention of society. There can

never be any consensus as to the precise form that this transformation or re-

invention will take or indeed for the society that will emerge at the end of the

process, just as there can never be agreement as to whose morality, which reli-gion or what image of human nature should prevail. But it is this very indeter-

minacy and agnosticism that makes possible the emergence of different social

groups, each claiming to promote the welfare and interests of children.

In the terms of Luhmannian theory, there is no possibility of society

gaining access to what children really are or where their needs or interests

really lie and even less possibility of gaining access to what the future really

holds for them! Furthermore, there is no ultimate or universal authority in

modern society, whether religious or secular, to decree on these matters.

Groups claiming to represent children, therefore, are free to stake their claims

in these matters with little fear of being proved wrong. Even if evidence is

produced that appears to go against them, they can always reinterpret this evi-

dence or find counter-examples that give the impression of supporting their

arguments.

Both the new sociologists of childhood and organizations promoting

childrens agency, autonomy and competence exist outside the political sys-

tem that is the communicative system that fulfils societys need for collect-

ively binding decisions. For Luhmann, the political system, like all othersocial systems, is closed and self-referring. Before any information, including

scientific information, can enter the political system, it is transformed by that

systems binary code of government/governed. The exercise of power, on

which the political system is functionally concentrated, is . . . only possible

for those who are in government, and who apply power to those who are gov-

erned (King and Thornhill, 2003: 71). Everything that takes place within the

political system today is structured by this opposition between government

and governed and to have any meaning within the system anything existing

outside the system has to be reconstituted in these terms (see King andThornhill, 2003: 712). Although organizations representing children may

campaign vociferously to redress the imbalance of power between children

and adults and sociologists of childhood may publish research findings on, for

C H I L D H O O D 1 4 ( 2 )



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example, the disregard of childrens views in decisions about their lives, there

is no possibility of these organizations becoming the government, of their

members gaining political office, of the research findings giving rise to

changes in policy solely on the ground of their support for childrens auton-

omy. All that they can hope for is for oppression of children by adults to enterthe political agenda involving government and opposition and so be per-

ceived within politics as a matter on which votes (and thus power) may be

won and lost. Such a scenario is highly unlikely for, as recent history tells us,

children tend rather to enter the system of politics as threats to the social order

(young delinquents), as vulnerable creatures in need of protection (victims of

child abuse or deprivation) or as recipients of good or bad schooling.

I might add, in parentheses, that, paradoxically, it may be the ultimate

powerlessness of these organizations as a force within politics that accounts

for their endurance and popularity. There is virtually no opposition to con-front them, first because they exist outside party politics and, second, because

they speak, not for themselves and campaign not for their self-interests, but

for the benefit of children. If their claims are denied or ignored by govern-

ments and in legal decisions, therefore, there is every incentive to continue to

press for their acceptance always on behalf of the child, while every success

is greeted as if it were a triumph for children.

The rise of the social agent

The sociological divide between structure and agency: In the terms

that sociology applies to itself, there were until recently theories of structure

and theories ofagency with little or no dialogue or overlap between the two. In

their simplest terms, theories of structure direct attention to the institutions

operating within society and the effects of these institutions on the behaviour

of its members, while theories of agency are concerned with the ways in which

people, as social agents understand the world and affect changes in society.9

Since the 1970s, there has been little place for structural theories within

sociology. Mainstream sociology has moved from a position where it saw itselfas capable of improving society through the operation of social institutions to a

more modest role of discovering how people make sense of and exist within

their social world. It is people as social agents who are now the principal focus

of sociological theorizing (see Bauman, 1994: 823). According to this view, if

you wish to understand society sociologically, you need to study the ways in

which people understand their social world and operate within that world.

Anthony Giddens is of particular significance here, because his work on

agency is that most often cited by sociologists of childhood (see James et al.,

1998: 202; James and Prout, 1997: 5; Mayall, 1996: 53; Prout and James,1997: 27). Since the time that Giddens introduced the concept of structura-

tion, the traditional structure-versus-agency duality is discarded in favour of

an ever evolving and mutually penetrative dualism (Wilson, 1995: 121). For




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Giddens, social structures are both constituted by human agency and yet at

the same time are the very medium of this constitution (Wilson, 1995: 121;

emphasis in original). Social structures provide the framework within which

people, as agents, act, but, at the same time, their actions may have the effect

of changing this framework. Yet, for Giddens, as for the other social theoristson whom he draws, the term social agent is something of a term of art (as

is the term structure). Social agents are not simply actors who affect the

behaviour of others within society. Much more significantly for social theory,

their actions, whether intentional or unintentional, must have caused or con-

tributed to social change or resistance to such change. The identification of

social agents has, necessarily, to be a retrospective exercise you cannot begin

to identify the social agents until you know what it is that their agency has

brought about or prevented from happening (Giddens, 1984: 11).

Children as social agents: The unlikely transformation from childrens

rights to a sociological theory that conceptualizes children as autonomous

actors within a social world dominated by adults would certainly not have been

possible without the ascendancy within sociology of theories of agency over

those of structure. Indeed, if the new sociologists of childhood were to fit the

distinction, child/adult, neatly onto the footprint of sociologys agency/structure

distinction, children somehow had to be transformed from the products of soci-

etys structures to social agents capable of influencing these structures through

their constructions of the external world. These child agents needed to be seen

in juxtaposition with the oppressive structures imposed by adults.

Having achieved this feat, it is a short step to creating within sociological

theory itself a space for childhoodsas the products of adults attempts to pre-

determine childrens lives and children as legitimate social agents. Once

established, this new theoretical version of childhoodand childrenboth con-

trasts with and offers a sharp rebuke to previous sociological accounts that con-

ceptualized the child only as existing within social institutions the family or

school the child . . . determined by structure . . . rather than pronounced throughthe exercise of agency (James et al., 1998: 25; emphasis added). The task, in

other words, was to recover children as social actors and their activity as a

source of social change (James and Prout, 1997: 27).

In the hands of the new sociologists of childhood, therefore, childhood

becomes a magnificent testing ground for th[e] dichotomy between agency

and structure and it is adult society which constitutes the structure and the

child the agent, and that the former determines or socializes the latter (James

et al., 1998: 202).

The reconstitution of the child from rights-holder, a citizen to be consulted,a voice to be heard to a fully-fledged theoretical concept that of the child as

social agent has thus been completed.

A Luhmannian operational constructivistobserver of this transformation

may wish first of all to question the use of the term social agent within this

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childhood sociology. Is it the same social agent as exists in social theory, that

is an agent capable of bringing about changes in social structures or has the con-

cept mutated in entering the pedagogical programme of childrens autonomy?

Among some new sociologists of childhood the claim is that children are

agents from their earliest days. They do things that make a difference to rela-tionships. They make assessments of events and relations, so children can be

properly understood as active agents, because, so it is claimed, sociology has

come to understand them as carrying out socially useful, indeed necessary

activities (Mayall, 2003: 9, 14). Similar accounts depicting children as social

actors, because they are able by their acts alone to change society, permeate

the writings of the new childhood sociologists. For example:

. . . our new discourses of childhood understand the child as being. The child is

conceived as a person, a status, a course of action, a set of needs, rights or differ-

ences in sum, as a new social actor . . . as an agent in its own construction and asnaturally an agent as any adult, in the sense of agency that concerns the initiation of

action by choice. (James et al., 1998: 207)

Yet, outside these self-referring sociological communications there is little in

other forms of communication about children that is congruent with this per-

ception of them as capable of taking an active agency role in bringing about

or resisting social change. One study, for example, specifically discredits

claims that children as witnesses should be seen as social agents within the

legal system. What one has here, it suggests,

. . . is a clear example of agency as dependency. This image of agency is at odds

with any essentialist image. Essentialist agency is precisely that which grants inde-

pendence. On the view presented here, agency is an effect of independence that

emerges from a fundamental dependency. (Lee, 1998: 472; emphasis added)

The fundamental dependency referred to is, of course, that of children upon

adult agency.

If one of the avowed purposes of the new childhood sociology is to draw

attention to the contribution that children make to society and to promote

awareness of childrens views and their understanding of their world, it would

seem that this could well be done outside the realm of social theory and with-

out any reliance on the theoretical concept of social agency. Indeed, the sug-

gestion, raised earlier in this article, that the sociology label may be being

used here to give scientific respectability and provide scientific support for

campaigns for childrens autonomy rights and against their oppression by adults

may be difficult to refute. Its accuracy is reinforced on reading the childhood

researcher cited earlier describing the task of a sociology of childhood as that

of drawing attention to certain neglected features of childhood, to provide a

better account of how the social order works; and to use this knowledge as abasis for righting childrens wrongs (Mayall, 2000: 246; emphasis added).

Within a society constructed by the new sociology of childhood, consist-

ing of a sedimented network of interrelationships or patterns of interaction

or what one might call social relationships (James et al., 1998: 201), it might




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well be possible to envisage a direct causal connection between individual

actions (by children or adults) and social structures, even if the important ques-

tion as to how that relationship might operate in practice remains unanswered.10

From the perspective of Luhmannian social systems theory, by contrast, a direct

inputoutput influence of transient interactions upon social function systemssimply cannot exist, for societyand interactions, as I have indicated earlier,

represent two separate and distinct forms of communication.

This is not to say that the images of the child generated by these systems

have not changed in recent years. They clearly have, for example, in the ways

that law and politics perceive children. However, the changes that have occurred,

such as the Gillickdecision in the English courts and the legislation passed by

governments in many postindustrial countries directed against internet child

pornographers and child sex abusers, do not convey a consistent image of the

rational, self-controlled and autonomous child. On the one hand, children maybe seen in some situations as competent, of making decisions independently of

their parents and even of decisions about medical treatment and other important

matters. On the other, they are also portrayed in other situations as vulnerable,

inexperienced and in need of protection against such evils as sexual and physical

abuse and commercial exploitation. Yet, what is quite clear in these examples is

that neither the changes in the images of children nor the many diverse accounts

of what children are or are not capable of achieving that occur within the

communications of societys function systems have been brought about entirely

through the actions of children themselves. Indeed, there may well be plenty of

examples of children who carry out socially useful and necessary activities, but

these activities on their own do not bring about changes in the programmes of

social function systems. Children do not affect directly the way in which pol-

itics, law, economics and education communicate about children. Their influ-

ence is only indirect and whether or not it occurs depends on the operations of

these systems and not on the actions of children themselves.

Structural changes in Luhmannian terms may indeed happen, if childrens

actions become recognized by one or more of societys function systems, as aperturbation in that systems environment that needs to be addressed by the

system. However, here again the system is the social agent rather than children.

It is the system that selects the issue that needs addressing and reconstitutes it in

its own terms. Measures against youth crime or truancy are obvious examples.

There are also numerous examples of how changing perceptions of childrens

needs provoke changes in social systems, but it is hardly open to the new soci-

ologists of childhood to claim that children themselves are responsible for

generating these changes in perception. Even if one adopts Giddenss theory

of structuration, rather than Luhmanns systems theory as ones theoreticalperspective, the account ofthe childas social agent owes much more to the

new sociologists of childhoods preferred image of rational, competent, self-

controlled children than to any evidence that the social institutions on which

society depends actually change themselves as the direct result of childrens

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concerted actions and that these changes reflect what the children wanted or

intended.

Conclusions

It has not been my objective in this article to identify where the truth or real-

ity about children, their welfare and their capacities lie or who might have

access to them. Instead, I have used Niklas Luhmanns general social theory

and his more specific theory of operational constructivism as vehicles which

allow us to recognize in societys interactions and organizations the existence

of a specific system of communications about children and childhood.

My principal focus in this article, however, has been the introduction into

science of a perspective or programme for communicating about children, which,

while retaining the code children/adults, concentrates upon and magnifies thesimilarities between children and adults. This reconstitution within sociology

of accounts of what children are, their capacities, understandings, beliefs and

wishes, has become possible only because sociology itself has undergone major

transformations in recent years. This sociological revolution now allows different

identity groups to produce their own brand of sociology, sees individuals as

autonomous beings capable of changing the social structure and accepts as factual

evidence mediated and selective accounts of the ways that people see themselves

and understand their world.

Finally, two related set of questions emerge from my analysis. The first

relates to Luhmanns notion of differentiation into interdependent, yet autopoi-

etic social function systems as the distinctive feature of modern society. To what

extent is it still possible for other function systems, such as law, politics, health

or education, to rely upon communications emanating from sociology in the

form of theory and research results as providing facts for their own operations?

In the terms of Luhmannian theory, as I have already mentioned, the only way

that science is able to make a distinction between its own communications and

the life-world is to objectify the subject of its enquiry. The new sociology ofchildhoods denial of the very notion of objectivity (as well as that of several

other sociological identity theories) is to proceed as if science can be formu-

lated out of subjective beliefs and experiences and to suggest that everything

that calls itself research should be treated as generating scientifically approved,

factual evidence, just so long as it has been carried out within the auspices of its

own theoretical framework. This is of particular concern when much of the

research evidence on which sociological theories are based cannot be replicated

or verified and when sociology itself may at times lack any reliable criteria to

assess their validity. Furthermore, for sociology itself to deny that this subject-ificationof research poses any real problem to its own identity is to cast doubt

that sociology, as a subdiscipline of science, has the ability to police its own epi-

stemic borders. This concern, I should add, must not necessarily be seen as plea

for sociology to resurrect objectivity as the overriding criteria for sociological




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research. My concern is rather that expressed by Niklas Luhmann and relates to

the dangers for society of dedifferentiation, the merging of social systems to a

point where it is no longer possible for each one to maintain its separate identity

and unique function. The problem is not that present-day sociology no longer

insists on objectivity or theories that are amenable to empirical testing. It israther that many of sociologys communications do not have even the appear-

ance of being able to convey facts or truth that can then be relied upon by other

social systems in their operations. They are only facts or the truth to those

who share the ideological orientation of the theory and the beliefs, values and

assumptions of the researchers. There is a real risk, then, that sociological com-

munications will be seen by other systems as undifferentiated from the commu-

nications of the mass media, that is, as able to provide information, but not facts,

for society. Just as the credibility of newspaper stories and television pro-

grammes depends on the pre-existing beliefs and values of their readers andviewers, so sociologists can expect their research reports to be judged not on

their methodological soundness but on whether they endorse, reject or ignore

the opinions, beliefs and values of those who read them.

The second related issue concerns specifically sociological communica-

tions concerning the competence and abilities of childhood emerging from

the new sociology of childhood. How much confidence can be placed on the

new sociological image of the autonomous, capable child agent? Is this new

image of the child to be accepted as a scientific fact for the purposes of gov-

ernment directives, legislation and courtroom decisions? Clearly, those who

wave the flag of childrens rights have no hesitation in regarding these com-

munications as factual and reliable. Take, for example Michael Freeman, a

leading legal advocate for childrens rights:

The sociology of childhood has much to teach those concerned with childrens

rights. The child as agent or social actor features strongly in these sociological studies

of childhood: it was key to an important research initiative funded by the ESRC in

the United Kingdom in the late 1990s. . . . Recognizing (and encouraging) chil-

drens agency (as in fact Article 12 of the Convention does) emphasizes that chil-

dren are social beings who can contribute to society . . . the work of Alderson . . .amongst others, has shown that children are much more competent than we choose

to believe, and at much younger ages too. (Freeman, 2004: xviiixix)

But what about ministers of state and judges, to say nothing of those anxious

parents, doctors, teachers and educationalists who seek assurance from scien-

tific research as to how to find the right way to meet the needs of children of

different ages or how much responsibility should be given to the child in a

wide range of decision-making situations?

Of course, accusations of lack of empirical verifiability could also be

(and, indeed, have been) directed against Luhmannian sociology. However,there are major differences between its theoretical concerns and those of the

new sociologists of childhood who have identified this revised image of the

child. Luhmanns theory does not make any truth claims other than those con-

cerning the ways in which society represents itself to itself. It does not seek to

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influence law, or social policies. It is not founded upon a priori assumptions

about human (or childrens) nature and, indeed, deliberately eschews the indi-

vidual subject as a valid unit of analysis for sociology.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the new sociology of childhood

presents one very specific aspect of society the division of the world into chil-dren and adults and necessarily ignores any accounts of events that lie outside

this narrow perspective. Luhmannian systems theory, by contrast, attempts to

offer a broad and complex account of the operations of different systems in

modern society and the relations between them. The enormous task that it sets

itself is to provide an account of how society transforms chaotic and contingent

environmental complexity into manageable system complexity. It is this fulfil-

ment of this task, rather than the impossible quest for ultimate truth about chil-

dren, childhood or anything else, that it sets itself and through which it hopes to

achieve what Luhmann optimistically terms a sociological enlightenment.11

Notes

1. Past editions of Childhoodhave contained many articles that have referred to or applied

the new sociology of childhood uncritically as a major theoretical advance in the sociological

understanding of children.

2. A notable exception is Lee (1998), who in an article titled Towards an Immature

Sociology questioned whether the new sociology of childhood had in fact achieved the theoretical

status that some of its proponents claimed for it.

3. Although the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came intoforce in 1990, tends to emphasize childrens welfare rather than autonomy rights, Articles 14

and 15 identify certain individual liberties or freedoms which must be guaranteed by the state

in order to underwrite the concept of childrens autonomy, such as the right to freedom of

assembly and of thought, conscience and religion (Fortin, 1998: 21); Article 12 requires the

state to assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express

those views freely, in all matters affecting the child, the view of the child being given due

weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. Quite apart from the Convention,

there has been considerable disquiet expressed among lawyers, philosophers and political the-

orists over what is seen as paternalism towards children and the failure to recognize childrens

capacity to participate as citizens in their own right (e.g. Feinberg, 2004; Roche, 1999).

4. James et al. (1998: 21718) write, for example:

It has been our intention to present a broad account of the different ways in which child-

hood studies can, through careful theorizing, engage more effectively or incisively with

those policy or welfare debates which for so long have shaped the direction of research.

While James and Prout (1997: 10) specifically emphasize childrens self-determination as one

of the imperatives of the new sociology of childhood:

Children are and must be seen as active in the construction and determination of their

own social lives and of those around them and of the societies in which they live.

5. An example is contained in Chris Jenkss account of his major contribution to thedevelopment of the new sociology of childhood:

I had a need for real, active children, embodiment of agency, interactional partners,

constructors of worlds, competent social members. . . . Not actually, for this would

have simply been another naturalistic reduction.I had a sociologists need, not that

of a civil-rights campaigner. (Jenks, 2000: 65; emphasis added)




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6. I refer here to the increasing use of qualitative methods and subjective narrative

accounts of social events, which have proved particularly attractive initially for feminist

researchers (see, for example, Denzin and Lincoln, 2000; Reinharz, 1992) and later for child-

hood researchers (e.g. Christensen and James, 2000). These methods have been subjected to

critical comments from Lazaraton (2003) and Overcash (2003) among others.

7. James and Prout (1997: 8); see Lee (1998: 273) for a criticism of these claims.8. For an account of Luhmanns general theory, see King and Thornhill (2003: Ch. 1).

9. Talcott Parsons is seen as the prime instigator of structural sociology.

10. No such direct relationship is proposed by Giddens in his theory of structuration.

11. Luhmann wrote four volumes titled Soziologische Aufklrung. For a discussion of their

significance, see King and Thornhill (2003: 1316).

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