Young people today: news media, policy and youth justice

The new sociology of childhood sees children as competent social agents with important contributions to make. And yet the phase of childhood is fraught with tensions and contradictions. Public policies are required, not only to protect children, but also to control them and regulate their behaviour. For children and young people in the UK, youth justice has become increasingly punitive. At the same time, social policies have focused more on children's inclusion and participation. In this interplay of conflict and contradictions, the role the media play is critical in contributing to the moral panic about childhood and youth. In this article, we consider media representations of “antisocial” children and young people and how this belies a moral response to the nature of contemporary childhood. We conclude by considering how a rights-based approach might help redress the moralised politics of childhood representations in the media

A tentação da diversidade: e seus riscos

Este texto busca discutir duas abordagens propostas pelos estudos sociais sobre a infância: a primeira passa pela diversidade e, portanto, pelo uso das categorias clássicas da sociologia - classe, gênero e etnia - para delimitar a infância como objeto de pesquisa; e a outra, defendida pelo autor, prioriza a categoria geracional nos estudos sobre a infância. A argumentação aproxima as vertentes neoliberais e as perspectivas pós-modernas e pós-estruturais para mostrar seus efeitos sobre as políticas e os estudos da infância. De fato, o autor recupera análises para indicar os riscos apresentados pela abordagem pautada pela diversidade na pesquisa sobre a infância