Negotiating the Birth Order: Children's Experiences

This paper explores the ways in which children perceive the relative opportunities and constraints of their birth order position within their families by comparing and contrasting the views of oldest, middle and youngest siblings. It shows that birth order and age can be experienced at times as a constraint on sibling behaviour and at other times as a resource that can be utilised in a dynamic and creative manner. Thus, although birth order is important in shaping children’s experiences of sibship, relative benefits have to be actively maintained and limitations of each position in the sibling order are not passively accepted and are often contested. The paper argues that birth order and age are not fixed hierarchies but can be subverted, contested, resisted and negotiated through children’s everyday experiences of family life. It is based on a qualitative study of 30 families with three children between the ages of 5 and 17. In-depth individual and group interviews were conducted with 90 children from this sample of 30 families of mixed socio-economic backgrounds in central Scotland

Generational Power Relations in Rural Bolivia

First paragraph: It can be argued that childhood is a relational concept which forms part of the generational order and that generational processes shape the nature of child–adult relations (Alanen 2001; Mayall 2002). When the social positions of ‘children’ and ‘adults’ are ‘constituted, reproduced and transformed through relational activity’ (Mayall 2002: 40), this can be referred to as practices of ‘generationing’ (Alanen 2001). Thus, as Alanen (2001: 21) argues, childhood and adulthood are connected and interdependent. However, children’s structural position in society means that generally they have less power than adults. Thus, adults’ generational location enables them to wield more power over children and this is an example of Lukes’s (2005) relational definition of power as one social group exercises ‘power over’ another

Negotiating Autonomy: Childhoods in Rural Bolivia

First paragraph: This chapter, based on my empirical study of children’s lives in rural Bolivia, exemplifies ways in which children as active agents can negotiate relative autonomy within the structural constraints of childhood in relation to more powerful, adult, social actors (see Harden and Scott 1998). The structures of adult society limit children’s opportunities for asserting their autonomy. Children live in a world in which the parameters tend to be set by adults, especially in relation to children’s use of time and space (Ennew 1994). Therefore it is important to see how they negotiate their position within the constraints of that bounded world. It is necessary to explore children’s competencies and strengths, as well as their constraints and limits, and their strategies for negotiating with adult society

Household Division of Labour: Generation, Gender, Age, Birth Order and Sibling Composition

The paper discusses the somewhat limited literature on children’s participation in household work and then presents empirical evidence from rural households in Bolivia which shows that the division of household labour is worked out according to generation, gender, age, birth order and sibling composition. It argues that whilst adult household labour is highly determined by gender roles, children’s labour often cuts across gender stereotypes and does not merely mirror the adult division of labour in rural households. The nature of generation-specific tasks are explored by presenting a detailed age-based division of labour in three different areas of unpaid household work: agriculture, animal-care and domestic work. The final part of the paper explores the ways in which birth order and sibling composition influence the distribution of children’s household work. Whilst the paper is based on a case study of a rural community in a low-income country, it highlights important factors such as birth order and sibling composition which have frequently been overlooked or ignored in household divisions of labour in both the Majority and Minority World

Childhoods in the Majority World: Miniature Adults or Tribal Children?

Drawing on ethnographic data from rural Bolivia and applying the theoretical approaches of the minority group child and the tribal child (James et al. 1998), this paper shows that majority world children integrate work, play and school, moving back and forth between child and adult-centred worlds. It argues that majority world children have largely been perceived in relation to their work, and that the overlapping arenas of their everyday lives tend to be ignored. A more holistic perspective which considers how they may combine work and school with play could be more appropriate for understanding children’s childhoods

Cross-world and Cross-disciplinary Dialogue: A More Integrated, Global Approach to Childhood Studies

This article, by drawing on examples from sociology, anthropology and geography, argues that childhood studies is generally a multi-disciplinary field rather than inter-disciplinary. It emphasises that childhood studies could benefit from greater dialogue between its sub-disciplines as well as with those outside academia. While advances have been made, there is a persistent gap/tension between the discourse of childhood studies and arenas of practice and policy. More effective dialogue could also enhance learning across the Majority and Minority Worlds. While recognising the limitations and challenges of cross-world dialogue, the article suggests some areas of commonalities and differences between childhoods in the Majority and Minority World as avenues for further empirical and theoretical exploration. The increasingly blurred boundaries across different world areas and across subfields highlight the need for more inter-disciplinary, cross-world dialogue which also bridges the divide between academia and practice

Multiple Methods and Research Relations with Young People in Rural Bolivia

First paragraph: This chapter is based on ethnographic research carried out in a rural community, Churquiales, in southern Bolivia (Punch 1998). The study focused on children’s negotiation of their autonomy at home, at school, at work and at play (Punch 2000; Punch Forthcoming). During the fieldwork, I lived for two extended periods in the rural community (consisting of regular short visits over two years and a six months intensive period of fieldwork1). I used a range of qualitative methods including informal and semi-structured interviews and semi-participant observation with most members of a sample of eighteen households. Full participant observation with children is impossible for adults mainly because of their physical size (Fine and Sandstrom 1988) and it has been suggested that a semi-participant observer role is more suitable (James et al. 1998). It is this role which I pursued in Bolivia, as it enables the researcher to participate in children's activities to a certain extent whilst recognising that there are limits to such participation. For instance, I could join in their games and ask them to teach me how to play, but I was a 'different' player who was given special attention by the children since adults do not usually play with them

Research with Children: The Same or Different from Research with Adults?

This paper explores seven methodological issues in some detail to illustrate the ways in which aspects of the research process usually considered to be the same for both adults and children can pose particular dilemmas for adult researchers working with children. It argues that research with children is potentially different from research with adults mainly because of adult perceptions of children and children's marginalised position in adult society but least often because children are inherently different. Drawing on classroom-based research carried out in rural Bolivia, the advantages and disadvantages of using five task-based methods (drawings, photographs, PRA techniques, diaries and worksheets) are highlighted in order to illustrate how such research techniques often thought to be suitable for use with children can be problematic as well as beneficial

Children's Strategies for Creating Playspaces: Negotiating Independence in Rural Bolivia

First paragraph: Recent research in the new social studies of childhood recognises that children are competent social actors who play an active part in their social worlds (Waksler 1991; Mayall 1994; Caputo 1995; Waksler 1996). Yet there are still relatively few studies which document the ways in which children devise ways to counteract adult's power and control over their lives. However, although the agency of children is important in understanding their capacities (Sibley 1991), it must be acknowledged that children also face limitations. The aim of this chapter is to consider how rural children in Bolivia actively negotiate ways to assert their autonomy despite being constrained by adults who enforce boundaries of time and space (James 1993; Ennew 1994; Sibley 1995). Adult-imposed limits confine children, yet children's resourcefulness and competencies enable them to create strategies for controlling their own use of time and space

"I Felt they were Ganging up on me": Interviewing Siblings at Home

The paper explores the methodological implications and some of the inter-generational and intra-generational power relations involved when carrying out research with children at home. It draws on data from individual and group interviews about children’s experiences of sibling relationships and birth order. The study was conducted with 90 children between the ages of 5 and 17, from 30 families of mixed socio-economic backgrounds in central Scotland with three siblings within this age range. The paper discusses some task-based interview techniques as well as the advantages and disadvantages of interviewing siblings individually and in groups within the home setting