臺灣教育社會學研究 (Dec 2013)
現代兒童形式的省思及新興童年社會學之批判 A Critical Reflection on Forms of Modern Childhood by New Sociology of Childhood
Abstract
本研究旨在探究現代兒童形式的特徵、治理模式和成長論述，以及新興童年社會學對於現代兒童形式的批判，闡明多元的兒童形式。現代兒童形式基於年齡本質主義，展現出發展性、未來性、普遍性與私領域化等特徵的兒童形象，也合理化成人的社會地位與權力。1980年代崛起的新興童年社會學呈現晚期現代性的兒童形式，提出了四種兒童形式：一是社會建構的兒童，強調兒童形式是由社會、政治、經濟與文化脈絡所建構的；二是主體性與能動性的兒童，強調兒童具有主動參與建構社會世界的能力；三是兒童為一個獨立年齡團體，有其自身的客觀事實存在，致力進行兒童團體的調查。四是兒童與成人不對等世代關係的政治化形式，女性主義童年社會學將兒童視之為弱勢團體，而非與成人是一種發展延續的關係。新興童年社會學在學術領域解構成人主義，樹立起真正的兒童研究；在日常生活世界中試圖建立起兒童解放方案，轉化成人父權體制的壓迫性。 This article aims to explore the characteristics, management models and growth discourses of modern forms of childhood, and to discuss critiques of modern forms of childhood from the emerging field of childhood sociology, in order to clarify the diverse forms of childhood. Modern forms of childhood are based on age essentialism, and display images of childhood which can be characterized as developmentalism, futurism universalism and privatism. They legitimate the adult-centered social and cultural discourse in which adults are positioned as caregivers and children as demanders. They thus strengthen the social status and dominant power of adults. In the 1980s, the emerging new sociology of childhood pointed out the diversity of childhood in late modernity, proposing four forms: first, the social constructivist view of childhood emphasized how forms of childhood are constructed by the social, political, economic and cultural context; the second emphasized the subjectivity and agency of childhood, stressing that children have the ability to participate in and actively construct the social world; the third form considered children as consisting of independent age groups, each of which can be characterized through their own objective facts, and devoted itself to the investigation of children’s groups. Fourthly, the political form of childhood saw the relationship between children and adults as involving two groups of unequal power, with the feminist sociology of childhood viewing children as a disadvantaged group, rather than one dimension of a biologically continuous relationship with adulthood. The emerging sociology of childhood deconstructed adultism and established childhood research as a genuine field of study. It also tried to establish a liberation project for childhood in the world of daily life, and attempted to transform the system of patriarchal oppression.
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