Professorship of Theories and Methods of Childhood Studies
Organisational unit: Section
Organisation profile
In everyday life, children are seen primarily as beings in need of education and learning who naturally lack experience and knowledge. However, this not only underestimates the practical achievements that children contribute to the maintenance of everyday order, but also hides essential aspects of the social organization of childhood.
In contrast, we essentially understand children as an age group characterized by social inequalities, who are assigned fewer rights, duties, and resources compared to others (primarily adults, but also older children or adolescents) – regardless of the actual contributions children perform in everyday life.
As a category of social inequality, childhood cannot be thought of in a homogeneous way, neither historically nor globally, but remains bound to socially varying structures of growing up. Accordingly, childhood is understood as a highly institutionalized life phase, whose definition and shaping by school, family, and expert entrepreneurships structure the objective chances for future life courses of young people, but which also make up a central element of social order in general.
Hence, our focus is the social organization of childhood by its respective institutions (especially professions) as well as the resulting consequences for involved groups of actors, foremost the children themselves. Our research is concerned with the degree to which children are taken into account in child protection, by the knowledge about children that is collected (or lacking) and made available and used (for example, about their experiences of violence and in the pandemic), and by the spatial-material structuring of childhoods.
- 2022
- Published
Politisierung von Jugend zwischen persönlicher Entwicklung und gesellschaftlichem Ordnungsanspruch: Bericht zur Jahrestagung „Politisierung von Jugend“ des Zentrums für Kindheits- und Jugendforschung (ZKJF) in Kooperation mit dem Institut für Konflikt- und Gewaltforschung (IKG) am 29. und 30. November 2021 in Bielefeld (digital)
Alberth, L., 06.2022, In: ZSE - Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Socialisation. 42, 2, p. 207-209 3 p.Research output: Journal contributions › Comments / Debate / Reports › Research
- Published
Forschungsethik in der Kindheitsforschung
Joos, M. (ed.) & Alberth, L. (ed.), 17.08.2022, 1 ed. Weinheim & Basel: Beltz Juventa Verlag. 191 p. (Kindheiten )Research output: Books and anthologies › Collected editions and anthologies › Research
- Published
Vermittlungsarbeit und Bewertungswissen: Zur Disziplinierung genuss- und distinktionsfähiger Körper in Kaffeeverkostungen
Berli, O. & Alberth, L., 01.09.2022, In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie. 47, 3, p. 291-303 13 p.Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
- 2023
- Published
Struggling for open awareness – Trajectories of violence against children from a sociological perspective
Bühler-Niederberger, D. & Alberth, L., 01.02.2023, In: Children and Youth Services Review. 145, 8 p., 106769.Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research