Introduction: The case for a value turn in childhood sociology

Abstract

The sociology of childhood is currently at a crossroads for developing research agendas beyond the ‘new’ social studies of childhood of the 1980s and 1990s, which suffer from four problems: cultural relativism derived from binary conceptualizations of childhood, Northern normativity that ill-fits Southern realities, methodological issues related to the preferred child-centric and participatory research, and disengagement from mainstream sociological theories. In this article, based on a relational conceptualization of value, the author calls for a value turn that could open childhood theorization both to new forms of cultural analysis of social processes at the familial, national, and global scales, and to new forms of applied research on policy fronts such as childcare and education policies, civil society engagement, and parenting. Focusing on the value of children bridges the gap between childhood sociology and mainstream sociological theories. It also allows for thinking across analytical scales and methodological approaches, and decentralizes knowledge production about childhood from the discipline’s Euromerican-centric traditions.