Afterword: The value of children in the Global South: Current contributions and future directions

Abstract

This Afterword to the Current Sociology Monograph on ‘The Value Turn in Childhood Sociology’ reflects on how this issue adds fundamental insights to our understanding not only of children’s social positions, the roles they play and their life experiences from the perspectives of various stakeholders in a variety of Southern societies, but also of the heterogeneous, hybrid and complex trajectories of modernization in these societies. The articles contribute to existing scholarship in at least three ways. First, they illustrate the productivity of the value turn in childhood sociology by linking children’s social roles, experiences and positions in society with multi-level social mechanisms (inclusive of family, educational institutions, social groups and organizations, and the state) in culturally and socially contextualized analyses. Second, the value turn proposed in this monograph attempts a critical intervention to de-center the previous Western-centric knowledge production in childhood sociology. The articles have contributed towards this objective by foregrounding Southern empirical realities and spearheading grounded theorization based on Southern experiences. Finally, the articles showcase a plethora of research methods and techniques in a variety of research paradigms, including critical discourse analysis, in-depth interviews, ethnographic research, historical analysis and mixed-methods research, which yield rich, profound and nuanced findings about the valuation of children in different contexts. I conclude this closing article by deliberating on future directions for the research agenda on the value of children in sociology.