Browsing by Author "Dare, Jade"

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    Transitioning between childhood and adulthood: how learners negotiate childhood and adulthood with adult caregivers at school and at home
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) Dare, Jade; Pattman, Robert; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: My aim in this study is to understand the processes of transitioning from childhood to adulthood from the point of view of Grade 10-11 learners (aged 16 and 17) attending a private school in the Western Cape. My study is influenced by the ‘New’ Sociology of Childhood, which seeks to engage with the agency of boys and girls and encourage ‘voices’ to children in the context of ‘adult-centric’ societies in which adulthood is constructed as the norm and children are viewed as ‘adults-in- the- making’ rather than as individuals in their own right (Pattman 2015). Influenced by the ‘New’ Sociology of Childhood, some writers have argued that the boundaries between childhood and adulthood are not simply determined by chronological age but rather shaped by social and institutional practices which may infantilize school goers as 'learners' and present teachers, in contrast, as adult authority figures whether as care givers or disciplinarians (see, for example, James and Prout; 1997). But schools may also be sites in which the boundaries between adulthood and childhood become blurred and open to negotiation (See Henderson et al, 2007). This thesis explores the processes of negotiating childhood and adulthood by engaging in conversational interviews with research participants. In particular I want to focus on how they position themselves in relation to adult carers at school and at home and how certain kinds of institutional practices may reinforce or unsettle boundaries between adults and children organized around understandings of authority and care. Thus, my thesis aims to rethink what it means to grow up from the point of view of young people as well as thinking of ‘growing up’ as a social construction and not as something fixed in biology.