The Future of Childhood: Towards the Interdisciplinary Study of Children

By Alan Prout ( ed .) London : Routledge Falmer , 2005 ISBN 0415256755 , 167 pp . £19.99 This book critically examines the new social studies of childhood and offers the conclusion that childhood is heterogeneous and complex. Its introductory chapter argues that the time has come for the new social studies of childhood to move beyond promoting the notion that the child is an agent to recognise that different paradigms each have something to offer the analysis of childhood. The first chapter suggests that the boundary between adulthood and childhood is weakening and that this relates to processes of cultural, economic, social and technological change. It discusses the contradictory images of childhood that have emerged during modernity and urges us not to produce normalised descriptions but to ‘keep the question of what childhood is open’. In so doing, this book builds on a recent trend within childhood studies to view childhood and the history of childhood as diverse. Of particular note is Prout's critique of the view that technology has led to ‘the disappearance of childhood’. He suggests that the impact of technology is widely exaggerated and very much relates to an overly sentimental and culturally conservative view of childhood. Similarly, the overstated concept of globalisation is adroitly unpacked as a much more complex and not so recent phenomena. This critique enables the chapter to take a much more considered position on a range of issues that have emerged in late modernity (for example, increased poverty, demographic change, transmigration, rights, regulation, cultural diversity and individualisation). This chapter highlights the contradictory trends that have emerged as a result of globalisation. It suggests that globalisation has led not only to greater understanding of the diversity of childhoods but also to the emergence of a common concept of childhood. Prout concludes this chapter by stating that we need to move away from false dichotomies, such as ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ in our analysis of childhood. Chapter 2 picks up where chapter 1 ends. It considers the nature–culture divide, drawing from a number of authors to argue we cannot separate out technology/science from culture. It suggests that the future of childhood studies is dependent on writers coming to terms with the notion ‘nature–culture’. Prout states, ‘I want to argue that only by understanding the way in which childhood is constructed by the heterogeneous elements of nature and culture, which in any case cannot be easily separated, will it be possible to take the field forward’ (p. 44). This chapter traces the emergence of childhood studies in the 19th and 20th centuries. It discusses a range of issues, including Darwinism, Foucauldian surveillance, child psychology and social constructionism, concluding that this period is characterised by writing that promotes false divisions between the social and biological and that these must be overcome if childhood studies is to continue to advance as a discipline. This chapter repeats the conclusion of the previous chapter and its central theme can be found in Prout's own previous writing on ‘the body’ and the writing of a number of authors who span the gap between childhood studies and disability studies. As such, it is a bit of a repetition of the analysis of the previous chapter. Chapter 3 is an improvement and maps out strategies for moving beyond dualisms in childhood studies, such as adult versus child, structure versus agency, individual versus society and being versus becoming. It draws on innovative ideas from actor–network theory and complexity theory to suggest that social life cannot be reduced to the purely social or technological and that natural and social systems are evolutionary. Prout argues that we can learn from ideas in complexity theory that define systems as having four possible forms (‘phase spaces’): equilibrium; oscillation between two states; a complex rhythm of repetition, or chaotic. He concludes that childhood studies can draw much from the notion that natural and social systems are not linear. It is argued that the variables of social life are in constant interplay and that small variables at a point in time can change the history of a system. Central to this discussion is the belief that systems with similar starting points can end up radically different. Indeed, Prout's promotion of the concept of bifurcation — the idea that some changes are non-reversible — gives much hope for the application of childhood theory to practical settings. Chapter 4 continues with the idea that we have to move beyond the nature/nurture debate. It attempts to consider different ways of writing within contemporary social biology in an attempt to challenge stereotypes about the subject. Prout is aware that this is a risky approach and that it might not meet with universal acclaim either within sociology (because of traditional fears and the after effects of the racist sociobiology of the early and mid-1900s) or in the biological paradigm because such writers may not be ready for interdisciplinary dialogue. At the centre of this chapter is the idea that we cannot separate out the social from the genetic and that any social theory of childhood has to consider the place of ‘the body’ and genetics. Similarly, through ideas of gene culture co-evolution Prout sets a challenge for sociobiologists to develop more considered and flexible theories that are less reductionist. Of particular note is Prout's critique of those who view science as politically neutral or only engage with the social in a way that smacks of methodological individualism. Prout's critique of the different types of sociobiology is interesting and useful and it reminds us of the Thatcherite limitations of methodological individualism. In the later decades of the last century it was generally assumed that this theory reduced one's analysis of ‘the social’ to explanations concerning the behaviour of individuals and/or the individual's brain state. In short, it was argued that this theory had no utility because it reduced sociology, for example, to merely identifying the bank clerk as giving you money and overlooking the bank's role in this process. In this chapter Prout draws from Latour to promote a much more complex theoretical position that is based on the concept of quasi subjects and quasi objects — the idea that the boundary between human and nonhuman is shifting. This chapter demonstrates the consistency of Prout's work. From his early work on metered dose inhalers in the mid-1990s through to the present, he has recognised the need to advance childhood theory. In this present book Prout makes a conscious and courageous decision to move away from his contemporaries in childhood studies who still reify the social. This evolution makes this book extremely important as it moves on to ground that is rarely inhabited by childhood studies and it also begins to provide a theory that will support practical work in the field of children's services where inter-agency working is promoted but rarely supported by a considered social theory. The diversity of descriptions in this book will be useful within practical processes that encourage professionals from educational, medical, social, health, psychiatric and psychological disciplines to position themselves in respect to each other. Indeed, it may be employed to support them to consider the pros and cons of their professional and theoretical starting points when entering into work-based processes set up to stimulate multi-disciplinary dialogue. The book in itself may be too academic for practitioners to engage with. However, it will be invaluable to those who seek to understand the barriers to multi-disciplinary working in the childhood studies field and within children's services. The final chapter refers to the work of Deleuze and Guattari. These writers promote an anti-humanist perspective. This perspective is underpinned by the idea that the child cannot be essentialised into some unchanging stable entity. This is not surprising, as many writers in childhood studies who have spent time at the University of Stirling (where Prout worked prior to moving to Warwick) employ this theory in their writing. Indeed, the influence of the Stirling writers can be found as far afield as Canadian childhood studies. There is no doubt that this group of writers are posing critical questions of childhood theory that mainstream UK childhood studies is yet to engage with. These questions are not new to other disciplines and writers in disability studies will be more used to discussion that blur the boundaries between the body, society, culture, biology and technology. Prout shows an awareness of some of this work but could have drawn more widely from this paradigm. Indeed, the only major criticism of the book is that it runs out of space and time to fully investigate the topics raised in chapters 4 and 5. For example, specific sections (for example, the discussion of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) give a very light touch to the topic and therefore fail to engage with recent more considered yet complementary writing on this subject which also takes a multi-disciplinary approach to its analysis. A further issue is the lack of substantive engagement with the views of children and young people. It would be interesting (but not essential to this book) to hear what children and young people think of Prout's theories. Perhaps that is asking too much of one academic to achieve on his own and is a touch over-critical. However, it does raise the somewhat rhetorical question — should academic theorists in childhood studies engage more with participatory approaches when writing their books? Prout is a serious thinker. His great skill (in a somewhat magpie way) is to collect gems of new thought and put them together as a coherent academic theory/argument. Indeed, those of us who have attended the various seminars and conferences routinely held in childhood studies in the last 10 years can see where the first seeds of thought for this book emerged. His writing is crucial to the continuation of childhood studies and I look forward to reading his next production.