Into The Boundary:Power Relations Between Children And Adults

The concept of childhood has its biological basis,but we are more inclined to regard it as a sociological phenomenon.The social history of childhood does not coincide with the biological history of human development.Childhood has a long process of social construction.Childhood exists on the premise that there is(and should be)a clear boundary between adults and children.Indeed,one might say the seemingly self-evident boundary between child and adult.But then what is that boundary?How does the boundary organize the relations between children and adults?Previous research provides us with a variety of answers:taboo,rationality,literacy and more.But they seem to neglect a pivotal element of the boundary in question:power.Adult can define who the child is,and what the childhood to be.This definition process is already a performance of power.In western society,childhood as a category was introduced to the discourse of social membership in the end of 17 century.With the birth and development of children's right,adults monopolize the power to segregate children by law in the name of "protecting children".By the collusion between right and power,children were legally excluded from the legal/social membership of modern civil society.To maintain this power relations,adults use institutionalized way to discipline children,controlling them over time,space and interactions in all kinds of social institutions.However,this does not mean that children are entirely passive in the process of institutionalization of childhood.Children have their own agency and strategies,which keeps the power relations a dynamic balance.In this sense,where is the power,and who holds this power?Actually,power is not something can be held by individuals,like a crown,but exists inside the relations.As for the relations between children and adults,the power is held by neither side.Both of them are only parts of the reproduction of this power relations.Furthermore,the function of the boundary is not limited to the separation of children and adults,but a connection.Through this,the two are integrated into the cycle of reproduction of the relationship between child and adult in their affinity,antagonism and negotiation and,thereby,the social order they share.