The Institutionalisation of ‘TongNian’ and ‘childhood’ in China and Britain: Exploring Cautious Comparisons

Abstract

This article engages with the question of how theorisation of the social construction of childhood can be applied across cultural contexts, taking China and Britain as examples. The paper draws on collaborative dialogue between scholars from the People's Republic of China and Britain, and literatures from both Anglophone and Mandarin sources. It takes forward emergent work on theorising childhood from diverse global perspectives by focusing on the institutionalisation of childhood in these countries, with particular reference to language, conceptualisation and legal frameworks relating to chronological age.

Comparing Children’s Care Work Across Majority and Minority Worlds

“…Many have argued that dominant children's rights discourses, which have been globalised through UN agencies and international development policy and practice, social work, psychology and other disciplines, are rooted in idealised Minority world notions of childhood (Boyden, 1997;Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2017). In many African countries, family and community members and NGO staff highlight the importance of recognising children's reciprocal responsibilities to their families and communities, as well as their rights.…”

“…Commentators have drawn attention to the cultural specificity of conceptual frameworks often developed in Minority European socio-linguistic contexts and call for greater engagement with theoretical, empirical and methodological insights gained in the Majority world (Evans et al, 2017;Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2017;Punch, 2016). In our comparative study, we sought to reflect on the usefulness of framings of young caregiving developed hitherto primarily in Minority world contexts.…”

Interpreting ‘grief’ in Senegal: language, emotions and cross-cultural translation in a francophone African context

“…With some notable exceptions, understandings of death and bereavement which dominate death studies have been based on research and theorising in the Minority world, particularly in the US and UK. Indeed, social science theories and understandings of society are often fundamentally based on Anglophone perspectives, which reflect colonial legacies, global and local power relations and axes of social difference such as gender, ethnicity and class (Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2016). Attending closely to the process of cross-cultural translation can offer a means of illuminating the cultural specificities of language and thereby reveal 'the presumptions and biases of academic theories and deconstruct hegemonic concepts' (Maclean, 2007, p.789).…”

Childhood, children, and family lives in China

“…Nevertheless, China was a deeply segmented society with people categorised on the basis of parental history (Leung and Xu, 2015). A key aspect of this was the 1958 establishment of the hukou system of household registration, which depended on family of origin, and while this system has been changing in recent years, children's entitlement to benefits, medical care or education still largely depends on their family hukou rather than any individual rights (Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2016).…”

“…Closer examination, however, reveals significant linguistic and conceptual differences concerning the meanings of 'child' or XiaoHai (小孩, literally meaning 'people who are still small') and 'childhood' or TongNian' (童年, literally 'the time of young age'). Furthermore, legislative measures creating chronological categories governing different aspects of children's lives, are historically and culturally embedded (Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2016). The meaning and significance of chronological age, for example, has varied markedly, both between China and the UK, and across historical periods within each society.…”