male within the family, drawing attention to how it is not just women but also children who are subject to this.
2 One piece of evidence that supports the view that childhood is socially constructed is that the meaning of childhood varies over time; for example, in Europe in the Middle Ages children were expected to work from about the age of seven rather than child labour being seen as wrong, as it is today.
A second piece of evidence is the variation in childhood between different societies today, for example adulthood may be achieved at a significantly younger age than 18 as in Britain today.
3 Note: this is not an exam-style question.
Ariès meant that childhood, as we understand the term today, did not exist then. After infancy, young people were treated as little adults — they dressed in adult clothes, worked and played alongside adults and were held responsible for their actions. There was no separate social sphere of childhood as we know it today.
4 One way in which the lives of children in pre-industrial society were different from those of children in the UK today is that children were expected to work from a very early age, for example helping on a family farm or being an apprentice.
A second way is that there was little school education, which meant that children mixed socially with people of different ages rather than spending a lot of time with children of the same age.
A third way is that entertainment and leisure activities were shared by all age groups rather than there being entertainment aimed at children specifically.
5 One social policy that has affected the status of children is that children are now entitled to have a say in decisions affecting their future, for example custody in divorce cases.
A second policy is the fixing of the school-leaving age; raising this has had the effect of making childhood last longer as those affected