CULTURAL STUDIES & COMMUNICATION
Year:2017 | Volume:13 | Issue:46 |Papers Count:7

Sociopolitical processes have radically transformed childhood is modern time. The diversity of experiences of children are shaped in varied fields of everyday life with diverse discourses and representations made of the childhood make it necessary to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to understand its dynamics. The present paper aims to provide an account of the approaches and traditions affecting childhood studies and also to clarify the concepts and methods employed by childhood scholars. It is argued that a deep reflexivity and a creative combination of theoretical and empirical findings provided on childhood in Iran could provide an ideal opportunity to understand childhood and the trends accompanying it. It is believed the major academic has faced institutional obstacles of childhood studies in Iran. The paper ends with clarifying on its potentials for policy making and the potentials it has for promoting quality of life and a better dialogue with children.

This paper aims to study the issue and the representation of childhood in Iranian primary school textbooks. Are children small adults that differ from adults only in terms of physique? How is the official view to concept of childhood in which educational methods are reflected? How is the "childhood" status in textbooks that is expresser of philosophy, goals and also idealistic humanization in educational system? Whether the children will be expunged from their childhood or this period will be lengthened to posture this childhood world? As the textbooks especially in Iranian educational system are the only unrivalled instructional sources, the author is about to search for the response of questions by content analysis? The target population includes all 20 textbooks of the first period (3 years) which have been taught in Iranian primary schools during 2014-2015. As sampling cannot achieve the desired results, all textbooks in this period, must have been analyzed and the sample in this study will be the population. So the sample size will be the same population in this study. The general argument in this article will be the matter in which children will be driven for their only childhood to adulthood by religion and politics. In all, the results of this study show these school textbooks rush the children from childhood into adulthood.

The term ‘Legislative Politics’ determines a country prospective view, and provide its own expectation from ‘legal institutions’ before enacting relevant acts. But in the Iranian legal system, since legislator doubted between ‘adoption’ and ‘fostering’, the legislative politics about orphan children is dual and vague. That situation caused by two facts: on one hand, in Islamic context adoption has some limitations, and on the other hand sometimes best interests of the child requires an adoptive family and government inevitably is attracted to adoption. These dual politics caused some discordance, conflicts in the acts and also discouraged adoptive parents or attracted them to the alternative options (such as Embryo Donation for infertile couples). The legislator must determine its own politics definitely and pass from its doubt forever.

Anthropological studies on childhood who tried to define a culture of childhood have chiefly focused on behaviours, values, and norms between children in spaces designed for this age of life. The present communication deals with the following question: Is there any formation of a specific culture among children in spaces not designed for them? Urban spaces are designed mostly for adult use, but constitutes the main working and playing space of some childhoods. In the migration situation, for example, what role does the host neighbourhood play in the children’s conceptual world? How do children produce sense of and construct their social relations within urban spaces? In order to answer these questions we have conducted two ethnographic researches in the city of Tehran, one in the park and the other one on the crossroad. The active participation of the child as a social actor in redefining and organizing his physical and social environment is the main finding of this research. Based on the first field study we will be able to observe how a group of migrant children contributes to the integration of families and the ethnic group through its territorialisation in the park of the host neighbourhood. The second fieldwork will bring to light some rulemaking of begging children regulating their concurrence in an apparently dominated situation.

Child labor in brick kilns is the problematic of this research. I study the social and professional relations in a brick kiln and analyze the structure in which child labor occurs. The analysis of three professional networks (“working interaction among workers”, “Supervising the work of other workers” and “Knowing the details of what other workers”) demonstrate that on the one hand, the structure of these networks marginalizes children and on the other hand the issue of child labor in the brick kiln is turned into the something personal and family. Moreover, the analysis of four social networks (“Friendship among workers”, “family visiting among workers”, “Helping workers” and “Getting help from workers”) demonstrate that the ethnic and gender gaps deprives children from resources and opportunities of networks.

Sociologists, believe that childhood is one of the most important periods of growth, personal and social development of person in the human society because at this time children socialization attained. In the process of socialization, children knowing with networking role, values and social norms and gradually learn and internalize gender roles and become socialized. The function of socialization in the society, operate by various institutions in society like: family, reference groups, education, religion and mass media. The gender socialization of children's by TV has undeniable and important role. This study in the field of sociology of gender, cultural studies tradition and by accepting these premises that advertising as a genre of media have a direct link to culture of society, and in the process of socialization by media, children learn gender identity and roles, try to analyze and investigate Advertising TV with qualitative content analysis. The results indicate the presence of male sexist ideology in commercial advertising. As well as the analysis and interpretation of advertising texts, shown that kind of gender inequality in the representation of children in television advertising in favor of boys, prevail. In other words, television commercials have tried to offer special status to male children and reproduce the gender hierarchy and lasting subordination of the females and girls.