Adultization and blurring the boundaries of childhood in the late modern era

Abstract

Although the modern Western concept of childhood is rapidly disappearing in the age of late modernity, this study asserts that childhood (as it is lived) has not disappeared but has been transformed. An integrated approach to childhood is employed in order to go beyond binary oppositions such as the Global North versus the Global South and/or childhood versus childhoods. It is argued that children while constructing their childhoods are confronted with processes of individualisation and globalisation through which new forms of adultization have emerged as concepts of ‘child consumerism’ and ‘child citizenship’. Beyond the opposing views involving the disappearance of childhood or its liberation, this study concludes that the concept of adultization can be used to problematise and analyse childhood in its current state.