Introduction

This chapter frames children's social relations with adults in the context of socio-political characteristics of child–adult relations in the UK. It argues that these characteristics help explain how children's social relations differ, according to setting. Broadly, children have more chance of respectful relations with adults in the ‘private domain’ of the home than they do with professionals in the ‘public domain’. However, this is a complicated and mixed picture, as the chapter suggests. And the picture is a shifting one, which intersects with changing representations of children.

Chapter One briefly reviewed the development of social exclusion/ inclusion policies in the UK. A long-standing aspect of social exclusion relates to behaviour that does not conform to societal norms, often but not exclusively associated with poverty. Policies to tackle social exclusion in this sense have included welfarist, targeted and individualised policies and initiatives, with heavy emphasis on the need to tackle deviants, especially young people. Underlying such policies and initiatives is concern for the appropriate balance between ‘the family’ and ‘the state’ as agents of socialisation. Of course, the concept of ‘family’ implies a norm, whereas families vary in composition and character; this variability underlies discussions in this chapter. Roche and Tucker (2003) note that social exclusion agendas tend to rely on families as the main socialisation arena and to identify as the main governmental role tackling deviance visible in public spheres (for instance, crime, drugs, truancy). Dealing with social exclusion as it affects children in private spheres is more problematic for governments, which hesitate to intervene in families.

Ways of thinking both reify and structure how social trends are perceived. For instance, sociologists reified social life into public and private domains; women, famously, have challenged the very notion of this division, but it has also proved a useful analytic tool for them to challenge male assignment of women to the home, and the complementary notion that what they do there is not work (for example, Stacey and Davies, 1983).