Introduction to Psychology/Child and Adolescent Psychology/Childhood and Sociology

Sociology as a science of the social phenomena is interested in "Infancy" as an object of study under multiple aspects; we will quote only some examples:

• The change of the view on infancy described by the historians and conceptualized by the sociologists in terms status and role, the statute being allotted by l exterior (the company) him lai$ant more or less of freedom to assume the role qu'il is supposed to play there. Industrialization, the migration of the campaigns towards the city, the work of the children having burst the old family structures, sociology studied in detail the social relations with l interior of this new reduced family structure and to which places it assigns the children. Well other changes of the company, the m?urs, the family was described and analyzed by the sociologists from the point of view of their impact on infancy: Emancipation of the women (the replacement of paternal authority with parental authority), multiplication of the cases of divorce and l'attribution of the custody charge of the children and in a concomitant way multiplication of the recomposed families prolongation of the schooling; the unemployment of the young people and their prolonged stay in the residence of the parents.

Another phenomenon was analyzed very finely by sociology: c'est the increasing sum of pocket money at the disposal of the child which was planned in term to be able d'achat d'un specific group of the company which became the privileged target d'une publicity specifically conceived with its intention.

Sociology also highlighted that in the various social layers which make a company, the status and roles of the members d'une family are not in the same way defined. Aujourd'hui one can also - grace, inter alia, with sociology - evaluate health or pathology d'un family group by holding account of its behavior vis-a-vis with waitings qu'a the company towards him. This last point forms part of the theorization d'une particular psychological therapy qu'est the family therapy that, for lack of place, we will not n'aborderons here.

A last point - in particular compared to sociology - must be underlined: two close sciences (here psychology and sociology) can have the same subject of study (Infancy) but arrive at apparently contradictory results if one is unaware of that the point of view on an object of study is never same the science with the other and that methodologies diverge.

Thus, sociology studied the evolutions of the role and statute of the father and the mother with l interior of the family following l emancipation of the women, and how the infant was implied in these changes. In parallel, the psychologists highlighted that simultaneously with this evolution in the imagination of the infants the mother always represents love, protection and permissiveness whereas the father continues to represent the law and repression.

This point must point out qu'il to us is necessary always much prudence when one wants to generalize a phenomenon observed and more still when one seeks to transpose it from one science to another.