Archbishop questions consumer culture and backs childhood study
-19/09/06
The Archbish
Archbishop questions consumer culture and backs childhood study
-19/09/06
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has backed the Children’s Society’s ëThe Good Childhood Inquiryí ñ and has raised a series of questions about consumer societies in which adults push more and more expectation and responsibility onto children.
Dr Williams shared his views on a range of topics, from pressures in education to the impact of advertising, in a lengthy interview yesterday to journalist James Naughtie on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Writing for Ekklesia last week, Mark Porthouse previewed the major new study led by Johnathan Bradshaw at the University of York, and published in the Journal for Social Indicators Research earlier this month, which shows that children in the UK are some of the unhappiest in Europe. They are only happier than those in four of the twenty five EU countries. The study is based on detailed interviews with 8000 children. UNICEF will also be publishing a further study in the OSCE area later in 2006.
The Childrenís Society is a Church of England charity, but works without regard to the boundaries of belief and non-belief. It is to lead what it calls ìthe first independent national inquiry into childhood.î
The Society is inviting views from the public and is being led by a panel which includes the Childrenís Commissioner for England, Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, who says he is shocked by the extent of the breakdown between children and parents.
On the positive side, says Dr Williams of the Journal for Social Indicators research, ìthere is a very high level of confidence among most of the young people interviewed about the degree to which their parents or carers really do care for them.î He adds that there is ìless confidence about understanding, and that, in a way, you would expect, but itís interesting that they do take for granted that there is good will.î
But the Archbishop points out that UK children also talk about the immense pressures on them ìand the pressures they identify are very often to do with bullying, peer pressure and the overloading of the curriculumÖ Itís not just [the] ëKevin the teenagerí [syndrome], there are measurable problems here. Weíre talking about one-in-ten young people with identifiable mental health problems, including self-harm and clinical depression – now thatís a very disturbing statistic.î
On schools and the culture of scrutiny, Dr Williams told Today that ìaccountability in education is what everybody wants and thatís where the pressure comes from for [educational] changes. At the same time I think the levels of testing, the point of which testing begins, the relentlessness of it, the fact that teenagers donít any longer have even a year thatís free from some major public testing – that makes the whole of the education institution, not just the children, anxiety driven.î
He identified a core problem as ìthe fear of failureÖ weíre not just talking about young people in schools here, weíre talking about the whole culture.î
ìThis Childrenís Society enquiry certainly wonít be suggesting thereís a quick fix,î the Archbishop of Canterbury stressed. ìBut I think itís tremendously important that we have publicly recognised the cluster of problems and that thereís some public interest and willingness to think it through.î
Asked about video and computer games, Dr Williams was unwilling to put the blame on gaming. ìIt worries me occasionally but again we have to go to the roots of the difficulty and that very often has to do with our shared unwillingness in our culture to let children be children for long enough. We donít give them a lot of space; weíre worried about physical space and the unsafety of the physical spaceÖ Parents being parents, worry comes naturallyÖ [but] I really hope that this enquiry is not about loading more guilt on parents.î
He continued: ìWeíve become more aware that weíve got a responsibility to our children to provide physically safe space wherever they go, wherever theyíre involved. Thatís a good concern, but the way itís worked outÖis to discourage and undermine a volunteer culture, because people are afraid of their liabilities. [This] instill[s] in children themselves a sense of suspicion and uneaseÖî.
On commercial pressure, Dr Williams said: ìI think this is an enormous problem and thatís certainly one of the factors that has driven the setting up of this Childrenís Society EnquiryÖ an awareness of all of the things that are trying to make children consumers before they are ready.î
Regarding possible proposals for a ban on advertising aimed specifically at children, the Archbishop said that it may be ìworth a tryî. He went on: ì[T]here are real issues there which the Advertising Standards Authority is concerned to pick up and work withÖ the whole thing about ëpesterí power for children which advertising colludes with so often, needs challenging.
More information about the Childrenís Society enquiry and about the JSIR report is available on the charityís website.
The report follows news earlier this year (2006) that the Government was missing its targets for alleviating child poverty. In 2005, in an address at Queen Mary College, London, Rowan Williams also made the point that ìthe ëwelfare to workí nostrum isn’t enough. It has served importantly as a corrective to a passive attitude, but, insofar as it presumes that economic productivity is where we all ought to end up, irrespective of our nurturing and forming responsibilities in society, it isnít enoughî.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has additionally highlighted the problem of ëinfantilised adultsí seeking to make children become adults too fast, because they find it difficult to take grown-up responsibility themselves.
The ëkidultí phenomenon is one that has concerned sociologists for a number of years, and is seen partly as a result of the ubiquity of leisure combining with a lessening of family commitments.
Dr Williams has explored some of the underlying questions in his demanding book Lost Icons, but he is keen to avoid being seen to lecture people ñ preferring conversation to cajoling.
Archbishop questions consumer culture and backs childhood study
-19/09/06
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has backed the Children’s Society’s ëThe Good Childhood Inquiryí ñ and has raised a series of questions about consumer societies in which adults push more and more expectation and responsibility onto children.
Dr Williams shared his views on a range of topics, from pressures in education to the impact of advertising, in a lengthy interview yesterday to journalist James Naughtie on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Writing for Ekklesia last week, Mark Porthouse previewed the major new study led by Johnathan Bradshaw at the University of York, and published in the Journal for Social Indicators Research earlier this month, which shows that children in the UK are some of the unhappiest in Europe. They are only happier than those in four of the twenty five EU countries. The study is based on detailed interviews with 8000 children. UNICEF will also be publishing a further study in the OSCE area later in 2006.
The Childrenís Society is a Church of England charity, but works without regard to the boundaries of belief and non-belief. It is to lead what it calls ìthe first independent national inquiry into childhood.î
The Society is inviting views from the public and is being led by a panel which includes the Childrenís Commissioner for England, Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, who says he is shocked by the extent of the breakdown between children and parents.
On the positive side, says Dr Williams of the Journal for Social Indicators research, ìthere is a very high level of confidence among most of the young people interviewed about the degree to which their parents or carers really do care for them.î He adds that there is ìless confidence about understanding, and that, in a way, you would expect, but itís interesting that they do take for granted that there is good will.î
But the Archbishop points out that UK children also talk about the immense pressures on them ìand the pressures they identify are very often to do with bullying, peer pressure and the overloading of the curriculumÖ Itís not just [the] ëKevin the teenagerí [syndrome], there are measurable problems here. Weíre talking about one-in-ten young people with identifiable mental health problems, including self-harm and clinical depression – now thatís a very disturbing statistic.î
On schools and the culture of scrutiny, Dr Williams told Today that ìaccountability in education is what everybody wants and thatís where the pressure comes from for [educational] changes. At the same time I think the levels of testing, the point of which testing begins, the relentlessness of it, the fact that teenagers donít any longer have even a year thatís free from some major public testing – that makes the whole of the education institution, not just the children, anxiety driven.î
He identified a core problem as ìthe fear of failureÖ weíre not just talking about young people in schools here, weíre talking about the whole culture.î
ìThis Childrenís Society enquiry certainly wonít be suggesting thereís a quick fix,î the Archbishop of Canterbury stressed. ìBut I think itís tremendously important that we have publicly recognised the cluster of problems and that thereís some public interest and willingness to think it through.î
Asked about video and computer games, Dr Williams was unwilling to put the blame on gaming. ìIt worries me occasionally but again we have to go to the roots of the difficulty and that very often has to do with our shared unwillingness in our culture to let children be children for long enough. We donít give them a lot of space; weíre worried about physical space and the unsafety of the physical spaceÖ Parents being parents, worry comes naturallyÖ [but] I really hope that this enquiry is not about loading more guilt on parents.î
He continued: ìWeíve become more aware that weíve got a responsibility to our children to provide physically safe space wherever they go, wherever theyíre involved. Thatís a good concern, but the way itís worked outÖis to discourage and undermine a volunteer culture, because people are afraid of their liabilities. [This] instill[s] in children themselves a sense of suspicion and uneaseÖî.
On commercial pressure, Dr Williams said: ìI think this is an enormous problem and thatís certainly one of the factors that has driven the setting up of this Childrenís Society EnquiryÖ an awareness of all of the things that are trying to make children consumers before they are ready.î
Regarding possible proposals for a ban on advertising aimed specifically at children, the Archbishop said that it may be ìworth a tryî. He went on: ì[T]here are real issues there which the Advertising Standards Authority is concerned to pick up and work withÖ the whole thing about ëpesterí power for children which advertising colludes with so often, needs challenging.
More information about the Childrenís Society enquiry and about the JSIR report is available on the charityís website.
The report follows news earlier this year (2006) that the Government was missing its targets for alleviating child poverty. In 2005, in an address at Queen Mary College, London, Rowan Williams also made the point that ìthe ëwelfare to workí nostrum isn’t enough. It has served importantly as a corrective to a passive attitude, but, insofar as it presumes that economic productivity is where we all ought to end up, irrespective of our nurturing and forming responsibilities in society, it isnít enoughî.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has additionally highlighted the problem of ëinfantilised adultsí seeking to make children become adults too fast, because they find it difficult to take grown-up responsibility themselves.
The ëkidultí phenomenon is one that has concerned sociologists for a number of years, and is seen partly as a result of the ubiquity of leisure combining with a lessening of family commitments.
Dr Williams has explored some of the underlying questions in his demanding book Lost Icons, but he is keen to avoid being seen to lecture people ñ preferring conversation to cajoling.