Demographic trends since 1990

This means population and the patterns that can be seen in terms of life, death, marriage, childbirth, age, gendre and migration.

Sociology of childhood

There is a lot of confusion about the concept of childhood because for many sociologists it is not a fixed concept but is one that changes over time and according to social and historical context. For some sociologists childhood is a social construct which means that it is not biological or natural but is infact created by society for example 'the disneyfication'of childhood makes childhood into a product and a commodity and an ideal. Also when you look at other cultures there is such a variety of different ideas about childhood that it makes you understand that possible childhood is a social construct because if it was just a biological thing then it would all be the same regardless of place or time.
There are alot of different approaches to the sociology of childhood and some focus upon the idea that children are weak and vulnerable and need to be protected (also known as the 'welfare approach or conventional approach and this is related to functionalism) and there is also the idea that children can be manipulative, controling and bad and this is called the control approach and is about the more negative aspects of childhood such as how they manipulate their parents and get what they want. Finally postman is 1983 declared that that childhood has disappeared and that the media has brought children in the adult world at the cost of their innocence. He has been criticised for this idea because childhood is a long way from disappearing and according to Lee, childhood has in fact become a lot more complex and ambiguous because children are both independant and dependant in the choices that they make and in the things that they do.