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This paper is based on a critical analysis of a chain of retail outlets called 'Girl Heaven', aimed primarily at 3-13-year-old girls, described variously as 'a piece of retail folklore' (Lumsden, 1999) and as 'Guardian Wimmin Hell' (Kettle, 1999). It argues that while on the one hand Girl Heaven appears to provide a celebratory social space in which girls can affirm their femininity, it also seems to epitomize the commercial appropriation of childhood femininity. As a way into exploring these two alternatives, this article is concerned initially with what it means to 'do' feminine childhood against the backdrop of contemporary consumer culture. It then outlines the methodological approach that we take to researching Girt Heaven, and the ways in which we explore young girls' lived experience of consumer culture and gender acquisition. We then consider the commercial context of Girl Heaven in rotation to the increasing market recognition of 'tweenies', as well as the significance of pester power and branding in childhood approaches to consumption. We subsequently focus on Girl Heaven as a cultural text, concentrating on its construction of femininity. Our analysis culminates in an attempt to reflect critically on the complex relationship between consumer culture and the process of becoming a woman. We reflect on Girt Heaven -- with which, our research suggests, young girls themselves are acutely aware of having a relationship that is far from straightforward -- as a notable manifestation of this complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past two decades have seen rapid changes in the ways in which sociologists think about children, and a growing cross-fertilisation of ideas between researchers in a variety of social science disciplines. This paper builds upon these developments by exploring what three inter-related ways of thinking about spatiality might contribute to the new social studies of childhood. Specifically, we identify the importance of progressive understandings of place in overcoming the split between global and local approaches to childhood; we discuss the ways in which children's identities are constituted in and through particular spaces; and we examine the ways in which our understandings of childhood can shape the meaning of spaces and places. These ideas are illustrated by reference to our current research on children's use of the internet as well as a range of wider studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore some key antionomies which have emerged in relation to children and childhood in late modernity: tensions between autonomy and protection and between perceptions of children as 'at risk' and as potentially threatening. A particular focus here is on the sexualisation of risk, the degree of public concern expressed whenever the sexual 'innocence' of children is thought to be endangered. We argue that the concept of risk anxiety provides a useful means of analysing contemporary fears about children and childhood and may thus be understood as contributing to the ongoing social construction of childhood. Here risk anxiety must be located within the context of gendered and generational power relations, in which children's lives are bounded by adult surveillance. Furthermore, risk anxiety may have material consequences for children's daily lives and for everyday adult-child negotiations around safety and danger, protection and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called 'gay age of consent' was the most high-profile issue in UK lesbian, gay and bisexual politics during the 1990s. Campaigning for an equal age of consent provoked a series of extended public and parliamentary debates, concluding with the passage of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act (2000). This article analyses these debates to reveal emerging social relationships between heterosexuality and homosexuality. It is argued that age of consent debates witnessed the ascendance of a new 'hegemony' supporting 'equality at 16', constituted through the interweaving of knowledge-claims generated within the mainstream epistemologies of biomedicine, law, criminology and child welfare. The analysis integrates critical sociological perspectives on these various forms of knowledge, with reference to epistemological transformations occurring in late modernity. Particular attention focuses on claims concerning the age at which the fixity of sexual identities is established. It is argued that the debate's structure enabled 'equality at 16' to be endorsed alongside the persistent operation of rationales of containment in the political mainstream, and hence that legal equality does not imply recognition of the equal value of homosexuality and heterosexuality. The implications are examined for ongoing struggles over sex offences, Section 28, and the social status of same-sex sexualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]