Let’s talk about…

What is death and dying?

Death and dying are a natural part of life. We are born, we live, we die. People of all ages die. They can die from old age, from diseases of the body and the mind, from war and conflict, and from violence. Poorer parts of the world experience more people dying because they have less resources for healthcare for the whole of the population.

Rituals for death and dying

Every culture has their own rituals for death and dying; these are things people do together to prepare for death, to say goodbye to the person who died, and to remember them. People also have their own personal ways of remembering the dead and continuing a relationship with them, if they want to. Sometimes these rituals are religious. Sometimes children also take part in these rituals. Some cultures believe strongly in an afterlife, which means that the dead still have a role in life.

What we know about how children think and feel about death

Researchers know little about children’s encounters of death and dying in everyday life (e.g. death of a sibling, friend or grandparent, or death in the community). They also know little about how children think and feel about death as part of life. This is because it is a very sensitive topic to research and adults often feel protective of children.

Children are curious about death and dying

The research that has happened shows that children want to know about death and they will ask questions about it. Children learn about death from conversations with their parents, and from watching films and reading books. Death is complicated and sometimes knowing about death can be confusing. Some children can find it helpful to talk to someone and get support when it becomes too confusing.

Talking death

There are so many ways to talk about death. Sometimes people say ‘she died peacefully in her sleep’ or ‘he wasn’t in any pain’ or ‘she had a good life’. People also describe death as someone having ‘departed’, ‘passed away’, ‘resting’, ‘at peace’, or ‘being with one’s maker’. ‘Grief’ or ‘bereavement’ are how we describe that period after someone close to us has died and when we try to work through complicated feelings that a death leaves us with. Sometimes the way we talk about death is confusing! Adults talk about dead ‘bodies’ – and we know from research that children have wondered if these bodies have heads (they do)!

Death and feelings

Sometimes it’s hard to talk about death. The death of someone else can create many different feelings in a person that are hard to put into words. Pain is one feeling but it is not the only one. Children with a sibling who died told researchers that their brother/sister’s death had been stressful, but it had also given them an opportunity to get to know their dying sibling better and to become closer to them, as well as to play different roles in the family. Sometimes things that happen around death and dying (e.g. funerals) can be funny too.

What is race and racism?

Identifying with people who have similar visible characteristics to you happens from when you are a baby. Visible differences are sometimes turned into social categories by the societies we live in. People can hold positive and negative views about social categories. Race is a social category that is used to divide people into different groups based on the colour of their skin. Racism is a negative attitude and the unjust treatment of people based on their skin tone. Racism is also a way of organising everyday life that means that people of darker skin are excluded.

Where do race and racism come from?

A social category is created through talking and doing, it does not occur naturally. Turning a visible bodily difference into a way of organising societies is a complex political project. The social category of race emerged from the 16th century onwards as Europeans started to colonise parts of the world outside of Europe. White Europeans considered themselves superior and treated anyone who wasn’t like them as expendable (e.g. slavery). This has created massive inequalities and injustices in many societies in which white, black and brown people live together that continue until this day.

What do children know about race and racism?

A lot, even if some adults around them find it a difficult subject to speak to them about! Adults often think that children are innocent and ‘colour blind’, or that they do not hold negative attitudes about someone(s) who looks different to them, or that they do not do ‘mean’ things to those who are different. But this isn’t true. Children live in the same societies as adults, they are curious about the world around them, they find ways to find things out, and they can also, like adults, re-create inequalities and injustices like racism.

How do children of colour communicate their experiences of race and racism?

Language that children can use to communicate their experiences is restricted. Because the topic is complicated, because it is wrong and hurts to experience, and because it can make some adults uncomfortable to talk about. Younger children may say ‘I don’t know names, but I can tell you how it works’. Or they may say that they are ‘picked on’. They might express a wish to be white so that people wouldn’t notice them. Older children might say ‘it hurts’ and tell researchers that it doesn’t just hurt them, it hurts their mothers, their homes, their families. Or maybe they keep their experiences to themselves.

How do children reject race and racism?

Children can get angry about the racism they witness. Sometimes children who look different stand up for each other when they see their friends being called names. They might say ‘we told them to leave her alone and stop bossing her around’. Or ‘and it’s not fair ‘cos if you were that colour, you wouldn’t like it if they were saying that to you’. Sometimes children fantasize about getting justice for their friends. Sometimes racism is confusing to children and ‘doesn’t make sense’ to them.

Differences that matter to you

There are many characteristics – visible and invisible – that make up who we are. Some become social categories, some do not. Having lighter or darker skin tone is not always the most important thing to children in their everyday lives. Sometimes not having enough money matters more. Sometimes being a girl or a boy matters more. Sometimes having additional needs matters more. Or a combination of these things together. Sometimes we are more similar than different and we struggle in common ways, but social categories can hide these commonalities.

Further reading

Connolly, P. (2001) ‘Qualitative methods in the study of children’s racial attitudes and identities’, Infant and Child Development, 10: 219–233.

Howarth, C. (2007) ‘“It’s not their fault that they have that colour skin, is it?” Young British children and the possibilities for contesting racializing representations’. In Moloney, Gail and Walker, Iain (eds) Social representations and identity: content, process, and power, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 131-156.

Devine, D., Kenny, M. and Macneela, E. (2008) ‘Naming the ‘other’: children’s construction and experience of racisms in Irish primary schools’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 11(4): 369–385.

Kustatscher, M. (2017) ‘Young children’s social class identities in everyday life at primary school: The importance of naming and challenging complex inequalities’, Childhood: A journal of global child research, 24(3): 381-395.

Kromidas, M. (2016) City Kids: Transforming Racial Baggage. Camden, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press.

Park, C. C. (2011) ‘Young Children Making Sense of Racial and Ethnic Differences: A Sociocultural Approach’, American Educational Research Journal, 48(2): 208-214.

Priest, N., Walton, J., White, F., Kowal, E., Fox, B., Paradies, Y. (2016) ‘ “You are not born being racist, are you?” Discussing racism with primary aged-children’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 19(4): 808–834.

Tryona, B. and Hatcher, R. (1992) Racism in Children’s Lives: A Study of Mainly-white Primary Schools. Routledge, London.

Van Ausdale, D. and Feagin J. R. (2000) The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism.  Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.

What is gender?

Gender is what we call the collection of things we say and do, the way we dress and the things we like, that allows others to recognise us as being ‘a girl’ or ‘a boy’. Gender is also how we feel about our own girlness or boyness and everything in between. Gender is something we learn from an early age, and we continue to practise it throughout our lives. How someone does their girlness or boyness can change over the course of their life, and societies’ understandings of gender can also change.

How does the idea of ‘normal’ shape gender?

There are lots of ways to do gender, although sometimes this is not obvious. This is because the ideas that circulate in our societies about being a girl or a boy are like magnets: they pull us towards limited ways of understanding what gender is. These ways are sometimes thought of as ‘normal’. For example, we might think it is ‘normal’ for boys to play football and girls to play with dolls. This isn’t true though, and if you are a boy who plays with dolls or a girl who plays football these ideas about what is ‘normal’ might feel tight and uncomfortable.

What is ‘normal’ anyway?

Worldwide, about 1.7% of people are born with the physical characteristics of both boys and girls (intersex). Some children are born into boys bodies but feel more like girls, and vice versa (transgender), and some children do not feel much like boys or girls. We do not know much at all about the experiences of such children growing up. In interviews, some transgender adults tell us that they felt that they had to keep their experiences a ‘secret’ when they were children because how they felt did not align with accepted ideas of girlness or boyness.

How do children do gender?

Children ‘do’ gender in many different ways, for example, through the toys they play with, the clothes they wear, the language they use, and the games they play. Sometimes, the ways that children do their gender reinforces the idea that there is ‘normal’ girlness or boyness, and children are concerned about doing their gender ‘right’. Other times, children do their gender in a way that challenges these ideas of what is ‘normal’. For example, one boy child told a researcher: ‘If my best friend decided to dress up like a girl, I will say wait up bro, I am coming’.

What do children know about gender and gendering?

Children are experts on doing gender. Children will often make sure that other children are doing girlness and boyness in ways that are ‘acceptable’ to the societies they live in. To do this, they must know a lot about what you need to say and do to pass as a boy or girl. They might say: ‘What’s he doing that for? He’s a boy!’ Children use their knowledge to keep the boundaries between girlness and boyness separate. But they also use their knowledge to say that girlness and boyness are not important, and that girls can do boy-things and boys can do girl-things.

Where do children do gender?

Some learning about how to do gender happens by copying adults, but most happens when children are together with one another in, for example, the playground. In the playground, children can learn from each other and show their knowledge of doing gender to each other. Sometimes adults worry that talking to children about the many different ways of doing gender might confuse them. Some research shows that this is not the case. Children are curious and ask respectful and important questions about what it means and what it feels like to do gender in a way that does not fit with ideas of what is ‘normal’.

Further reading

Bartholomaeus, C., & Senkevics, A. S. (2015) Accounting for Gender in the Sociology of Childhood: Reflections From Research in Australia and Brazil. Sage Open, 5(2).

Barron, C. & Capous-Desyllas, M. (2017) ‘Transgressing the Gendered Norms in Childhood: Understanding Transgender Children and Their Families’, Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 13(5): 407-438.

Blaise, M. (2005) ‘A feminist poststructuralist study of children “doing” gender in an urban kindergarten classroom’, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 20(1): 85-108.

Carlile, A. (2020) ‘The experiences of transgender and non-binary children and young people and their parents in healthcare settings in England, UK: Interviews with members of a family support group’, International Journal of Transgender Health, 21(1): 16-32.

Jaggi, R.  (2017). Children’s Perceptions of Gender Images in Indian Television Cartoons p. 153-162 in Dafna Lemish & Maya Götz (eds.) Beyond the Stereotypes? Images of Boys and Girls, and their Consequences. Göteborg: Nordicom.

Kambouri­ Danos, M. and Evans, A. (2019) ‘Perceptions of gender roles: a case study’, Early Years Educator(EYE), 20 (11): 38­44.

Kelly-Ware, J. (2016). ‘What’s he doing that for? He’s a boy!’: Exploring gender and sexualities in an early childhood setting. Global Studies of Childhood, 6(1), 147-154.

Luecke, J.C. (2011) ‘Working with Transgender Children and Their Classmates in Pre-Adolescence: Just Be Supportive’, Journal of LGBT Youth, 8(2): 116-156.

Martin, B. (2011) Children at Play: Learning Gender in the Early Years. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books.

Martin, C. L., & Ruble, D. (2004) ‘Children’s Search for Gender Cues: Cognitive Perspectives on Gender Development’, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(2), 67-70.

Mayeza, E. (2018) ‘‘Charmer boys’ and ‘cream girls’: how primary school children construct themselves as heterosexual subjects through football’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 39(1): 128-141.

Morrow, V. (2006) ‘Understanding Gender Differences in Context: Implications for Young Children’s Everyday Lives’, Children & Society, 20(2): 92-104.

Pearce, G. & Bailey, R.P. (2011) ‘Football pitches and Barbie dolls: Young Children’s Perceptions of their School Playground’, Early Child Development and Care,181(10): 1361-1379.

Renold, E. (2006) ‘They won’t let us play … unless you’re going out with one of them’: girls, boys and Butler’s ‘heterosexual matrix’ in the primary years’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27(4): 489-509.

Renold, E. Bragg, S. Jackson, C. and Ringrose, J. (2017) How Gender Matters to Children and Young People Living in England. Cardiff University, University of Brighton, University of Lancaster, and University College London, Institute of Education.

Wingrave, M. (2018) ‘Perceptions of gender in early years’, Gender and Education, 30(5): 587-606.

What is politics?

Politics are the formal institutions and processes by which we organise our life together. For example, politics is when you vote for one or another political party to run the government or how the government allocates money and people to fund essential services like health, education, and fire services. Different political parties have different ideas about how living together should be organised and how resources should be allocated. Voting is one way for a person to express support or dissent for how things are run. Protesting on the street, writing letters to members of parliament, signing petitions, raising funds for causes are other ways.

What else is political?

Politics are also our experiences of the world and how we feel about those. Personal experiences are political, and private troubles are also public issues. For example, the way essential services are funded might exclude resources going to those members of society most in need of them. The availability of a free school meal for those children who need it is political. Or, people who are women and black or brown are often paid less or hold less important positions than women and men who are white in many societies. Being paid equally, irrespective of gender or race, for the same job and being able to progress in a chosen job or career, is political.

Children encountering politics

Children in most countries cannot vote in national elections. But children encounter, experience, and engage in politics in many aspects of their lives, including at home, in school, and in their neighbourhoods. For example, it might be that their parents discuss politics at home or they discuss a big political event with their friends at school. Some children may be involved in a student council or go with their parents and/or friends on protest marches. Other children might be involved in raising money for a cause they believe in.

Children’s political activisms

Some adults feel that talking politics in front of children or involving them in activities that are political is wrong. But children have always been involved in politics. Before compulsory schooling when children used to work, some children were also part of the labour movement and protested with adults about their poor working and pay conditions. Children in different countries across the world have protested unfair educational policies or unfair treatment in school. Most recently, children across the globe have lead regular protests for environmental justice.

Children talking, showing, feeling politics

The ways that children express themselves about politics might not always be the same as the way adults talk about politics. Researchers have found that children’s political expressions are ‘idiomatic’ – they are unique to each child and go beyond words alone. For example, children might communicate what they know, how they feel and what they believe about a political situation through their play, by inventing games, by telling novel stories, or by not saying anything and instead using their gestures.

Everyday politics

Children’s experiences of politics do not always directly connect with events in their countries or worldly events. What happens in the playground, on a playdate, or within families can also be political. What we wear, what we play, who we play with, are all the stuff of everyday politics. Negotiating rules with parents or teachers, as well as breaking rules that are set for children, can be seen as political acts. What we care about and what gives us cause for concern is also an expression of politics.

Further reading

Ekström, M. (2016). ‘Young people’s everyday political talk: A social achievement of democratic engagement’, Journal of Youth Studies, 19(1), 1–19.

George, R. (2013). ‘‘What’s a vendetta?’ Political socialization in the everyday interactions of Los Angeles families’, Discourse & Society, 24(1), 46–65.

Gleadle, K., and Hanley, R. (2015) ‘Children Against Slavery: Juvenile Agency and the Sugar Boycotts in Britain’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 30: 97–117.

Gleadle, K. (2016) ‘The Juvenile Enlightenment: British children and youth during the French Revolution’, Past and Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, 223(1): 143-184.

Kallio, K. P. and Häkli, J. (2013) ‘Children and Young People’s Politics in Everyday Life’, Space and Polity, 17(1): 1–16.

McDevitt, M., & Chaffee, S. (2002) ‘From top-down to trickle-up influence: Revisiting assumptions about the family in political socialisation’, Political Communication, 19(3): 281–301.

Nolas, S-M., Varvantakis, C., and Aruldoss, V. (2017) ‘Talking politics in everyday family life’, Contemporary Social Science, 12(1): 68-83.

Ojeda, C., & Hatemi, P. K. (2015) ‘Accounting for the child in the transmission of party identification’, American Sociological Review, 80(6), 1150–1174.

Rodgers, D. (2005) ‘Children as social movement participants’. In D. A. Kinney & K. B. Rosier (Eds.), Sociological studies of children and youth (Vol. 11, pp. 239-259). Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing.

Rosen, R. (2017) ‘Play as activism? Early childhood and (inter)generational politics’, Contemporary Social Science, 12(1-2): 110-122.

Stevens, O. (1982) Children talking politics: Political learning in childhood. Oxford: Martin Robertson.

Vinnarasan, A. and Nolas, S-M. (2019) ‘Tracing Indian girls’ embodied orientations towards public life’, Gender, Place and Culture, 26(11): 266-280.

What is economics?

Economics involves many aspects of our everyday lives. It can refer to money, to buying and selling things, to work and unemployment, to swapping things and favours, to doing chores and caring for sick family members, as well as to giving and receiving gifts and inheriting money, property, or other things of value. Exchanging things of value (e.g. money, tokens, belongings, etc) out of necessity or desire, or as a way of creating and maintaining relationships, is an activity that has been around as long as people have. Everyone experiences some aspect of economic life on a daily basis: paying bills, taking public transport, buying food, exchanging Pokémon cards, receiving pocket money, living with debt, etc.

How can we describe economic life?

We use many different words to describe economic life: for example, having/wanting, poverty/wealth, poor/rich, abundance/lack. Some of these words are more abstract than others, and the experiences they refer to vary considerably and different people give different meanings to these experiences. In a society, the differences between the experiences these words describe can lead to inequalities between people, especially when these differences are very big. Researchers find that more equality between people also means more health and happiness; inequalities can lead to bad health and misery especially for those people that have less.

Understanding money

Children’s understanding of money is similar within the same country irrespective of whether children live in a city or rural area; children in different countries also have similar understandings of money. Children across the world become better at understanding how money works the older they get, but this also depends on how much exposure they have to money. Children who have jobs, for example, get to understand money at an earlier age. Age also plays a role in how children understand economic activities like spending and saving; older children have a better understanding of saving, how to do it, and feel better about it.

Exchanging and saving

Swapping is a popular economic activity in childhood – children swap things all the time with their friends! Pencils, stickers, Pokémon and football cards, toys, sweets and foods, and other things children own, play with, use and consume are often swapped in the school playground or during playdates. Children tell researchers that they swap their things with other children because they don’t need something any more, because it is a way to create and look after a friendship, and because it is fun! Children understand that things of value can be stolen. Children told researchers that they hid their sweets in a container that made a noise when opened: that way, they could catch their thieving siblings!

Lack of money

When children and their families do not have enough money to live, this can make children worry about their social life and friendships, e.g. not having toys to swap. Children have told researchers that this can make them feel anxious, unhappy, and insecure. They might feel worried about being left out of activities, and it may make them feel less able to express themselves, e.g. through clothes and other purchases. At home, not having enough money can mean that relationships, e.g. between parents and siblings, come under pressure. Sometimes children’s living conditions can also be affected when their families do not have enough money.

Understanding how the economy works

Children have their own ideas about the economy. Children have talked to researchers about ‘austerity’ – an economic policy some governments took in response to the Global Financial Crisis in 2008-2009 – and performed little skits for researchers to show what ‘austerity’ meant to them. For example, children spoke about not having a mobile phone with enough credit or having an empty wallet. Other children told researchers that they should be paid to go to school because school is like work. Children were often quick to identify when not having enough is unfair and often spoke about sharing. Some children also wanted jobs when they grew up that let them make a lot of money.

Further reading

Crivello, G., Vennam, U., and Komanduri, A. (2012) ‘Ridiculed for not having anything: Children’s views on poverty and inequality in rural India’, in Boyden, J. and Bourdillon M. (eds.) Childhood poverty: Multidisciplinary approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 218–236.

Dickson, J., Leman, P.J., and Easterbrook, M.J. (2023) ‘Children’s developing understanding of economic inequality and their place within it’, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 41(2): 81–98.

Evans, J. and Chandler, J. (2006) ‘To buy or not to buy: Family dynamics and children’s consumption’, Sociological Research Online, 11(4). Available at: http:// www.socresonline.org.uk/11/2/evans.html

Jahoda, G. and France, A. (1979) ‘The construction of economic reality by some Glaswegian children’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 9(2): 115–127.

Nolas, S-M., Varvantakis, C. and Aruldoss, V. (2024) ‘Minting worlds: economic minors tracing money in a ‘Global’ Financial Crisis’. In Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, Racheal Stryker and Chrisots Varvantakis (Eds) Experiments in Worldly Ethnography. London, Routledge.

Nolas, S-M., Varvantakis, C., and Aruldoss, V. (2020) ‘Children of the financial crisis’, Discover society, 44. Available at: https://archive.discoversociety.org/2017 /05/02/children-of-the-financial-crisis/

Ridge, T. (2011) ‘The everyday costs of poverty in childhood: A review of qualitative research exploring the lives and experiences of low-income children in the UK’, Children & Society, 25(1): 73–84.