Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sexual Development
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sexual Development
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I What Is Sexual Development?
- Children
- 1 Are Children Sexual?
- 2 Toward a Central Theory of Childhood Sexuality
- 3 A Sociological Exploration of Childhood Sexuality
- 4 Not Innocent, but Vulnerable
- 5 The Dynamic Expression of Sexual-Minority and Gender-Minority Experience during Childhood and Adolescence
- 6 Sexual Embodiment in Girlhood and beyond
- Adolescence
- Part II How Do We Study Sexual Development?
- Part III Media, Family, Education
- Index
- References
2 - Toward a Central Theory of Childhood Sexuality
A Relational Approach1
from Children
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 December 2018
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sexual Development
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sexual Development
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I What Is Sexual Development?
- Children
- 1 Are Children Sexual?
- 2 Toward a Central Theory of Childhood Sexuality
- 3 A Sociological Exploration of Childhood Sexuality
- 4 Not Innocent, but Vulnerable
- 5 The Dynamic Expression of Sexual-Minority and Gender-Minority Experience during Childhood and Adolescence
- 6 Sexual Embodiment in Girlhood and beyond
- Adolescence
- Part II How Do We Study Sexual Development?
- Part III Media, Family, Education
- Index
- References
Summary
Noting that much of the writing on sexuality since the 1970s has been done from a social constructionist approach, this chapter acknowledges the impact of social constructivism while pointing to the tools available for moving beyond it in our thinking about children's relationships to a twenty-first century sexual world. The author draws from the "figurational and relational" sociology of Norbert Elias to argue for an interdisciplinary approach to theorizing children's sexuality. The author argues for the usefulness of Elias's theories in understanding at the micro level the lived sexualities of children and young people, as well as at the macro level state legislation, policy, and dominant constructions about children and their relationship to sexuality.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sexual DevelopmentChildhood and Adolescence, pp. 35 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018
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