This thesis explores the prominence of romance and romantic love in the relationship cultures of a cohort of children aged between 10 and 12. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork that took place at three primary schools and one high school over the period of a year, it examines the various ways that the children invested in and understand romance and romantic love during the significant rite-of-passage of the transfer between primary and secondary educational phases. Using qualitative and ethnographic methods - including participant observation, group interviews, story and diary writing - rich forms of spoken, written and pictorial data were gathered. These are discussed and analysed with reference to sociological theories of sexuality, friendship and social solidarity. Although the research was situated in schools, it is important to highlight that this was a cultural, rather than an educational study. It shows that romance was a key part of the children's negotiations of their own and others identities and relationships, and that this was shaped in powerful ways by discourses of gender, sexuality and social class. Key points of discussion include: the development of the concept of Tietero-sociality' as a way of discussing how heterosexual practices shape children's everyday lives the differences between girls' and boys' articulations of and investments in romance how romance shapes friendship practices, particularly *best' friendships how understandings of and investments in romantic love are classed and gendered the importance of gendered sexuality during the transfer between primary and secondary schooling and in children's conceptions of the life-course and, the use of the adult researcher's 'ethnographic self as a tool for investigating the personal relationships, friendship cultures and solidarities of children and young people.

Drawing on research findings from an ethnography conducted with young children (exploring notions of difference, identity and patterns of interaction, this study uncovers how four and five year-olds conceptualise and operationalise identity in a multi-ethnic Early Years classroom in the North of England. Situated in a particular local context, the study provides an indepth insight into the experiences of a diverse group of children from North and Sub-Saharan African countries who have come together in a single school setting. I show how these children are influenced by social structures such as those pertaining to racism, gender inequality, Islamaphobia, ‘the war on terror’ and events in the Arab Spring. This original focus fills a gap in the literature which has predominantly focused on children from South Asian families currently living in the UK. Revealing how identities unfold over time, the research shows that children’s everyday social interactions are enabled and constrained by these wider structural discourses as they (re)negotiate their identities against this complex backdrop. Dynamic local and global politics, the arrival of new classmates, changes in family structures and Koranic school attendance all influence children’s everyday sense of self and are reflected in the development of peer relationships at school. Over the course of the 2010-11 academic year, I spent a day a week with Sunnyside’s reception class. Adhering to participatory principles that are intrinsic to both ethnography and childhood studies (Cheney 2011), children were involved in developing the focus of the study, the design of research tools, and later on in data collection and analysis. Research methods focused on children in order to gain their perspectives on their social world(s). However, informal conversations with practitioners and family members were also used in order to clarify particular themes arising in the study. Observations, conversations with children and research activities allowed 'snap-shots' to be taken, capturing particular moments or experiences that were then collaboratively analysed with children. When constructing the written ethnography these 'snap-shots' were drawn together into a 'photo gallery', allowing individuals’ narratives to be told and a deep understanding of their experiences to be illuminated. Throughout, ethnography’s distinct focus on culture, process of seeking to uncover emic perspectives, and narrative output (Wolcott 1999) were employed. Developing a theoretical framework that understands identity as performative, situated and dialectical, this thesis discusses the dual roles of structural discourses and social agency within the context of identity (re)negotiation. Framing identity within a ‘strong structuration’ framework that seeks to understand ontology-in-situ, this thesis uncovers how young children understand notions of self and others. It explores how wider social discourses of discrimination and hierarchies of difference play a part in how young children understand ethnic, religious and gender difference. The way in which children conceptualise and operationalise difference relates to the duality of structure, the intersectionality between different aspects of identity and the links that children make between macro and micro social contexts. The thesis unearths how young children explore their own and their peers’ identities amongst themselves before raising questions for how policy and practice can best support children in this aspect of their social development.

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In this study, I explore different aspects of childhood within a particular cultural and social space. I bring the sociology of childhood into dialogue with media studies to explore childhood in the lives of children themselves. In doing so I highlight the parallels that can be drawn between each discipline's approach to children and audiences, respectively. I use the similarities between the two disciplines and methodologies that are compatible with both in order to explore how children interpret constructions of childhood and depictions of children in Turkish media content in North Cyprus. To this end, I conducted 10 focus groups involving 40 children between the ages of seven and twelve. In these focus groups I asked children to interpret television advertisements that depict children and, using the discussions around these interpretations as a springboard, I encouraged them to talk about their experiences within their socio-cultural environment. I used discourse analysis to analyse the advertisements used in the focus groups and to incorporate the children's interpretations into my analysis as well as analysing the focus group transcripts using the cultural, social and economic backgrounds of the children as the context for my analysis. In addition, this study examines the fluid and ambivalent power dynamics between parents and children, both in terms of the actual exercise of power and in terms of constructions of meaning with regard to childhood. I argue for the importance of involving children's views and perspectives in research on childhood and demonstrate how doing research with children can work towards helping them to be heard. I also consider this approach to childhood as a step towards having children's social agency recognized in different institutions within society.

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This thesis uses data from the Growing Up in Ireland study to explore the association between family structure and children's outcomes at nine-years old (N=8, 154). The study adopts the following six-fold family structure classificatory measure: (a) intact, married; (b) intact, cohabiting; (c) stable, never married single-mother; (d) unstable, never married single-mother; (e) divorced or separated single-mother and (f) stepfather families. It focuses on children's educational outcomes (reading and math test scores) and children's. socio-emotional outcomes (internalising behavioural problems, externalising behavioural problems and adjustment difficulties), which were captured by the widely used and well validated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Statistical analyses included a series of multilevel models (multilevel regression and multilevel logistic regression) that used fully imputed weighted data. This led to improved generalisability of the findings, reduced biased estimates and prevented any loss of power. The results of this study revealed that the majority of children had good educational and socio-emotional outcomes irrespective of their family structure. Nevertheless, statistically significant differences between children living in intact, married families and children living in "non-traditional" families were found, with the former group of children consistently outperforming their counterparts across all five outcomes. Various antecedents of, and' burdens associated with, "non-traditional" families were hypothesised to account for these observed differences. Among them were early child bearing, low levels of maternal education, low income, maternal depression, parent-child conflict and less effective parenting. Once these, and characteristics of the child (including gender, birth order, learning difficulty, difficult temperament) were accounted for, family structure differences were no longer observed for any of the educational outcomes and children's internalising behavioural problems. For children's externalising behavioural problems and adjustment difficulties, family structure effects did continue to persist. However, effect sizes were small to modest in magnitude. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

This thesis identifies and challenges two distinct modes of describing contemporary childhood and traces these two modes to their roots in the philosophies of mind that engendered the Enlightemnent. It is argued that these two modes, labelled for ease of reference Romantic and Utilitarian as culturally constructed during the Enlightenment are no longer capable of containing the meaning of childhood within a rapidly changing technological environment. Furthermore, it is argued that the adherents to these two modes perpetuate a continuous debate between these ideas of childhood that is inconclusive and as such does a disservice to children. By adopting a multi-disciplinary approach this thesis contributes to the body of work already existing on childhood development by contextulising the research within cultural studies. This approach enables childhood to be seen as a cultural construct within human social development rather than as a 'unique' time that is preserved by adults for each subsequent generation of children. Returning childhood to the 'mainstream' of society not only enables a negotiated settlement between the two modes of childhood to be proposed but also suggests a unique way or remodelling childhood that engages with the social, cultural, scientific and teclmological developments that are and will be faced by contemporary and future generations.

It has been well documented that young people’s social class, gender and ethnicity have significant bearing upon their participation in post-16 and higher education. Less research has considered how decisions regarding participation in post-16 education and HE are framed by the places and timeframe in which young people live. This comparative and qualitative study of young people aged 16-18 in the Rhondda Valleys and Newport considers how place and the contemporary economic context bears upon their aspirations and educational choices. The research shows that the contemporary economic climate and popular commentaries of ‘recession’ ‘cuts’ and ‘crisis’ persuade young people to remain in post-16 education and HE as a means of avoiding entry into this risky landscape and investing in human capital. The study revealed that place did appear to bear upon their decisions – albeit in subtle ways. Firstly, local opportunity structures informed the type of transitions young people made from compulsory to post-compulsory education. Drawing on Gambetta’s typology, where opportunities are limited but available, young people jumped into post-16 education but where opportunities are severely restricted, they were pushed into post-16 education. Local opportunity structures also informed young people’s plans to leave or stay within their locality, compelling them to leave places where opportunities are scarce. Place also matters to young people’s university choices and future aspirations through their emotional attachments to immediate and national localities. The research offers new insights into the importance of place in informing the processes by which educational decisions are made. It raises important questions regarding the extent to which differences in young people’s decision making processes have implications for their future experiences of education and life chances. It also has political implications regarding the geographical location of higher education opportunities and the role of universities in outward migration.

This thesis explores the social, political, and theoretical consequences that emerge when the contested category of “childhood” gets unequally applied to individuals and populations. The interdisciplinary theoretical project conceives of childhood as a technology of power that produces the contentious contours of various bodies and experiences, individuals and populations, and ways of life and forms of relation. It argues that childhood’s fantasmatic, figurative, and “real” subjects extend far beyond, and sometimes explicitly exclude, the early years of life. In conversation with childhood studies, feminist, trans, queer, critical-race, and psychoanalytic theory, this research is primarily concerned with the ways in which childhood is negotiated and re-imagined through discursive, institutional, and representational practices in the contemporary U.S. The analysis explores the psychic and political ambivalences of childhood, and attends to the investments in childhood’s uneven distribution. Asking specifically after the role of childhood in shaping and challenging the disposability of young black life, the queer life of children’s desires, and the steadfastness of the gender binary, this thesis outlines a theoretical framework of analysis that interdisciplinary scholars working in feminist, trans, queer, and anti-racist theory can use when addressing children and childhood, and it substantiates this framework through three case studies.