Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×

Online ordering will be unavailable from 17:00 GMT on Friday, April 25 until 17:00 GMT on Sunday, April 27 due to maintenance. We apologise for the inconvenience.

  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS: RISK ANXIETY AND THE EVERYDAY WORLDS OF CHILDREN

  • SUE SCOTT, STEVI JACKSON, KATHRYN BACKETT-MILBURN
  • Journal:
    Sociology / Volume 32 / Issue 4 / November 1998
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    01 November 1998, pp. 689-705
    Print publication:
    November 1998

  • 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.