TOWARDS AN IMMATURE SOCIOLOGY

Sociological theory displays a tendency to depict the social world in terms of completed 'beings'. The social, thus depicted, is a world of powers to 'finish' (such as the power granted to convention to provide for social order), and finished products (such as agents and ethical points-of-view). As sociologists of childhood have attempted to bring children into sociological focus in their own right, the disciplinary concern with the 'complete' has required that children be attributed t he properties assumed more normally to belong to adults. The sociology of childhood has thus preserved the privilege of the complete and the mature over the incomplete and the immature. In this paper the key so ciological issues of convention, agency and ethics are given a theoret ical interpretation that makes them fit for understanding childhood. T he ability of convention to complete social order is questioned. Agenc y is portrayed as the emergent property of networks of dependency rath er than the possession of individuals. An alternative to the ethics of 'positions' is offered in the form of an ethics of 'motion'. Where ex tant sociologies of childhood have brought children into the 'finished ' world of sociological theory, this paper uses childhood's ontologica l ambiguity to open the door onto an unfinished social world.