SOCIAL CONTEXT ACCOUNT

Children in their Social Context

[Name or Institute]

Children in their Social Context

Introduction

Social Context Account

This essay is will analyze my experiences in the social context, in which I grew up. It will explore attitudes to childhood, as well as issues of class, gender, and race; in relation to the experiences of childhood at the time and place in which I grew up. Exploration rights in the social context in which I grew up have been discussed on this essay. The theories of sociology would be incorporated to link the ideas.

I was born in late seventies, in Port Harcourt, the South East of Nigeria. I belong from Akuku-Toru, a local government area of Rivers-State.

'A child is a minor, immature and vulnerable person with reduced responsibility. The immaturity of children is a biological part of life, but the ways it is made meaningful understood is a fact of culture' (James and Prout, 1997).

I lost my dad at the age of eight. A father is a very important and integral character who moulds a life of a child, since the child is always afraid to be scolded by father than mother, the respect given to father, the thinking process before uttering words in front of father modules the character of a child. After my father's death, my mother lost her job, and we were to live the lives in poverty. Poverty, defined as, lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participation in activities, and have the living conditions which are customary, or at least widely encouraged and approved in the society in which they belong (Townsend, 1979, p.31).

During our days of poverty, acquiring three meals a day was luxury, we could not even afford the health care, even when I fell ill, my mother opted for the black market vendors, who sell cheaper remedies, which often sell counterfeit or expired drugs, like herbal medicine (Urray, accessed 2012) for malaria treatment called “dogoyaro”, instead of orthodox medicine. According to Wyness (2006), children are likely to suffer financially, with single mothers having insufficient funds. Unlike in the United Kingdom, the State support children and their families who are living along the poverty line, they provide a lot of support for family members, so they empowered to go on with their role as a parent (Harding, 1996).

It is important for the children to have the basic education, which is mandatory up to a certain age, which includes the forming of foundation of reading and writing (Harding, 1996 p.106). While, I was to be sent home from school, due to the non clearance of my school dues. According to Macionis and Plummer (2005), Children take the social class of their parents and often share similar life chances. The social class from which my mother belonged, attaining education was next to impossible, since meeting the end meet was even difficult for her. To make me educated and attain a better future, she sold her things to ensure I went to school. These inconsistencies made me underachiever, ...