Expectations of Child Agency: Examples from Children’s Books on Grief and Bereavement

Presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Conference

Traditonal models of socialization have focused on children as passive recipients of cultural knowledge. More recently, sociologists have criticized this model of socialization, pointing out that children are full-fledged members of society who are capable of acting independently and shaping their own social worlds. This qualitative, content-analysis research examines the extent to which children are depicted in storybooks as either passive recipients of culture or active members of society. This study draws from a sample of 101 children’s books on the topic of death, grief, and bereavement. All of these books are intended for children between the ages of four and eight years old and most were written explicitly to help children as they cope with the death of a loved one. As a result, the books contain a mixture of both overt and implied suggested strategies to help children cope with grief. Interestingly, while some of the books convey the message that children need not worry because adult caretakers will always look after them, other books urge children to take control of their own lives, cautioning that adult caretakers might be too consumed with their own grief to look out for the children’s needs. This research takes a closer look at these recommendations, investigating the particular types of action that children are urged to take, the degree of child agency that is advocated, and the social context in which child-dependency versus child-agency are portrayed.