Macro-sociological studies of childhood: a prologue to a guest issue

Thirty years ago, Richard H. de Lone wrote a remarkable book that appears to have sunk into oblivion. The context and aim of this volume is a good opportunity for reviving the book because it represents an excellent application of a macro-sociological perspective. Its main thesis is that it is children, who are the bearers of the American dream, and that it is they who shall rescue the nation from inequalities. Over and over again throughout US history, the recipe has been investments in education in the hope that these measures eventually will solve inherent tensions between economic rationality (market capitalism producing inequalities) and political aims (favouring equality). In other words, de Lone argues, rather than approaching structural problems with positive bearings on childhood here and now, children are expected to have their individual lot improved in the hope that equality appears in the next generation. In this sense, children are instrumentalised for solving deep-seated tensions in society. This is the wrong order, as de Lone suggests it in the book's concluding chapter: Instead of trying to reduce inequality by helping children, we may be able to help children by reducing inequality (de Lone, 1979, p. 178).