Beyond patronizing? The area of tension between educationalization and commercialization in the lifeworld of children.

The main objective of this research is: development of new knowledge about the changing child-being from the view of an interdisciplinary research, develop new methological knowledge regarding the research on children, and contribute to the social debat regarding child-being.

In this research the first focus lies on the construction, perception and interpretation of being a child. We consider it as a dynamic process where both adults as children have an active role. Today those processes are in the area of tension between educationalization and commercialization.

This area of tension leads to changing hierarchical relationships in the lifeworld of children and in their interaction with adults. This problem leads to two concrete research aims and questions.

First, people consider children as full social actors who aren't only formed by their environment, but also shape it themselves.

Secondly, a socalled deficitmodel about the threatend child makes room for a more constructive paradigma that strives to analyse, understand and explain the changes in the lifeworld of a child.