Using documents to examine the meanings of childhood: A figurational perspective

The advantages of using documents includes the possibility of tracing social processes over time, of understanding the flow of the present from the past and of avoiding the temptation of imagining the present as an entirely new era. Access to relevant documents written in particular historical periods can give the researcher a view from the perspective of particular witnesses of events, routines and practices. This chapter shows how the analysis of documents from a particular theoretical framework, Elias’s figurational sociology, leads to an understanding of social change in relation to the status of children and adults in Irish primary education. Advice is provided to the reader in relation to reflexivity so to avoid applying the moral judgements of today to the past, techniques of selection and accessing documents and to be aware of the purpose for which documents were originally written.