In Michael Stewart’s novel Bye Bye Birdie, children and their attitudes play a significant role from disobedience and protective parents, to teenage love and jealousy. Some parents in the little town of Sweet Apple, Ohio attributed children’s attitudes to “Elvis-stereotyped” Conrad Birdie; however, others believed it was their age. Psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg, described many moral stages each and every person goes through during his or her life. I know two children who illustrate Kohlberg 's stages of Moral Development very well. Karim is an eight year old boy to whom I taught swim lessons, and he is currently in the preconventional stage. Sam is my 12 year old brother and living in the conventional stage of Kohlberg’s Moral Stages. As one of the most difficult children I have ever taught lessons to, Karim struggled with following directions, respecting his teachers, and working hard. He was given to me to work with for two reasons, so I could fix his stroke and because he refused to obey authority. While his previous instructor is my friend, he lacked the gumption to punish his students when they were disobedient, like Karim. Despite sitting around the pool 30 minutes before his lesson, Karim was always late. Once in the water every excuse in the book came out: goggles filled up with water, legs and arms were tired, he needed to go the restroom, he did not understand what I was saying, or he just had no desire to perform to the best of his abilities. Many frustrations
"There Are No Children Here" by Alex Kotlowitz stands as a gut-wrenching and thought provoking piece of non-fiction that meticulously dives into the lives of two young brothers, Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers. The narrative unfolds within the Henry Horner Homes, a public housing project situated on the west side of Chicago during the late 1980s. Kotlowitz skillfully explores the intricate web of poverty, violence, education, and systemic failures that define the experiences of residents in the inner-city neighborhood. The narrative intimately tracks Lafayette and Pharoah as they navigate their challenging environment, offering readers a deep glimpse into the broader societal issues afflicting urban America. The book unfolds in three distinct
There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, tells a story about the family of LaJoe and Paul Rivers. The book focuses on Lafayette and Pharaoh, two of the younger children in the family, and their interactions with each other, the neighborhood, their family, their friends, and the police. Following the family over three years shows the importance of neighborhood factors when it comes to crime. According to Sampson and Groves (1989), social disorganization refers to “the inability of a community structure to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls”. Many aspects in the book exemplify how neighborhood factors, social controls, and community factors have impacts on crime. The book exemplifies how neighborhood disadvantage can lead to informal social controls, which in turn produces crime. Due to these factors, social disorganization is the best theory to explain the crime that occurs in There are No Children Here.
There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz tells the harrowing story of the Rivers family and their shocking experiences living in an underserved Chicago public housing project. The story focuses on Lafayette, a middle school aged boy discovering his identity, Pharoah, an elementary school aged boy with high ambition and goals, and their resilient mother LaJoe. Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization discuss how people can create rationalizations to justify delinquencies and crimes. Specifically applicable to There Are No Children Here is the theory of Denial of Responsibility which occurs when the perpetrator of an offense claims the situation was out of their control, they did not know the law, they were a victim of circumstance, or they were acted upon by outside forces rather than acting themselves. The second theory applicable to There Are No Children Here is Becker’s theory of Master Status. The theory of Master Status states that labels can take on a “master status” and can have an enormous influence and once you’ve been labeled, then define you. These theories aid in understanding how the pattern of violence and destruction is perpetuated in the projects of Chicago and the misfortune in the Rivers family.
In There Are No Children Here, Kotlowitz describes the experiences of Pharoah and Lafayette to highlight the racist and classist undertones existing within the criminal justice system of Chicago in the late 1980s. This essay will utilize the theory of critical criminology to illustrate the structures of inequality within the criminal justice system and the subsequent marginalization of youth that exists within the Henry Horner community, leading to youth deviance and violent crime. Beginning with a brief outline of the major characteristics of critical theory, the essay will then address the increasing focus on gang involvement as an explanation for inner-city youth crime, using examples from the Disciples and Vice Lord gangs, and how that focus demonstrates the bias and inequality within the criminal justice system. Next, the necessity of the Henry Horner community creating a system of “self-help” will be analyzed, a result of the perceived inadequacy of the criminal justice system in addressing the problems that the community faces. The theory of critical criminology demonstrates how structures of inequality are represented in the criminal justice system: the incessant focus on gangs and inadequacy of the system to provide protection causes the marginalization of youth like Pharoah and Lafayette, reinforcing instances of youth deviance and crime.
A Child Called “It” is a powerful book written by Dave Pelzer about his childhood and the hardships he encountered with his family, peers, and community. Middle childhood can be a life altering point in a young child’s life, which many theorist have studied over the years. This paper will review a few of those theorist thoughts, and how their theories apply to young David’s childhood. The theorist work that will be covered will be Bronfenbrenner and his ecological systems model, Piaget’s theory of development, and lastly Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning. It is important to understand what was going through David’s mind as he dealt with this trauma and how he was able to survive it.
Alex Kotlowitz’s book, There are No Children Here, is a story about two boys, Pharoah and Lafeyette Rivers growing in the late 1980’s in Henry Horner, a housing project in Chicago. The boys try to retain their youth while they see constant gang violence, death of close friends, their brother in jail and their dad struggling with a drug addiction.
Children ask countless questions as they mature. Children often turn to their parents for guidance. If a parent is unable or unwilling to answer these questions, a child, left to their own devices, will look for answers from their friends, the internet, and other authority figures. In his article “I Listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe,” Robert Cole explains that children have an inborn desire to build their own morals by questioning authority figures around them, especially their parents. Therefore, A parent’s guidance influences a child’s morals as he/she develops.
In Michael Stewart’s novel Bye Bye Birdie, children and their attitudes play a significant role from disobedience and protective parents, to teenage love and jealousy. Some parents in the little town of Sweet Apple, Ohio attributed children’s attitudes to “Elvis-stereotyped” Conrad Birdie; however, others believed it was their age. Psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg, described many moral stages each and every person goes through during his or her life. Two kids I know illustrate Kohlberg's stages of Moral Development very well.
Innocence is a trait guaranteed upon birth; however, the preservation of that innocence is not. From the moment that an individual is born, the environment surrounding them silently extinguishes small pieces of their intrinsic innocence. This happens predominantly in miniscule increments, in which seemingly insignificant pieces of one's innocence are gradually taken away; but, just as taking one dollar from a jar containing 365 dollars every day for a year would result in an empty jar, even the smallest abduction of innocence each day of one's life would eventually result in a barren state of innocence. This state of purity is illustrated in To Kill a Mockingbird, in which the reader follows several different characters, each with a varying balance between innocence and experience. Throughout the piece, multiple dynamic characters have a considerable shift in this balance.
According to Piaget, the development of a child's moral judgment is a shift from a heteronomous to an autonomous mode of thinking. Heteronomy is characterized by egocentrism, unilateral respect (where the child respects the parents' authority but is not respected in return), rigidity of rules (as given by adults and therefore not changed), and objective responsibility (action judged according to consequences (Ruffy, 1981, p. 61). A child is morally autonomous when s/he can establish relationships with others based on mutual respect. Moral autonomy also means the child places more importance on the intention leading to an action than on its consequences (Ruffy, p. 61). In other words, the child does the right thing because s/he understands what is right and makes a conscious decision based on that knowledge, rather than refraining from doing the wrong thing simply to avoid "getting into trouble." Arnie Grape, the younger brother in the film What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, has not attained an age-appropriate level of moral development because he is at the low end of the autism spectrum. He is incapable of understanding others or considering the consequences of his actions.
The second level of Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral development is the Conventional Level. The Conventional level consists of stages 3 and 4. Stage 3 is based on interpersonal expectations. Those who are at this stage try to be a “good” boy or a “good” girl and live up to others’--such as close friends and family’s-- expectations. Stage 4 is based on Law-and-Order. They are not only focused on what their family and friends say; they are now focused on society. These stages are usually reached by early teens. They don’t blindly follow rules;
The definition of art is “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.”(Oxford Dictionaries). Art comes in many forms and not all art is a painting or a drawing. Throughout the book, characters use art skillfully, art is for survival and is a tool to withstand or to escape the corrupt government. Additionally, art is a powerful force that communicates messages through a picture. Furthermore, what allows art to have a powerful impact is that art is expressive. Their messages and stories are very powerful from the artist. In New Middletown, art is what helps Max withstand. In Catherine Austen’s All Good Children, art is a positive force in the novel.
What is a child? according to United Nations Humans Right, “a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child.” As a child your childhood should be the most innocent phase in your life. In this phase one has no care in the world, but to sit home watching their favorite cartoon, while mommy and daddy take care of them physically, financially, and emotionally. What about to the children who don’t come from healthy household and have to support themselves? These type of children don’t get to experience a normal childhood like any other child and are forced into adulthood making adult decisions. In S.E Hinton’s novel “The Outsiders”, The narrator is a fourteen old boy name Pony boy who writes a paper about his summer with his friends about his neighborhood war between greasers and socs. Pony boy is raised around a gang called Greasers, which consist of lower class, troubled home teens. Their rival gang are called Socs, which consist of middle and upper-class teens. In Lois Tyson, “Critical Theory-Psychoanalytic Criticism”, she defines psychoanalytic concepts established by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), for people to use literary criticism to “show how this view of human behavior is relevant to our experience of literature.” (pg12). Hinton characters Ponyboy, Johnny, Dallas, and Sodapop are all children who are victims of transition into adulthood due to neglect, poverty, and violence with lack of emotional readiness. The
For this next analysis, I will utilizing models of moral development to examine how Caleb has developed. I will primarily be working with Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1981) Stages of Moral Development. Kohlberg’s work built of off Piaget’s (1977) research and was one of the earliest theorists to examine the moral development of adolescents and college students.
The 3 children that I observed also have different social development. Alexander, who is 7 years old is in the level 2 conventional morality. When I read to him the story and the dilemma that Kenny had his answer to my questions were based on how it was right to return the wallet and it was wrong to keep it. For him it was right to return the wallet because it was the right thing to do. Which, reflects the conventional morality of acting as a good member of society. Enrique’s social development is also in the level 2 conventional morality because he focused on how he is a good person if he returned the wallet. He mentioned that it’s not good to keep things that aren’t yours. Which, reflects on the interest in pleasing others by acting as good members of society. Finally, Alexis is in the level 3 postconventional morality because for him it’s okay to keep the wallet if the owner were rich