Abstract

MARCHI, Rita de Cássia. Gender, childhood and relations of power: epistemological questions. Cad. Pagu [online]. 2011, n.37, pp. 387-406. ISSN 0104-8333.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0104-83332011000200016.

This article relates the peripheral positions of woman and child in the scientific field and the current epistemological difficulties towards the emancipation of childhood as a conceptually autonomous sociological category. These difficulties are similar to the resistance encountered some years ago by "feminist studies" to establish gender as a new category of analysis. Childhood is a phenomenon permeated, in the social field, by asymmetric relations of power and action between generations and, in the scientific field, by the adult-focused and predominantly masculine (androcentric) perspective of knowledge.

Keywords : Childhood Social Studies; Gender Studies; Epistemology.