Constructing Childhood in Social Interaction: How Parents Assert Epistemic Primacy over Their Children

Abstract

While people are generally considered as having primary rights to know and describe themselves, in parent–child interaction, young children are not always treated as having primary access to and sole authority over matters within their own domain. Drawing on naturally occurring parent–child interactional data, this conversation analytic study shows how parents claim epistemic primacy over young children with respect to matters that, based on norms of adult interaction, should be unequivocally presupposed within children's primary epistemic domain. Two forms of evidence are provided: (1) parents confirm or disconfirm children's asserted claims about their own sensations, thoughts, or experiences; and (2) parents use test questions to request information within children's domain and then evaluate their answers as correct or incorrect. These practices indicate an orientation to young children's reduced rights to claim epistemic autonomy. I argue that this is one way through which childhood is constructed in social interaction.