Street Children in Bangkok: A Critical Analysis of Socialization

Abstract

The main aim of this thesis is to critically address the dominant epistemological position adopted by the Thai state on the urban child, with the fieldwork done on street children in the city-center of Bangkok, Thailand, informing my arguments. Under critical gaze is what until recently, the unchallenged dominance of socialization (Durkheim, 1938, 1956; Parson, 1951; Mead, 1934, 1959) as the main interpretive device through which a sociological understanding of childhood was pursued. In the context of the thesis, this understanding has driven to date, the contemporary intellectual and institutional comprehensions of the street children phenomenon in the Thai society.