The social construction of everyday concepts. Constructing the ”tween”

Abstract

This paper discusses the social construction of the concept tween and whether this concept can be useful when engaging in research with children in the ages of 8–12. The paper will start by describing social construction, from there, the paper will move on to everyday concepts, before discussing the concept tweens as a theoretical and empirical concept. A question to be asked is: is the tween an everyday concept? Who or what constructs tweens? As the concept derived from marketing efforts (Cook and Kaiser 2004; Sørenssen 2014) another question becomes: should we use it as academics and general public? And if we do use the concept, what do we gain or possibly lose when using the term? What are the possible limits or benefits tied to engaging with this concept?