Information about Childhood

Childhood (being a child) is a broad term usually applied to the phase of development in humans between infancy and adulthood.

Definition

In recent years there has been a rapid growth of interest in the sociological study of childhood. Reaching on a large body of contemporary sociological and anthropological research, people have developed key links between the study of childhood and social theory, exploring its historical, political, and cultural dimensions.

History

Philippe Ariès, an important French medievalist and historian, published a study in 1961 of paintings, gravestones, furniture, and school records. He found that before the seventeenth century, children were represented as mini-adults. Since then historians have increasingly researched childhood in past times.

Before Ariès, George Boas had published The Cult of Childhood.

Several historical events and periods are discussed as relevant to the history of childhood in the West. One such event is the life of Jesus Christ^[1] Christ taught that children were to be loved and revered, a departure from the ancients' attitude to children which was to be propagated in the Roman Empire during the next 400 years with the introduction of Christianity.

During the Renaissance, artistic depictions of children increased dramatically in Europe. This did not impact the social attitude to children much, however -- see the article on child labour.

The Victorian Era has been described as a source of the modern institution of childhood. Ironically, the Industrial Revolution during this era led to an increase in child labour, but due to the campaigning of the Evangelicals, and efforts of author Charles Dickens and others, child labour was gradually reduced and halted in England via the Factory Acts of 1802-1878. The Victorians concomitantly emphasized the role of the family and the sanctity of the child, and broadly speaking, this attitude has remained dominant in Western societies since then.

Today

For the last 100-150 years, childhood in the Western world has been viewed positively, as one of the happiest phases during a person's existence.

Further reading

• Ariès, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962.
• Boas, George. The Cult of Childhood. London: Warburg, 1966.
• Brown, Marilyn R., ed. Picturing Children: Constructions of Childhood between Rousseau and Freud. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.
• Buckingham, David. After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media. Blackwell Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0745619339.
• Bunge, Marcia J., ed. The Child in Christian Thought. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001.
• Calvert, Karin. Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600-1900. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992.
• Cleverley, John and D.C. Phillips. Visions of Childhood: Influential Models from Locke to Spock. New York: Teachers College, 1986.
• Cunningham, Hugh. Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500. London: Longman, 1995.
• Cunnington, Phillis and Anne Buck. Children’s Costume in England: 1300 to 1900. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965.
• deMause, Lloyde, ed. The History of Childhood. London: Souvenir Press, 1976.
• Higonnet, Anne. Pictures of Innocence: The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood. London: Thomas and Hudson Ltd., 1998.
• Immel, Andrea and Michael Witmore, eds. Childhood and Children’s Books in Early Modern Europe, 1550-1800. New York: Routledge, 2006.
• Kincaid, James R. Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture. New York: Routledge, 1992.
• Müller, Anja, ed. Fashioning Childhood in the Eighteenth Century: Age and Identity. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.
• O’Malley, Andrew. The Making of the Modern Child: Children’s Literature and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century. London: Routledge, 2003.
• Pinchbeck, Ivy and Margaret Hewitt. Children in English Society. 2 vols. London: Routledge, 1969.
• Pollock, Linda A. Forgotten Children: Parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
• Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood. New York: Vintage, 1994.
• Shorter, Edward. The Making of the Modern Family.
• Sommerville, C. John. The Discovery of Childhood in Puritan England. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992.
• Steinberg, Shirley R. and Joe L. Kincheloe. Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood. Westview Press Inc., 2004. ISBN 081339157.
• Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.
• Zornado, Joseph L. Inventing the Child: Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood. New York: Garland, 2001.

See also

• List of child related articles

External links

• World Childhood Foundation

Footnotes

•  • [ e] Human development: biological - psychological
Stages	Infancy • Childhood • Adolescence • Adulthood - Early adulthood • Middle adulthood • Late adulthood
Development	Child development • Youth development • Ageing & Senescence
Theorists-theories	John Bowlby-attachment • Jean Piaget-cognitive • Lawrence Kohlberg-moral • Sigmund Freud-psychosexual • Erik Erikson-psychosocial