Childhood as a social construct Flashcards
Rogers (2003)
He investigated how childhood was determined and for what purpose.
He argued that the understanding of childhood could not only come from the comparison of adults and it shouldn’t be based solely on biology.
Mouritsen (2002)
She believed that childhood was defined by memories as well as knowledge, attitudes and understandings of the time.
She argues this because she believes that everyone is fully aware of what their childhood was.
She doesn’t think that childhood is a social construct.
Woodhead (2013)
She argued that the way we define adulthood is flawed.
Children are imperfect and yet to be perceived as an adult and a person in their own right they have to be seen as mature, independent and stable.
She pointed out that many people, who are believed to be adults do not align with these traits and therefore, this understanding shows that complexity of the transition from childhood to adulthood and how there is no clear cutoff.
It is also noted that between different cultures children have dramatically different roles.
Benedict (1934)
He studied rural and traditional societies and saw that children were deemed as cheap labour and would be made to work as soon as they were seen to be physically capable.
Aries (1962)
Aries highlighted the current western idea of what it means to be a child is only 300 years old.
It was introduced with industrialisation and the middle class, when they began to nurture and give their children specialised care.
It has only recently become part of the working class.
Before the western idea of childhood Aries found that as shown in medieval paintings, children were just seen as the physically smaller version of adults.
