the history of childhood

5/20/2018 The History of Childhood

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History of Childhood


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Childhood: A Theoretical

PerspectiveDisciplines:

- developmental psychology

- pedagogy

- sociology

- cultural history

Scholars:

Philippe Aris, Lloyd de Mause, Neil Postman


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Philippe Aris: Childhood as a Cultural

Invention

Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (1960)

Major claim:childhood, as a concept, was discovered after themiddle ages.

Factors contributing to the emergence of childhood:

- decrease in infant mortality

- changes in the European educational system

- increasing class stratification

- rise of modern family


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Aris Controversial Claim

In medieval society the idea of childhood did not exist; this is

not to suggest that children were neglected, forsaken or

despised. The idea of childhood could not be confused with

affection for children: it corresponds to an awareness of the

particular nature of childhood, that particular nature which

distinguishes child from the adult, even the young adult. In

medieval society this awareness was lacking. That is why, as

soon as a child could live without the constant solicitude of his

mother, his nanny or his cradle-rocker, he belonged to adultsociety.

Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life(1960)


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The Issue of Age

Historically changing notion of age.

Absolute irrelevance of chronological

age prior to 18thcentury.

No precision in recording dates and

calculating ages.

Instead of chronology, it was ones

appearance, social and financial

status that determined the age.

Children as miniature adults.


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The Rise of Childhood

Decline of child mortality.

Increase in the affection and

attention paid to children.

Pictorial evidence: increase in

family portraits, in which

children figure prominently.

Portraits of dead children.


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Emergence of a culture of childhood

17thcentury brought about a newfound interest in childrens:

language, mispronunciations

fashion, styles of clothing games and holidays


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Disciplinary Schooling

cathedral school - medieval institution preparing for the career ofclerics.

no age gradation in schools.

From 17thcentury onward educators began to divide students intoindividual, age-based classes.

age separation as a means of surveillance and control.

increasing use of corporal punishment

view of children as subordinate beings in need of supervision anddiscipline.


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The Rise of the Nuclear Family

17thcentury:

Change in family's spatial arrangement

Extending zone of private life

Distinct partition between the inside of the household and the

outside of the greater social world

Waning in the practice of apprenticeship and increase in local

day-schools

Parental focus on the proper upbringing of children (upper- and

middle-class)

Emergence of child-centered society.


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Child and Philosophies of the

Enlightenment

John Locke (1632- 1704)

view of the child as a tabula rasa or 'blank slate'

parents were viewed as rational tutors who can mold the child

in any way they wish through careful instruction, effective

example, and rewards for good behavior.

rejection of physical punishment

'passive child


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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17121778)

Children as 'noble savages',

naturally endowed with a sense

of right and wrong and with an

innate plan for orderly, healthygrowth.

Emphasis on child-centered

philosophy in which adults shouldbe receptive to the childs needs.


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The Romantic Child, 1780-1830

The Romantic thinkers promoted and

idealized :

Children's innocence, immediacy, and

uncultivated vision.

Childhood as a state of paradise

Cult of child

Child as a symbol of autonomy,intimacy with nature, and capacity for

wonder and joy.


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The Victorian

Child,1837-1901

Growing importance of

children's rights and their

protection by state

The education reform

Golden Ageof childhood: anexplosion of books, magazines,

toys, and games aimed at

entertaining children.


14/19

Neil Postman: childhood as invention

and cultural construction

From a biological point of view it is inconceivable that anyculture will forget that it needs to reproduce itself. But it is quitepossible for a culture to exist without a social idea of children.Unlike infancy, childhood is a social artefact, not a biological

category. Our genes contain no clear instructions about who is andwho is not a child, and the laws of survival do not require that adistinction be made between the world of an adult and the world of achild. In fact, if we take the word children to mean a special class ofpeople somewhere between the ages of seven and, say, seventeen,requiring special forms of nurturing and protection, and believed

to be qualitatively different from adults, then there is ampleevidence that children have existed for less than four hundred years.

N. Postman,The Disappearance of Childhood


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N. Postman,The Disappearance of

Childhood(1982)

In 17thcentury the printing press created a sort of knowledge

barrier between those who could read (adults) and those who

couldn't (children).

Accumulation of rich content of secrets (about social and

sexual relations, about money, violence, illness, and death) to

be kept from the young, which maintained adult separateness

from (and control over) children.

The closure of gap between adults and children because of the

"total disclosure medium": television, mass media, internet.


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Lloyd deMause:

The Evolution of

Childrearing Modes

History of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only

recently began to awaken. The further back in history one

goes, the lower level of child care, and the more likely are

children to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and

sexually abused.

Lloyd Demause, Foundations of Psychohistory. Ch. 1, The

Evolution of Childhood.


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Six evolutionary stages of childrearing

modes

1.Infanticidal - small kinship groups, early state to antiquity:

Child sacrifice and infanticide among tribal societies,

Mesoamerica, the Incas; in Assyrian and Canaanite religions.Phoenicians, Carthaginians.

2. Abandoning- Christian era, early Middle Age:

Longer swaddling fosterage, outside wetnursing, oblation of

children to monasteries and nunneries, and apprenticeship.


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3. Ambivalent- beginning with the 12th century:

Early beating, shorter swaddling, mourning for deceased children, a

precursor to empathy.

4.Intrusive - beginning with the late 16th century:

Early toilet training, repression of child's sexuality, end of swaddling

and wet-nursing, empathy now possible, rise of pediatrics.


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5. Socializing- beginning late 18th century:

Use of "mental discipline"; teaching children to conform to the

parents goals, socializing them. Rise of compulsory schooling.

6. Helping - beginning mid-20th century:

The helping parent tries to assist the child in reaching its own

goals rather than socializing him or her into adult goals.

Children's rights movement, deschooling.

the history of childhood

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