From the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. Notes below are mostly direct quotations or close paraphrases.
Introduction
- 'Childhood is where you can catch a culture in high relief' - Joseph M Hawes
- Childhood is a social construction, shaped by local conditions, beliefs, and needs, as well as time.
- Young humans have always enjoyed a period of 'childhood', although the nature and length of that phase of life has varied widely. All societies rely on children to carry on their traditions and values. Children are intimately involved at virtually every stage of a society's economic, social and even political development.
- Another constant is that children play.
Traditions
- Christianity helped bring children to the centre of Western thought, including attitudes about family and children and creating moral lessons to be passed down.
- Early child welfare institutions and practices began to appear in England in the 14th and 15th century, through churches, central government, cities and private organisations.
Revolutions
- In the 15th and 16th century, the Renaissance changed the nature of schooling from simply re-creating cultures, preparing youth for work and training priests to encouraging more inquisitive, challenging and comparative points of view. Formal education expanded, literacy grew, and a new sense of the individual's place in society and possibilities of the future began to shape childhood.
- Children were a vital element of the Protestant Reformation (spreading from the 1520s). The family was the centre of the godly life for Protestants and Martin Luther called the school 'the daughter of the church' and advocated broad education.
- The Enlightenment further expanded the kind of knowledge deemed necessary for children to learn and encouraged the spread of education. Locke (late 17th century) thought children were blank slates and this notion of children's innocence was influential.
- The role of economics in children's lives also changed with the industrial revolution. Children had historically been regarded as crucial economic resources for their families and their labour was also crucial to industrialisation.
The rise of 'modern' childhoods
- Children and slavery
- Colonialism and imperialism
- Rousseau, building on Locke, associated children with nature and advocated education based on children's natural interests and curiosity
- By the late 19th century, governments were developing child welfare programs aimed at providing at least a semblance of a model of childhood.
- The rise of industry necessitated the creation of more centralised, modern states, many of which assumed responsibility for education.
Creating a worldview of childhood
- Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1924): 'The child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both materially and spiritually.' This first clause reflected a shift from a defensive, primarily economic reaction to child dependence and poverty to a more proactive approach centred on education.
- Education expanded dramatically during the 20th century.
- Urbanisation and industrialisation reduced the economic value of children. Conceptions of children and childhood were also shifting. This caused societies to consider children's rights as a separate prerogative. The legal concept of 'the best interest of the child' gradually developed, meaning that courts would consider the emotional and economic wellbeing of the child rather than their economic value in deciding child custody cases.
- The international response to children affected by the world wars led to the rise of organisations that foreshadowed contemporary NGOs.
The century of the child and beyond
- War and conflict
- Advocating for children (Cf African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child stressing responsibility and Vietnamese National LAw for Children stressing respect, piety and love with family, community and friends)
- WHO estimates vast majority of people with health problems caused by climate change are under the age of five
