Introduction
Over the years, childhood has changed in many ways. With the invention of the printing press and the spread of a print culture, this culture became the causal agent of the rise of childhood. When the print culture was replaced with an electronic medium, it became the primary agent in the decline of childhood (Postman, 1994).
Views
In my opinion, childhood has drastically changed from what I remember growing up to what it is today. The word childhood, to me, means innocence, having an imagination, being creative, and having freedom. Over 20 years ago, children were safer, there was more of a sense of community, technology barely existed, and children had better manners. Children played outside more due to the freedom of those
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In the past, there were certain things that children did not see or hear, and now, these same “secrets” are shown in children’s movies, and considered “adult humor” (Postman, 1994).
Television is something that is easily accessible for any child. I can agree with Postman when he stated that the transformation of childhood was when literacy disappeared, education disappeared, shame disappeared and essentially childhood disappeared. Though, he predicted all of this in the 90’s, I see it happening every day. The culture of our current generation of children has completely changed from when I was a child and the young are more tech-savvy than generations before (Postman, 1994).
Now, children are not learning how I learned, but instead, teachers are teaching to a test. Childhood is being removed in the educational setting because of these tests and expectations. Children have less recess and imaginative play, sit for longer periods of time, have bigger classes, and schools are more technology based. Children are being transformed into miniature adults as they were in the past, and the “cradle period” is no longer valued as it was (Postman, 1994).
Diagnostic
For the idea of childhood to come into being, there was a change in the adult world; specifically adulthood must be defined differently, adults must become the ‘care takers’ of children. This change happened during the middle of the fifteenth century, propelled by the invention of the printing press, which in turn developed a new symbolic world. The new adulthood excluded children; therefore it became necessary to create a new childhood (Postman 1994:21). Childhood is acknowledged to exist, as a feature of the natural order. The child became a special creature with a different nature and different needs, who require protection from the adult world (Postman 1994:37).
republished in 1994) was the examination of the loss of the idea of childhood following the
‘Some idea of a child or childhood motivates writers and determines both the form and content of what they write.’ -- Hunt The above statement is incomplete, as Hunt not only states that the writer has an idea of a child but in the concluding part, he states that the reader also has their own assumptions and perceptions of a child and childhood. Therefore, in order to consider Hunt’s statement, this essay will look at the different ideologies surrounding the concept of a child and childhood, the form and content in which writers inform the reader about their ideas of childhood concluding with what the selected set books state about childhood in particular gender. The set books used are Voices In The Park by Browne, Mortal Engines by Reeve and Little Women by Alcott to illustrate different formats, authorial craft and concepts about childhood. For clarity, the page numbers used in Voices In The Park are ordinal (1-30) starting at Voice 1.
Views on childhood have and still continue to change (Waller, 2009). The contemporary view that children are empty vessels (Skinner, 1974) is being disregarded as children are no longer perceived as passive recipients in an adult world (O’Kane, 2008...
Childhood is the period of being a child which is from birth up until when the child reaches puberty (adolescence). A myriad people perceive childhood as being fun and joyful but many would disagree and would now begin to consider it as being problematic. This essay will be impartial and promiscuous by discussing supporting arguments that childhood is and is not considered as being in crisis. Part of this essay will be looking at different authors or journalists who believe childhood is in crisis due to many factors such as; children not spending time outdoors, them being allowed to used electronics too much etc. While other authors and journalists will be looking at the opposite side as to children only being innocent or that parents are to blame and the media due to confusion over whether childhood is in crisis.
Children were strong and ambitious. They were the money makers of the family. This paper will argue how the mindset of a child has advanced in Canada, through the 1800s to the present era, in representing a different perspective of how a child evaluates the perception of how they approach life. Canada holds many histories of the past. The differences with children from to the past to the present are that children worked and produced a lot of labor, to keep the families from starving through the 1800s, present children rarely need to work. The educational system of the past has differed a great deal from the system they have created thought out the times that have developed. Children would use their imagination to create games and play, until the generation of television came into effect. Times have changed and children are one of the many. The social construction of childhood from the 1800s is a whole lot different from the construction of childhood from the 1970s. The agenda of children have changed and adults are not concerned with children working because the standard of living in families has developed a whole new concept, for how families should live life.
Childhood can be seen as a social status with multiple meanings and expectations attached to it without a clearly defined end or beginning (Montgomery 2009), This essay will introduce different sociological perspectives on what childhood is since childhood is not universal rather is it mobile and shifting this means children experience various childhoods there are local and global variations(Waller 2009), a Childs experience can be influenced by their gender, ethnicity, culture and social class which this essay will expand on. The essay will then move forward to focusing on childhood in local and global countries to investigate the differences they have among each other lastly the essay will go onto ways an professional can help acknowledge all children diversity and create an inclusive environment regardless of their differences (Penn 2008).inclusion provides support to all children so that their experiences in an educational; setting encourages them to be as involved and independent as possible as well as help them understand the differences among their class mates
While all societies acknowledge that children are different from adults, how they are different, changes, both generationally and across cultures. “The essence of childhood studies is that childhood is a social and cultural phenomenon” (James, 1998). Evident that there are in fact multiple childhoods, a unifying theme of childhood studies is that childhood is a social construction and aims to explore the major implications on future outcomes and adulthood. Recognizing childhood as a social construction guides exploration through themes to a better understanding of multiple childhoods, particularly differences influencing individual perception and experience of childhood. Childhood is socially constructed according to parenting style by parents’ ability to create a secure parent-child relationship, embrace love in attitudes towards the child through acceptance in a prepared environment, fostering healthy development which results in evidence based, major impacts on the experience of childhood as well as for the child’s resiliency and ability to overcome any adversity in the environment to reach positive future outcomes and succeed.
James, Jenks and Prout (1998) argue that childhood is characterised by sets of cultural values whereby the ‘…western childhood has become a period of social dependency, asexuality, and the obligation to be happy, with children having the right to protection and training but not to social or personal autonomy’ (James, Jenks and Prouts 1998 pg. 62). Here, childhood is described in sets of distinguished features and these features imply that the concept childhood may vary from place, culture and time. Therefore suggesting that there is no fixed or universal experience of childhood, for example, childhood in the medieval UK will be extremely different to the childhood in modern UK and therefore it varies over time, place and culture. Since the definition and state of childhood may vary depending on our cultural and historical background, some sociologist claim that childhood is not just biological, but must have been socially constructed for a specific society needs at a particular time. In this essay, I will attempt to explore ways in which childhood is said to be socially constructed by looking at historical childhood and how it has led to construction of modern childhood in the modern society. I will also explore the agency of children as competent social actors able to construct their social world.
Television has become a big part in children’s day-to-day lives especially in the 20th century. Children in this century rely on television to keep them entertained and educated instead of entertaining and educating themselves by participating in activities, which will teach them a lot more in life then the actual television. There is no doubt that children are most easily influenced by television because of the different content that they watch as well as the amount of time consumed watching TV. The television does have an emotional and intellectual development on children but this all depends on the content that they’re watching and the way that they absorb the information that the show is trying to send out. Different programs will portray
This paper will critically discuss the ‘disappearance of childhood’ debate which centres on electronic media and consider why such a debate has come into existence. This essay will critically discuss both sides of the debate that is the disappearance proponents and those who are more optimistic about the effects of technology on the lives of children. In response to both arguments, I will propose that there is a new concept of childhood which has evolved throughout history; this concept is one of changing childhoods for a whole variety of reasons. It is noteworthy that these arguments are developed from American and European opinions and do not necessarily reflect the experience of children internationally.
Childhood, according to wordnetweb, is the time of a person's life when they are a child or the state of a child between infancy and adolescence. The period defined as childhood might not change, because it will always be between infancy and adolescence, but the activities and development acquired in that time changes from generation to generation. If you ask an adult how was their childhood they might tell you thousands of different stories regarding their friends, the games they used to play, the lives they used to live and the simplicity of life they had. They might tell you about how they used to run through the neighborhoods with their friends, kill bugs, eat soil and “discover” new territories. They might tell you about the time the broke their arm when they fell off a tree they were climbing or how fun it was to swim at the lake with their friends. Now, if you ask a kid born on the new millennium, the new generation, he might give you a completely different scene for what childhood is for him. For him, childhood might mean staying up late watching TV series regarding sex and drugs, or playing Play Station, X-Box or Wii for 5 or even 6 straight hours. They might also tell you about the time they accidentally found porn on the internet or when they were grounded for using obscene language that they previously had learned from a movie. Life as we used to know it has changed, drastically. This world has become a very hostile world, were advertisement owns the streets and all the means of communication. The kids of this new “technology” era are the ones who suffer the most with his hostility, and we have to do something about it.
...o centuries. Thanks to the development of health care and education, lots of people had a chance to have a normal childhood without suffering from illness, poorness and bad social environment. But it wasn’t as easy as it look from the first view. The traditional family has changed, leaving place for such an institutions, as kindergarten and school. On the one hand, for children this wasn’t so bad. Professional teachers gave much better education than anybody could receive at home. But on the other hand, children were deprived of the part of communication with their parents, especially on the emotional level. Besides that, the other problem is a commercialization of the youth in the adverts and entertainment market. Of course, this process has, both positive and negative sides, but mostly they cause the disappearance of the childhood as an important life stage.
There are many facts that show how children are affected by television. The most obvious is the effects that television has on the brain. 'Television interferes with the development of intelligence, thinking skill and imagination.';(LimiTv) A huge element of thinking is taking from what you already know and deciding how it applies in different situation. School makes you do this, but television does not. Michael and Sheila Cole, sociologist, say that 'Children socialized to learn from television had lower than normal expectations about the amount of mental effort required to learn from written texts, and tended to read less and perform relatively poorly in school.';(Development of Children 24) Which means that it takes very little effort to follow a television show and kids are raised on television believe that it takes less effort to learn from television rather than books because they have been 'spoon-fed'; information by television. 'Opportunities for a child's imagination to develop are also denied by habitual viewing.'; (Neural Activity and the Growth of the Brain) Children need some unstructured time to allow imagination skills to form by thinking about a book or story, a conversation, or an event.
Television is everywhere these days, not just in our living rooms but in bathrooms, kitchens, doctor's offices, grocery stores, airplanes, and classrooms. We have access to TV virtually anywhere and as American's we are taking advantaged of it. Adults aren't the only ones watching TV; children today are watching more TV than ever before. TV has even become known as "America's baby-sitter." (Krieg). Meaning that parents are now using the television as a way of entertaining their children while they attempt to accomplish other things such as cooking and cleaning.