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(PDF) Changing images of childhood

   

Added on  2021-04-22

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Running head: CHILDHOOD IMAGECHILDHOOD IMAGEName of the student:Name of University:Author Note:

CHILDHOOD IMAGE1‘Our image of the child is rich in potential, strong, powerful, competent and most of all,connected to adults and other children.'Introduction:This essay aims to discuss the idea of ‘rich’ child in the context of various social and culturalconstructions. This concept of social construction of the children has attracted an increasingattention of the critics around the globe. The idea or image of a child is always judge throughsome socially contrasted contexts. In one hand these particular attributes originated fromsocial construction guide to treat the children in one hand and shape the polices, practices andprovisions required for the development of the childhood. However, these concepts of socialconstruction, has been largely opposed by the idea of ‘rich’ child, which includes differentperspectives to see a childhood image and most importantly out of the socially set criteriadeveloped by the adults (Temple et al., 2017). This essay aims to offer an example of thepotential of making explicit the social construction of the child. It also analyses how thesesocial constructions can have a far reaching impact on the teaching and learning process inearly childhood. Body:The image of the children in the past was contracted on the basis of the socialconstruction which relates with the perspective of the society. The society has seen thechildren differently through different era. In addition to this, the concepts like race, cultureand social class have contributed differently to portray the image of the child. It is the socialmechanism, a phenomenon and category which is created and maintained by the society(Teras et al., 2016). This also include the perception of the individuals and groups which isconstructed through social as well as cultural practice. The ideology of social construction to

CHILDHOOD IMAGE2childhood implicitly demonstrate that the childhood is not a natural process but it is adetermination of society whether the child is a child or has become an adult. To begin the discussion how the socio-cultural construction had impacted on the earlychildhood learning process, it can be said that the childhood as a status of growth has beendocumented worldwide as well as throughout the history (Roskos, 2017). This documentationoften sees child to be vulnerable, innocent, consumer, worker, household earner, commodityand savior. These perspectives however changed with time and place. As mentioned bysociologist Philippe Aries(1960) that the idea of a child in the pre-industrial society wascompletely different from the idea in the contemporary society (Reyna et al. 2015). At thattime the children used to be acknowledged as little adults and were bound to take theresponsibility as an adult since their age of seven or eight. They were expected to helprunning households by doing significant useful activities (Qvortrup, 2017). There were nojuvenile cases in terms of law and the children used to get punished in the same way as theadults used get in the legal procedure for committing crime. Therefore, it was implicit that children were not to be seen as the matter of love andaffection. Aries has stated multiple reasons behind such behavior of the society to thechildren. This can be said that significant levels of infant ethics were present in the society(Moss et al., 2016). It can be said that life was significantly uncertain in this period of time.Therefore, even the child had to play a major role in earning and running household for thesake of the survival of them and their family as well. Aries stated that the concept of a childas a ‘little adult’ was constant till 19thcentury (Schonert-Reichl et al. 2015). It was that theteenagers often being hired to do the tedious jobs in different factories and mines. Hencethere was no scope for education until the charities like Save the Children were established.

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