Contemporary Perspective Assignment

Running head: CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE
1
Contemporary Perspectives of Learning and Development of Early Childhood
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE 2
Part A
Image of Orphaned Children in Dickens Novels
A Child as innocent. Children found in the Victorian areas as depicted by Dickens show
an excellent example of theinnocent construct. He views them as helpless, vulnerable and in
need of an adult protector. In Victoria, children suffer great tribulations such as child labour
and death (Dutta, 2014). Childhood should be a time where children are allowed to play and
enjoy their freedom while it lasts. Time and location influence the occurrence of these
constructs. These children were born in a time where adults viewed them as a source of cheap
labour. The leaders in the community believed that children had no right to an opinion
making them defenseless to anything done to them.
Image of Children as Damaged
Child as evil. Children in this construct get influenced by their demonic desires rather
than the appropriatebehaviours. In the Lord of Flies novel, children carry out activities that
are beasty in a way in the eyes of the adults. Adults in this construct appear as responsible
and morally upright individuals that have a responsibility to shape the children’s behaviours
(Sorin & Galloway, 2006). Loss of values in a society is a contextual factor that may play a
significant part in producing “evil” children.
Image of “Spoilt” Children
Snowballing child. In this construct, children are seen to possess more authority than the
adults. This authority enables them to get whatever they may need or carry out any activities
they may want (Sorin & Galloway, 2006). Adultappears as irresponsible and neglecting. In
the ecological theory by Bronfenbrenner, the mesosystem contextual factor such as

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE 3
tightworking schedules may be the reason why adults lack time to focus on their children.
Due to this impact, these children gain control of their parents.
Image of Dictatorial Children
Out of control child. This construct displays a child that has gained total control of their
parents making adults in this construct appear powerless. They use these power in a negative
way such as faking harm by their parents as a way of eliminating their influence (Sorin&
Galloway, 2006). Such behaviours may be as a result of social impact by other people either
in the family or school.
The Image of Children as “Cute”
Children as commodities. In this construct, they appear as objects of endearment to both
men and women. Adults display a sense of ownership, care, and love. They believe that a
child does not have any power to deny the affection from the caregivers. They refer to the
children as cute because of different attributes such as innocence, self-independence, and
determination (Holt, 2012). However, the adults blinded thought of love makes them not to
realize their attraction to the children is away of helping them mask their desperation and fear
as they observe these babies. The belief that children are cute due to their innocence and
behaviours has remained unchanged over the years. Every new generation adopts this culture
of viewing children as objects from the previous beliefs.
Part B
Introduction
Childhood is the most crucial stage of a person as it determines the virtues that the child
will develop in future hence, making it a necessity to study the social constructs.