Childhood (Key Ideas)

Childhood offers a greater appreciation of the social factors that make up our knowledge of children and childhood. It gives critical framework through which to understand private attitudes and public policy in relation to the child, viewing childhood from a social constructionist perspective.

The basic assumption that childhood is a social construct reveals that our understandings of childhood and the meanings that we place upon children vary considerably from culture to culture, but also quite radically within the history of any one culture.