1. Implications for teaching, learning, teachers and schools

2. “Child defines not just physiological immaturity but
also connotes dependency, powerlessness and
inferiority. Childhood, however, focuses more on
the general state of being a child, does not refer to
an individual child and suggests the existence of a
distinct, separate and fundamentally different
social group or category”(Gittins, p. 37).

3. http://youtu.be/BWf-eARnf6U

4. Visual Imagery and Childhood Representations
Philippe Aries
Linda Pollock
What drives the changing character of childhood?
Alan Prout
Social, cultural and economic conditions
Socio-technical developments in communication

5. Children vs. Childhood
Many childhoods

6. HISTORICAL (1900s – 1980s)
Focus & study not on children
Cultural & Historical Changes in Understanding Childhood
POLITICAL IDEAS
Legislation Childhood Happiness
New Labour Laws = Adult Happiness
Post WWII Childhood In Peril
‘Rights’ Sociology

7.  Childhood - angelic purity and innocence
 Polarisation
 Adults’ only
 Appropriate knowledge
 Asocial
 Contexts
 Body image
 Sexualisation and commodification

8.  Capital is a resource unique to an individual that they
can utilize in life
 Types of capital
Social
Human
Financial
Emotional
Colemam(1988), Putnam(1995), Morrow(1999), Reay(2002)

9.  Technology
 Speed & ease of communication
 Worldwide economies
 Same toys available worldwide
 UN Convention of Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

11. Innocence
Legislation
Diversity
Globalisation
History
Stereotyping CHILDHOOD Capital

12. Implications for teaching, learning,
teachers and schools?

13.  Gittins, D. (2008). The historical construction of childhood. In
M.J. Kehily An introduction to childhood studies (pp. 35-
49).Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.
 Leonard, M. (2005). Children, childhood and social capital:
Exploring the links. Sociology of Tourism, 39(4), 605-22.
 Prout, A. (2005). Changing childhood in a globalizing world.
In The future of childhood: Towards the interdisciplinary
study of children (pp. 7-34). London: RoutledgeFalmer.
 Robinson, K. H., & Davies, C. (2008). 'She's kickin' ass, that's
what she's doing!': Deconstructing childhood 'innocence' in
media representations. Australian Feminist Studies, 23(57),
343-58.
 Shanahan, S. (2007). Lost and found: The sociological
ambivalence toward childhood. Annual Review of Sociology,
33,407-28.