Childhood in crisis?

Introduction

What does it mean to be a child in today’s world? Studying childhood involves a consideration of the discourses that shape our ideas of what childhood is as well as looking at the reality of children’s lives. Media representations, children’s status in the home, educational provision, healthcare and education have a bearing on of the experience of childhood and how we think about children’s needs. Further understanding can be gleaned by focusing on children themselves. Children’s cultural worlds provide insights into how children make sense of the context of their lives; how modern lifestyles and technologies can be accommodated by children through play and peer relations. A feature of contemporary minority-world childhood is the commonly held notion that childhood is in crisis. The following sections explore this idea through activities and textual commentary.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course E212 Childhood [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .