Children's Lives - Case Study Example

IMPACT ON CHILDRENS LIVES OF THEIR EXPERIENCES OF WORK AND SCHOOLING USING HISTORICAL OR CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLES Introduction Childhood is an early period in the life of a person. It is one of the most interesting phases of growth in a human person. This period is important for the individual child but for the society as well. Childhood is a broad term that is specifically used to refer to his phase of development in humans which is specifically between influence and adulthood. Childhood has been a subject of interest in the intellectual world as we try to dig deep into the constructs of childhood and how they have been changing with time. This is because childhood determines what the grown up person will be. Therefore childhood can be a good predictor of the later person. Childhood is also a period of intense development when there are many changes that are taking place in the body. In the whole life cycle of a human being, childhood remains the period when there is a lot of growth and a lot of learning as well. (Corsaro 2004, p. 76) Therefore childhood has been shown to be one of the most important periods in the life of a person. It is a period of dependence as a child depends on all others for their growth and development. For full development during childhood, there is need to have a holistic approach in order to full growth and development. There has been a changing perspective of childhood. There has been a structured change in childhood constructs which has been influences by the changing society. The childhood of yesterday has changes and it is totally different from the childhood of today although the aspect of childhood remains the same. There has been a change from a society perspective of childhood to a global perspective which has led to globalization of childhood. This paper will look at the changing construct of childhood as influenced by the experiences in school and work. (Heywood 2001, p. 82) Historical views of childhood Researches into the early perspectives of childhood shows the as early as seventeenth century, childhood were taken to be one of the most important periods in the life of a person. Cave paintings that have been studied from those early days reveal that children at that time were taken as mini adults. This shows that from the early studies we can learn that children were not taken same as adults. Since then there has been increasing researches into childhood and its constructs. Studies have revealed that children were loved and revered in the past. As it is today, children were as special beings who needed the love and care of their parent. (James and Pout 2001, p. 42) Children were seen as simple small version of adults and there was little attention that was paid to these children. There was not systematic recognition of the changes that were taking place in their development. This construction of childhood limited the knowledge that the early society had not the cognitive abilities, language usage, and physical growth of a child which were necessary for the growth and development of a whole child. There was more focus that was paid to the abnormal behaviors of the children rather than that normal behavior of children. (Wu and Davidson 1989, p. 23) However as time changed there was also dramatic change into how the society perceived children. Studies have shown that there have been a changing look at childhood which has been influenced by the surrounding conditions that we live in. the early man could have looked well and refereed childhood but this change with the coming of industrialization. During the industrialization era in the west there was increased use of children in the labor force. This has been attributed to the waning economic fortune and hardships which forced children to participate in the economic activities. (Maybin and Woodhead 2003, p. 32) However for all that time it has been shown that the society perspective of childhood has not changed much. Even in the industrialization era, childhood was still taken as precious period by the society but the economic times forced them to make their contribution to the life of the family. In the contemporary society, there has been increased modernity and modernization of the society has changed the society perspective of childhood as well. There has been construction of many theories that have been exploring the life of children and their use of the society as well. Researchers like Kincheloe and Steinberg constructed the critical theory of childhood which centered on childhood and childhood education. This led to the rise of kind culture. (Penn and Lloyd 2007, p. 5) There have been studies on childhood and the construct of a child. Interest in childhood has led to the development of a number of theories that have defined the modern sociology of childhood. There have been ranging debates regarding naturalistic theories and the new theories by Juang and others that have been leaning on the behaviorism and socialization as a way of looking at the construction of childhood. These studies by Sigmund and others have revealed that there is a strong relationship between the social perception for childhood, childhood experiences and the later life of the child. Therefore they have constructed childhood as a learning period which is in line with the early constructs that has been presented about the same period in the historical view of childhood. (Alexander 2000, p. 87) All these studies have presented some similar constructs about childhood. They have presented childhood as alimented, as mature adult, as adult in training, the noble child, the commodities child, the snowballing child, and as a victim and genetic child. These are some of the constructs that have been presented in all these studies. Therefore there has been great change that can be observed in the early construction of childhood and the modern perception that we have on the same child. There has been a major change that has taken place in the socials understanding of childhood and understanding on the relationship between childhood and other period of development. A deeper understanding of childhood has helped us to form an insight on the constructs of childhood and therefore relate the effect of social experiences and the personality of the grown up person. (Woodhead and Montgomery 2003, p. 84) Relationships between the ideas about childhood in history and experiences of being a child Social construction of childhood Since Darwin published his book on the evaluation of human being, there have been a debate between naturalists who postulated that our genetic make up determines our personality and the modern sociologists who believe that our experiences in our childhood has a major effect on the personality of the person. There has been a lot of study that have concentrated on understanding how our early experiences in life are related to our later life. The debate has centered on the effect of nature and nurture in our later life. In this regard there has been raining argument on the whether our personality is wholly made up of nature or there is an effect of nurture in later life. Here nature is used to refer to the innate traits that define us which are mainly expressed by our genetic make up. Naturalistic have tended to argue that we are who we are due to the genetic material that we inherited from our parents. On the other hand proponent of nature has argued that the environment under which we live in has also a lot of influence on who we are. This has been proved by the fact that a child becomes part of where one is brought up in. A child will learn the language that is spoken when he or she has been brought up in. Therefore environmental factor have a lot of influence on childhood and development. (Monson et al., 2006, p. 50) The genetic make up cannot be altered and this remains till we die. We inherit 23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 chromosomes from the father. This cannot be changed in our life. However we inherit trait from our parent but which are later influenced by the environment in order to express themselves. For example a child may inherit a tall trait from the parents but may end up being short due to the environment under which he or she is brought up and may end up being tall or short. Therefore today most of the psychologists have come to term with the notion that it is the interaction between the forces of genetic inheritance and the environmental factors that causes development. This is the centre of our studies in this paper. There are some of the traits in childhood that are defined biologically and which cannot be changed. For example puberty and other changes that occur in childhood are biological. But the expression of these traits it influenced by the environment. In the above case, the traits of puberty can be affected by many environmental factors like diet and nutrition. The modern construction of childhood emerged with the emergence of childhood development theories. Though they have been ignored for the better part of our history, these theories have turned to the bedrock of studies on the childhood. For example Sigmund Freud stressed the importance of the childhood events and experiences in the later life of the child. However, this theory focused more on the mental distort instead of the normal functioning of the child. Freud described the development of a child as a series for psychosexual stages which were grouped into oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital phases. All these stages were linked to libidinal desire which was later likened to the later states on the life of the child. Erikson on the other hand proposed the stage theory of development which had a more outlook into the development of the whole human being. According to Erickson, each stage was likened to overcoming a conflict and the success or failure in overcoming this conflict determines the overall functioning. Jean Paige with the cognitive development theory was the first to note the child play an active role getting knowledge and understanding of the world. But it was Watson, Pavlov and Skinner who proposed the behavioral theory which gave a more insight in the development of the child in later life in relation to experiencing through interaction with the environment. The growth is viewed in term of stimuli and response to experience in the early life. In link to this theory John Bowbly produced the social development theory which showed the that society also play a crucial role in childhood as there is a lot of influence of social relationships in the later life of the person. Therefore these theories like the Freud theory focused on the effect of the early experiences in the later life of the person. Therefore those who have experience deprived or abuse experiences in childhood, they are not likely to have a normal development like others. This means that there is lot of influences of the early childhood experience in the construction of the life of that particular child. But it has been shown that this early construction in childhood can be deconstructed later in life. (Bruner 1996, p. 124) Cultural views of childhood There are different views of childhood according to different society. A society view of childhood depends on the way in which the society value childhood. There are some societies where children are fully integrated in the life of society while there are other societies where children are seen as less being than others. There has been differing moral view of childhood which has gone further to influence the societal construction of childhood as well. The cultural views of child are closely linked to some very important constructs that determine how various culture values childhood. For example there are factor of individuality of childhood where some culture view childhood as a collective responsibility of the whole society. In their regard there is an aspect of the family versus the community. While some societies consider a child as a social commodity in which the whole community has a responsibility towards construction of the child, there are other societies where childhood construction is seen as a sole responsibility of the family alone. According to different society childhood may be seen in term of particular or matrilocal. In this case, children as either seen as belong to the family of the mother or belonging to the family of the father. Some society has gendered childhood while others have not gendered childhood. In some society male are valued more than females and vice versa. Some society will give their children more rights in making their own decisions while in others their parent are the one to decide what is good for them and what is not good for them. In this case they can make a contribution to the decision that is made for them while other will need not decision from these children and what the parent decide become the final. (Levin et al. 1994, p. 72) Relationships between ideas about childhood in different cultures and societies and the experiences of being a child However there has been a changing trend in the world where there is an increased convergence of the view of childhood. However we may find that there is difference perception of childhood in different society, there is an aspect of the same view of the childhood. Hellen Penn in her research on cross culture view of childhood and young children as decision makers asserts that there is a similar perception of childhood in various society and there has been acceptance of the fact that are the tomorrow’s society and therefore any efforts aimed at bringing up the child should be focused on the needs of the future society. She continues to show that there has been a moving trend toward the globalization of childhood which has broken many of the difference that has existed in the society about the construction of childhood in the society. Therefore there should be many difference between different society in the perception of childhood, there is a common view that childhood is a period of dependency the society has an obligation toward childhood. (Hellen 2007, p.6) There are different experiences of childhood which depends on the part of the world where you are growing in. as we highlighted above the perception of the childhood by the society will be the ultimate factor that will determine the childhood experience that one will have. For example the experience of an African child may be totally different from the experience of the child brought up in the west there is difference in perception of childhood between the developing nations and the developed nations. As we highlighted in the beginning, there has been changing perception of children in different society depending on the economic and social factors taking place in the society. A child in the western world is like4yl to spend most of the time in school whole a child in the developing world is likely to spend most of the time working. While in the west education is mandatory in childhood, it is not given the same value in the developing nations and therefore it comes second to the life of these children. (Cowan and Wilson 2001, p. 71) Young children in a changing world The society is changing and in the same way the perception for childhood is changing as well. Globalization has come with many changes that have been aimed at having a different look at the society and all its forces. One of the way in which were can recognize changes in the world is through the globalization of childhood. The childhood of yesterday has completely changed and cannot be compared with the childhood of today. There has been increased observation for the right of children in the world. The UN charter on children’s rights has been the pillar that has been used to evaluate the right parenthood all over the world. In this case there is an emerging standardized parenthood all over the world. Children in the emerging society enjoy more rights and are protected by different agencies. In all societies in the world, there is a local agency that is more concerned with the rights of children to see how there are been observed. Children in the emerging society spend most of their times in school and it has been shown that education is one for the basic right of the child. They have been given more say even on the decision that concerned their life which was previously made by their parents. For example, while girls were married off in some society at puberty, they have been given more right to say in matters concerning their marriage. Therefore we can say that children in the modern society have been given more rights and are protected more than earlier childhood in the society. (Fass 2007, p. 29; Katz 2004, p. 81) Attitudes and values which underpin knowledge and philosophies of early childhood There have been changing attitude and values that has been used to evaluate childhood. There has been a change in our attitude of the childhood which has affected the way the society takes care of these children. Children have come to be seen as human beings who have rights rather than in the earlier society when they were seen as human beings with no right. There has been a general positive attitude that has been constructed in view of childhood. This change in attitude has been influenced by the values that have been given to children. Through history the society has valued children as the successor of the society but the way society has been treating children has been affected by many factors. The way the society value childhood determines the attitudes that we form about childhood and therefore the way we treat children. There have been general perceptions of children as equal beings in the society but with an understanding that we as parent have a moral duty towards looking at the welfare of these children. We have to give children the best experience today so that we can mould responsibility society tomorrow. (LeVine 2003, p. 73; Quarles van Ufford and Giri 2003, p. 60) Bibliography Alexander, R 2000, Culture and Pedagogy, Blackwell, Oxford. Bruner, J 1996, The Culture of Education, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA. 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