The future of childhood

• The disappearance of childhood (Postman):

  • children have same rights as adults and even ‘cases’ of children committing adult crimes.
  • no division between world of adult and child.
  • rise and fall of print culture and it’s replacement by TV culture.
• The information hierarchy:

  • Postman argues gave adults power to keep knowledge (sex, money and work) a secret from children. Became mystery to kids and associated with innocence.
  • however, tv blurs distinction between both adult and childhood destroying info hierarchy.
• evaluation of disappearance into childhood:

  • Opie argues strong evidence into children‘s supervised games shows existence of a separate children‘s culture.
• Childhood in Postmodernity (Jenks):

  • believed childhood was a creation of modern society (20th century), childhood seen as preparation for child to become productive adults.
  • relationships are unstable, (divorce becoming more common). Therefore, children thus become parents last refuge from constant uncertainty.
  • view children as vulnerable.
• Evaluation of childhood in postmodernity:

  • evidence of parents needing to protect children is from small, unrepresentative studies.
  • guilty of over-generalising, make statements that imply all children in same position.