18 Apr 2012
School
Department
Course
Professor
1
CHYS 1F90
Jan 19 & 20
Week 2: Constructing Childhood
Outline
I/ Innocent child versus adultlike child
II/ Becoming versus being
III/ Broader implications/questions
IV/ Discourse
Main points
•There are diverse and sometimes conflicting beliefs about childhood.
•There are implications to various beliefs about childhood.
•Discourse is a concept used to understand childhood as a social construct.
I/ Innocent child vs adultlike child
A) Defining innocence
B) History
-link to Enlightenment
-Jean Jacques Rousseau: Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins
with the knowledge of evil.
-Expansion to middle and working classes
C) Some consequences or effects
• Protection versus participation
-Eg general vulnerability
-Eg victimhood
-Participation
•Measured lenience
• Idealized
D) Complicated: Innocence and Consumption
•Using innocence as a marketing tool
•Thomas, Susan Gregory. 2007. Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young
Minds. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.