The Changing Nature of Childhood: A Metabletic Study

In Western society today, the meaning and the status of our cherished and long embraced concept of childhood is debated within and across various disciplines, including developmental psychology, pedagogy, sociology, and cultural history. Several alternative views have emerged ranging from the one extreme where childhood is dead or has disappeared, to the other where childhood is very much alive, with children today being empowered and liberated as never before. Some scholars claim that childhood is a cultural invention and primarily a product of the adult’s imagination. Up until now, very few systematic studies have combined disciplines to throw light on the nature of childhood and on how it has unfolded over the course of time. The author here conducts a metabletic study, posing the research question of whether the nature of childhood has changed, and if so, how it manifests itself in our contemporary Western society in comparison to previous historical times.