Childhood is often seen as a social construction, rather than a natural or biological stage of growing up. This means that childhood is not seen as a fixed universal experience because it something that is created by society meaning that the childhood varies according to time, location, gender, ethnicity and social class. This is clarified by sociologists because if childhood was not a social construction and instead a natural and biological state of growing up then childhood would ne identical throughout all cultures, however this has been proven not to be true. For example in some parts of the world children are seen as a valuable source of labour or even soldiers.
Childhood has also changed through time, during the Middle Ages it was noted by Philippe Aries that childhood did not exist, this was because medieval children were treated as ‘little adults’ he based his argument on diaries and documents from the time period. He also observed how children were depicted in paintings, these factors all supported his argument it was known that from an early age children also worked alongside adults in fields or cottage industries. In comparison modern childhood differed majorly, and there was a visible separation of adults and children initially during the 16th century when upper-class children began to be educated, but also in the 19th century when many factory acts banned children from working in mines and factories. This then meant that they moved further away from leading ‘adult lives’ another factor that made the separation more visible is the in introduction of compulsory state elementary education in most European countries towards the end of the 19th century. This again allowed children to have further separation form adults settings as well as legal status. The two variations through time show that childhood is classed as a social construction and therefore is not a fixed universal experience.
As well as the time period, locality also has an effect on...