Childhood

The standard definition of childhood denotes the earliest stages of the life course in which the human being has yet to achieve full physical and mental development. Most of the secondary definitions connote notions such as immaturity, irresponsibility, and dependency. However, the meaning of childhood has varied throughout history and across different cultures, and there are corresponding variations in the way societies understand and organize children's lives. In academic study, the naturalistic child development view clashes with the social constructionist view, but the former tends to be dominant in popular culture. The hybrid view accepts the notion of natural developmental stages while also accepting that there are sociocultural variations in our understanding of when and how these stages occur. Now that identity is increasingly forged ...