Children and childhoods

Every adult has experienced his or her own childhood and, based on this experience, has developed an idea of what it means to be a child and what characterizes childhood. However, historically speaking, it was a long time before children began to be perceived as beings in their own right. It was only during the Enlightenment Enlightenment The term Enlightenment refers to an intellectual movement that emerged in Europe at the end of the 17th century and placed human reason at the center of philosophical thought. Enlightenment ideas were also associated with socio-political demands for more personal freedom of action, civil rights, general human rights, the state’s duty to serve the common good, and education. In the history of education, the French philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau (1712-1778) is sometimes credited with ‘discovering’ childhood. In his much-quoted novel “Emilé or On Education” (1762/2019), he emphasized the intrinsic value of childhood and called for direct learning through experience. that childhood was ‘discovered’ as an independent phase of life.

In the early 1900s, the Swedish reformist pedagogue and writer Ellen Key Ellen Key Ellen Key (1849-1926) expressed her views on the education of children and the women's movement in numerous publications. She travelled tirelessly throughout Europe as a speaker, proclaiming the modernization of living conditions. Her work pre-empted current debates on the upbringing of children, which seemed radically new at the time, and her thoughts on eugenics are still the subject of controversy today. attempted to take stock of the modern era from a sociological perspective and coined a slogan that has become inscribed in the history of pedagogy. Key declared the 20th century to be the century of the child century of the child The slogan derives from the bestseller of the same name (Ellen Key [1900/2000]: The Century of the Child. Weinheim: Beltz). . This legitimized a reformist pedagogical rhetoric advocating a new kind of education that was centered on the child and the child’s perspective, but it also established a modern concept of childhood that stimulated a change of perspective in the whole discourse surrounding the child. The pediatrician, writer, pedagogue and researcher, Janusz Korczak Janusz Korczak Janusz Korczak (1878/79-1942) ran the Dom Sierot (an orphanage for Jewish children of primary school age) in Warsaw for three decades. He left behind an extensive body of writings, which comprises 17 volumes in the German edition. In his Pedagogy of Respect, he emphasized the need for the children's perspective to be heeded and respected: The young residents of the orphanage actively helped to shape their own ‘society’. For example, they were elected to hold offices in a children's parliament and court and they regularly contributed to a weekly children's newspaper. In August 1942, Janusz Korczak was sent to the Treblinka extermination camp and murdered together with around 200 children and the staff of the orphanage. Their fate serves as a reminder that a total of 1.5 million children were defenselessly at the mercy of Nazi persecution and were killed in the Holocaust. , expressed this in a single sentence: “Children are not future people because they are people already”.1 

On the one hand, the child was no longer viewed solely as a being in need of protection and support, but as a person in his or her own right person in his or her own right The history of children's rights can be seen to reflect wider changes in modern times. Both focus on ideas of human dignity, self-determination and the equality of all people, and both were successively enshrined in applicable law. The transition from the 19th to the 20th century saw ideas about children, childhood and education change. There was vocal criticism about the abuse, oppression and exploitation of children, for example through child labor, together with an increasing demand for children's rights. Ellen Key, Eglantyne Jebb (1876-1928) and Janusz Korczak are regarded as important pioneers of children's rights, though the first declaration of children's rights (1892) was most likely written by the writer and reform pedagogue Kate Wiggins (1856-1923). It was only on Jebb's initiative that the League of Nations adopted the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1924), which in five articles called on the signatory states to protect, support, care for and educate children. Although the Declaration was not legally binding, it served as a model for later United Nations resolutions such as the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which was ratified by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1992. There is still (as of September 2024) a lively debate in Germany about including children's rights in the Basic Law, as the goal formulated in the 2021 coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP to recognize children as legal entities under constitutional law has not yet been implemented. . Childhood was increasingly seen and designed as a protected space where children could be cared for and learn, a kind of moratorium moratorium The idea of childhood (and youth) as a pedagogical moratorium stems from the Enlightenment and refers to a specific “time-out” granted to the youngest members of society, which is made visible in designated times, spaces, status positions and discourses, and involves a temporary withdrawal from certain obligations and participation in bourgeois society (Zinnecker, Jürgen (2000). Childhood and youth as pedagogical moratoria. On the history of civilization of the younger generation in the 20th century. In Dietrich Benner and Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (eds.): Bildungsprozesse und Erziehungsverhältnisse im 20. Jahrhundert. Weinheim: Beltz (pp. 36-68, her esp. p. 38). URN: urn:nbn:de:0111-opus-84428 - DOI: 10.25656/01:8442). granted to them in recognition of their being not yet fully developed, physically, mentally or emotionally. By gaining experience through play and learning, they could then gradually become prepared to take on an independent role in their respective social communities. In many Western societies, access to education was also declared a political goal in order to reduce social inequalities. For example, the introduction of compulsory education compulsory education The Primary School Act as we know it today was passed in the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). Children throughout Germany were then no longer subject to a “compulsory education”, which could also be fulfilled privately and had already been introduced in Prussia in 1717, but to a “general compulsory education”, which required at least eight years in a public school. in the Weimar Republic in 1919 meant that, for the first time in Germany’s history, all children had to attend public school. 

On the other hand, childhood also became a subject of research, and the independent role of children gradually came to be an accepted idea in science. At the beginning of the 20th century, the scientific approach was primarily interdisciplinary. However, the rise of National Socialism, the Second World War, and the upheavals of the post-war period brought the child research movement in German-speaking countries (ecompassing pediatricians, psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as curative and special educators) to a temporary end. It was not until the 1980s, when a paradigm shift in the study of children and childhood took place in traditional child-related sciences such as developmental psychology, socialization research and pedagogy, that the new area of “Kindheitsforschung”2 (Childhood Studies as we know it today), was able to establish itself in the social sciences.

Today, a child is commonly understood as a being in need of education and learning who still lacks experience and knowledge. In other words: “A child is anyone who is not yet grown up”3 or, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, “has not yet reached the age of 18”4. Because there are numerous other international definitions and subcategories not only based on law, but also on medicine, biology, neurology, education or sociology, it is difficult to clearly define the group of people who are categorized as “children”.

Childhood is both a lived reality and a surface onto which various wishes and ideals are projected by adults. At the heart of childhood pedagogy is the study of upbringing, education and socialization processes in childhood. It spans the first period in a person's life in which they are perceived as a child in a social context. The point it is perceived to be at an end depends on the culture and zeitgeist. During European industrialization, childhood was seen as a considerably shorter period than it is today: until child labor was abolished, children helped secure the livelihood of working-class families and boys usually started an apprenticeship at 14 and moved in with their master. In postmodern Western societies, on the other hand, a highly developed culture around learning and education has extended youth – and with it the entry into working life and material dependence on parents – well beyond the age of 18.

Philippe Ariés and his work on the history of childhood5 (French 1960/German 1975) are to thank for the discovery that the phase of being a child has been perceived in different ways across different epochs. In the 1960s, he declared childhood to be a historical phenomenon that had only begun to be recognized as a distinct phase of life during the Middle Ages. A broad field of research opened up as a result of this finding. Over the past two decades, childhood history has developed from a specialist area of historical research with a limited thematic scope to an open field and an approach that allows for multifaceted crossovers into other historiographical areas such as historical childhood research as one of the central areas of historical educational research. The history of childhood now extends far beyond the historiography of education (school childhood) and upbringing (family childhood), even though modern childhoods from the early modern period (around 1500) to classical modernity (1890-1930) and the beginnings of globalization (since 1990) are primarily written as a “history of care”.6 Using the lens of “childhoods”, researchers have now intertwined comprehensive political, economic and cultural developments as well as reform projects with the worlds and descriptions of individual lives. In this way, a childhood history perspective also opens up a backward-looking approach to topics such as child poverty, child labor, war childhoods, and violent relationships in political regimes or children's institutions, and contributes to a broader understanding of violence and war, colonialism and the nation state, democracy and dictatorship, as well as consumption and capitalism.7 

Childhood is a phase of life in which the individual gains knowledge and experience of the world and learns to adapt to it. It is when children acquire their own capacity to act through communication, education and learning, upbringing, experimentation, participation, and practising social roles in interaction with complex societal, cultural and social conditions. In German-speaking countries, childhood research has developed into a relevant and interdisciplinary field of research since the 1980s, encompassing differentiated theoretical figures such as agency and the generational order and concepts such as well-being and justice. It connects to more recent core topics in the sociology of childhood and educational science and examines  children and the transformation of childhoods children and the transformation of childhoods The recently published edited volume “Kind(er) und Kindheit(en) im Blick der Forschung” presents central theoretical figures of Childhood Studies for discussion and brings together historical, theoretical and empirical contributions from history, social sciences and educational science It focuses on core childhood-related topics such as agency, equal opportunities, participation and resource justice, well-being, flight, migration, children's rights and child protection, which cannot be discussed in detail here. (Schierbaum, Anja / Diederichs, Miriam und Schierbaum, Kristina (2024): Kind(er) und Kindheit(en) im Blick der Forschung. Zentrale Theoriefiguren und ihre empirische Erkundung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.)  in a variety of ways using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. On the one hand, children’s living environments and social worlds (e.g. family, peers, daycare and school) are important for research, as these function as independent entities through which children are socialized and childhoods institutionalized. On the other hand, children's life circumstances (e.g. social situations, migration and refugee experiences, educational and participation opportunities, and violence) are examined, as well as educational spaces (e.g. family, daycare centers, schools and clubs).

Child wellbeing research is an international field of study that has received increasing attention both in childhood sociology and in educational science. The construct is often used to examine children's life situations and living environments with regard to the idea of a good or less good childhood, especially in empirical research on the conditions under which children grow up. This interdisciplinary field of research is dedicated to questions of how children themselves develop and experience ideas of wellbeing – and what conclusions can be drawn from this for theory development within a framework of educational science that is based on theories of difference and inequality. Because the concept of child wellbeing is at the intersection of research, politics and education, the international comparative indicator research aims not only to rank the participating countries but also to discuss the results in terms of childhood and social policy, so that Childhood Studies has a decisive influence on the transfer of findings into politics and professional practice with regard to child wellbeing. Child wellbeing research is an international field of study that has received increasing attention both in childhood sociology and in educational science. The construct is often used to examine children's life situations and living environments with regard to the idea of a good or less good childhood, especially in empirical research on the conditions under which children grow up. This interdisciplinary field of research is dedicated to questions of how children themselves develop and experience ideas of wellbeing – and what conclusions can be drawn from this for theory development within a framework of educational science that is based on theories of difference and inequality. Because the concept of child wellbeing is at the intersection of research, politics and education, the international  comparative indicator research comparative indicator research Indicators of children's wellbeing measure and evaluate different aspects of children's lives. They help us to analyz e the quality of life of children. Six indicators are used particularly frequently: (1) Health (physical and mental health, access to medical care and immunization rates), (2) Education (school enrolment rates, educational qualifications, school attendance and performance in various subjects), (3) Social participation (participation in social activities, friendships, family support and the existence of a stable social network), (4) Safety (protection from violence, abuse or neglect and the feeling of safeness in the living environment), (5) Material conditions (satisfaction of basic needs such as food, clothing and housing as well as financial security of the family), (6) Leisure and play (opportunities for leisure activities, play areas and access to sports and cultural activities). These metrics enable not only researchers, but also politicians and experts to monitor the state of child wellbeing globally and compare it internationally, identify development trends, and develop targeted measures to improve children's living conditions.  aims not only to rank the participating countries but also to discuss the results in terms of childhood and social policy, so that Childhood Studies has a decisive influence on the transfer of findings into politics and professional practice with regard to child wellbeing.

In the 1980s, Childhood Studies, which was still a relatively young discipline, picked up where Martha Muchow left off in the 1930s. The study she initiated and carried out together with students, Der Lebensraum des Großstadtkindes8 (1935/reprinted 1978), aimed to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the 'world of the child'. By investigating how urban children shaped their own movements in and appropriation of urban space, and how the children described their movements in and relationships to these spaces, the German psychologist conducted ground-breaking research that was not just about children, but was carried out with them.

With the resumption of this research approach, childhoods were no longer perceived merely as a transit station before adolescence on the path to adulthood, interesting only from an adult perspective. A central area of interest in recent Childhood Studies has instead involved asking children about their own views, which has changed the selection and application of various research methods considerably. In addition to standardized child surveys with large and representative samples, qualitative research methods were also used in numerous analyses to open up research access to children's perspectives. In addition to the use of  qualitative interview techniques qualitative interview techniques The use of qualitative interview techniques sometimes proves to be a challenge: it makes little sense, for example, to interview children under the age of five due to their undeveloped language skills. Older children can, however, be interviewed in narrative interviews, for example, or in different kinds of partially standardized interviews. In thematically structured interviews, guidelines can be used to stimulate narratives on predetermined topics. In addition, group discussions have also proven to be a good way of allowing several children to have their say on a particular topic at the same time. , participant  observation observation Participant observation is usually combined with other methods. One advantage of this method is that its use does not depend on the language skills of the children being studied and both toddlers and schoolchildren can be addressed. As observation protocols are insufficient to record children's non-linguistic behaviour in detail – because situations in real time are fleeting and sometimes difficult to record verbally – videography has become established as a way of recording observations more comprehensively. , videography and  non-reactive methods non-reactive methods Non-reactive methods are those where researchers are not involved in social situations for the purpose of collecting material. They work with material that is already available. Children's testimonies, such as essays and diary entries, have a long tradition; more recently, children's drawings and photographs have also been included in research on children and childhoods.  have proven to be reliable.

The cipher of child agency in particular gives children a voice in current childhood research and allows them to become research subjects; thus, there are now a number of empirical studies in this country that survey children from pre-school age onwards. Understanding children as individual and social actors with their own rights and as equal creators of their socio-cultural environment is the best way for them to draw a differentiated picture of what shapes their everyday lives, what occupies, interests and possibly also impairs them, but also how they experience empowerment in order to be able to (co-)shape their own lives and society.

English translation: William Connor