Coventry, United Kingdom

Childhood in Society

Master's
Table of contents

Childhood in Society at University of Warwick

Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: social
Qualification: MA
Kind of studies: full-time studies, part-time studies
Master of Arts (MA)
University website: www.warwick.ac.uk

Definitions and quotes

Childhood
Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, childhood consists of two stages: preoperational stage and concrete operational stage. In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood (learning to walk), early childhood (play age), middle childhood (school age), and adolescence (puberty through post-puberty). Various childhood factors could affect a person's attitude formation.
Society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent of members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups.
Childhood
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.
William Wordsworth, To a Butterfly.
Childhood
And he who gives a child a treat
Makes Joy-bells ring in Heaven's street,
And he who gives a child a home
Builds palaces in Kingdom come,
And she who gives a baby birth,
Brings Saviour Christ again to Earth.
John Masefield, Everlasting Mercy, Stanza 50.
Childhood
Adolescents are simply those people who haven't as yet chosen between childhood and adulthood. For as long as anyone tries to hold on to the advantages of childhood—the freedom from responsibility, principally—while seeking to lay claim to the best parts of adulthood, such as independence, he is an adolescent. [...] Eventually most people choose to be adults, or are forced into it. A very few retreat into childhood and never leave it again. A large number remain adolescents for life.
Gene Wolfe, The Book of the Short Sun, Volume 2: In Green's Jungles (2000), Ch. 23.
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