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Is Childhood Disappearing

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Submitted By eashanewton
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Is childhood disappearing?
There have been many studies and research put into the question ‘is childhood disappearing’ but first lets define what childhood actually is... childhood is considered to be the time in which a person is a child or too young to be considered an adult, this time in most cultures is 0-12 years old.
Many sociologists believe that childhood is rapidly disappearing, for example Phillip Aries was a historian who argued that in the middle ages childhood didn’t exist. In the middle ages things were a lot different, children were a lot different and besides from size there was little defining children from adults. There is many sources such as paintings which show children to not only be dressed as adults, but engaging in adult behaviour such as drinking and attending brothels. Aries discovered that children were sent to work, just like adults as soon as they were capable of doing so. Law also made very little distinction between children and adults, with children being allowed to participate in adult activities because they were just seen as ‘mini’ and then sharing the same burden as adults when it came to punishments. At this time Phillip Aries believe that childhood didn’t exist.
In 1880 the compulsory education act came into procedure in England and Wales, this created a big turn over in the history of childhood. It became compulsory for children to go to school, meaning they couldn’t work. Before this law came into action children were seen to be ‘economical assets’ to families as the more children they had the more money they had, but when this law came underway, families had less money. As a consequence, family size declined because nobody had the money to support a large family and children were no longer seen as ‘financial assets’. From this point on childhood developed further, children were seen as lovely young people who would

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