ABSTRACT
It is clear that the character of childhood in the contemporary world is changing. There are many indications of this, some of which I discuss in more detail later. However, one interesting cultural indicator of this shift is a proliferation of texts, written in the industrialized countries from the mid1970s onward, that announced the “disappearance of childhood.” Postman (1983) is very well known but there are numerous others (see, e.g., Winn, 1984). Such commentators interpret late 20th-century change in childhood as a sign that childhood as a social institution is in the process of disappearing. They point to technological innovations such as TV and the Internet and argue that, by making a wider range of information available to children, we have eroded the boundary between adulthood and childhood. They note the cultural changes that have, in some degree at least, rendered parent-child relationships more open and democratic and they observe the destabilization of family life that has changed the life circumstances of many children.
