ABSTRACT
An ideological concept used in academic and nonacademic contexts to describe a state of being, the word “innocence” comes from the Latin in-nocere which “meant either ‘not to hurt’ or ‘not to be hurt,’ thus embracing both the active and passive voices of the verb ‘to harm’” (Gittins, 1998, p. 146). Its contemporary association with naÏveté, ignorance, and vulnerability originates in the 14th century and continues to mark contemporary discourses about youth in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In the Oxford English Dictionary, innocence (n.d.) is defined as: (1) A state of “freedom from sin, guile or moral wrong in general; state of being untainted with, or unacquainted with, evil; moral purity.” (2) “Freedom from specific guilt; the fact of not being guilty of that with which one is charged.” (3) “Freedom from cunning or artifice; guilelessness, artlessness, simplicity; hence, want of knowledge or sense, ignorance, silliness.”
