ABSTRACT
In the domains of psychology, education, and to a lesser degree sociology, few observers have seriously studied the ways that the information explosion so characteristic of our contemporary era has operated to undermine traditional notions of childhood. Childhood is a creation of society that is subject to change whenever major social transformations take place. As the prototype of the modern family developed in the late nineteenth century, "proper" parental behavior toward children coalesced around notions of tenderness and adult accountability for children's welfare. It is important to place Kinderculture in paradigmatic context, to understand what the author is promoting in relation to other scholarship on childhood studies and childhood education. In such a spirit, the editors and authors of Kinderculture openly admit their antipositivist, hermeneu-tic epistemological orientations. Positivism is an epistemological position maintaining that all knowledge of worth is produced by the traditional scientific method. All scientific knowledge constructed in this context is thus proclaimed neutral and objective.
