ABSTRACT
Does culture change our experience of childhood? A lot of people around the world are children. In the developing world every third person is under the age of 15. Globally, the figure is 29% (World Population Bureau, 2007). Childhood, though, is not just a matter of being relatively young. The way in which it is experienced depends partly on its cultural and historical context. For example, being
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young in medieval Europe was, it has been argued, incomparable with contemporary notions of childhood since it lacked the emotional kinship ties that so characterise it today (Cunningham, 2006). It is also suggested that in the modern era childhood in certain cultural settings has unique characteristics. A typically American childhood, for example, may be characterised by a social desire for obedience to parental authority which may not be stressed so much elsewhere (Kessen, 1979).
