Education and the Modern Childhood

What does it mean to be a child? Is it a superfluous question? Surely, we all know what it is like to be a child. We all have been one! We know children’s books and remember childhood games, TV-series and music. In spite of this, we experience that the concept of childhood changes. But how is it changing? What is it that makes childhood a changing experience, and why have the changes in our time perhaps been more marked than ever before?

The course provides a pedagogical introduction to central questions about children and childhood, questions which are important to anyone concerned with children and young persons’ upbringing. Examples from every day- and social life, new media, literature and music, from training in kindergarten and school will be applied to measure the nature of contemporary post-modern childhood.

The aim of the course is to give students insight into which social and pedagogical factors influence the understanding of modern childhood.

2 hours of lectures per week, 1 hour seminar per week.
Form of assessment: 4-hour individual written exam.