The social construction of childhood: age, gender, and children's identities

peer reviewedAs a social construction, childhood is an arbitrary fragmentation based on a universally-occurring phenomenon that is part of the natural cycle of life. Awareness of the particular nature of childhood and the birth of a “feeling of childhood” (Ariès, 1981) would emerge by way of a growing distinction between the world of children and that of adults, identified not only by biological age, but also by a series of cultural interventions made in relation to children. Such interventions will also be strongly influenced by a gendering of childhood. This article seeks to discuss the social construction of childhood, analyzing how age and gender are important phenomena in the formation of children's identities. It shows that children are not mere potential beings, but active participants in the construction of their social worlds