Children, culture, and Edith Cobb

Abstract

When we engage in restoring childhood to some place in our thinking and recognize that childhood has significance in the development of the adult, its all right to talk generally about "childhood" and the "child." But as a theoretical concept, "the Child" is a fiction. We do not know enough about what children, as biologically given creatures, will do at different stages in development or under different cultural circumstances. Much of what is "known" is based on inadequate evidence from widely scattered sources. We can't take what we find out about children in one culture and combine it uncritically with what children do in another culture; the result is unadulterated nonsense. We will not develop a useful theory of child development until we recognize that "the Child" doesn't exist. Only children exist; children in a particular context; children who are different from each other; children with different senses.

Parent Publication

• Children, nature, and the urban environment: proceedings of a symposium-fair

Citation

Mead, Margaret. 1977. Children, culture, and Edith Cobb. In: Children, Nature, and the Urban Environment: Proceedings of a Symposium-Fair; Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-30. Upper Darby, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station. 18-24