Manchester, United Kingdom

Childhood and Youth Studies

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: teacher training and education science
University website: www.themanchestercollege.ac.uk
Foundation Degree (FD)
Childhood
Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, childhood consists of two stages: preoperational stage and concrete operational stage. In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood (learning to walk), early childhood (play age), middle childhood (school age), and adolescence (puberty through post-puberty). Various childhood factors could affect a person's attitude formation.
Youth
Youth is the time of life when one is young, and often means the time between childhood and adulthood (maturity). It is also defined as "the appearance, freshness, vigor, spirit, etc., characteristic of one who is young". Its definitions of a specific age range varies, as youth is not defined chronologically as a stage that can be tied to specific age ranges; nor can its end point be linked to specific activities, such as taking unpaid work or having sexual relations without consent.
Youth Studies
Youth studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to the study of the development, history, culture, psychology, and politics of youth. The field studies not only specific cultures of young people, but also their relationships, roles and responsibilities throughout the larger societies which they occupy. The field includes scholars of education, literature, history, politics, religion, sociology, and many other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences.Youth studies encourages the understanding of experiences that are predominantly manifested among young people, generalized phenomenon and social change. The majority of 15- to 24-year-olds in 2008 lived in developing countries. The definition of youth varies across cultural contexts. The social experience and organization of time and space are important themes in youth studies. Scholars examine how neoliberalism and globalization affect how young people experience life, including in comparison to previous generations.
Childhood
But still when the mists of doubt prevail,
And we lie becalmed by the shores of age,
We hear from the misty troubled shore
The voice of the children gone before.
Drawing the soul to its anchorage.
Bret Harte, A Greyport Legend, Stanza 6.
Childhood
Adolescents are simply those people who haven't as yet chosen between childhood and adulthood. For as long as anyone tries to hold on to the advantages of childhood—the freedom from responsibility, principally—while seeking to lay claim to the best parts of adulthood, such as independence, he is an adolescent. [...] Eventually most people choose to be adults, or are forced into it. A very few retreat into childhood and never leave it again. A large number remain adolescents for life.
Gene Wolfe, The Book of the Short Sun, Volume 2: In Green's Jungles (2000), Ch. 23.
Youth
Our youth we can have but to-day;
We may always find time to grow old.
Bishop Berkeley, Can Love be Controlled by Advice?
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