Historical Crisis of Childhood. 35 Years Later

Journal of Siberian Federal University. Series: Humanities & Social Sciences. 2014. Vol. 7. No. 12. P. 2166–2172.

Polivanova K. N.

The article investigates the modern status of the childhood and the possibilities to describe it in terms of cultural-historical theory, particularly, as the crisis of childhood by analogy with D.B. Elkonin. Foreign investigations on the modern childhood and early adulthood are reviewed. The obtained data are further applied to the analysis of basic assumptions of cultural-historical theory. The description of new lifecycle – the occurring adulthood is presented. It has been showed that young people of the developed countries are not inclined to make final decisions regarding their family life and the future profession, they do not marry even when they live together and have sexual relations, they do not plan to have children and alternate short periods of study in universities with due periods of work. It was also presented that the presumption of the universality of the position of an adult and his role in the development of a child been an absolute characteristic of childhood and the condition for its current development requires a review. The results of international project “Childhood as a social phenomenon” are described. The refusal from domination of Euro-Christian model of growing up towards the recognition of the diversity of childhood models was particularly showed. These results are being described and analyzed as the basis for renunciation of the idea of singularity and universality of the development standard. Classical model of childhood is specified as insensitive to the sociocultural recognition of the value of the individual and even marginal. The conclusion is made on the necessity to reject the idea of reproduction of cultural forms as of the only form of development. Also the presumption of predetermination of sense is being discussed as something that is acquired within the process of development and in conjunction with an adult. The necessity of considering a self-generation of a meaning was specially underlined. A hypothesis on the replacement of the axial (purposeful) child development by rhizomatic development (multidirectional movement) has been suggested

Keywords: cultural-historical psychology, культурно-историческая психология, cultural psychology, современное детство, Modern childhood, historical crisis of the childhood, исторический кризис детства, норма возраста

Publication based on the results of: Modern childhood: New reality of adolescent communication (2014)