Assess the Argument That Modern Childhood Is a ‘March of Progress‘

The march of progress, traditionally depicting a miserly presentation of 25 million years of human evolution, can be applied to sociologists flock on childhood- is it evolving for the better? The March of progress view contests that, over the agone few centuries, childhood in Hesperian societies has been ameliorate steadily, and is even better than ever today. We can then go onto recount that the march of progress evidently paints a bad picture of the past as Lloyd De Mause puts it- The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we puddle exactly begun to awaken.The further back in history one goes, the lower the take aim of childcare, and the more than likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorised and sexually abused. Writers like read/write memory and Shorter look on from this dark past, and hold to the touch that children are more valued, better cared for, protected & educated, enjoy better health and have a lot more rights than previous genera tions. On the other hand, certain sociologists would protest with this for example, Sue Palmers.Her view uplifts the concept of The Five Finger Exercise the belief that language, love, education, play & discipline are what children crucially need for healthy development. In her discernment, children in the UK today are going through, what she calls, toxic childhood- in the past 25 years, childrens physical, emotional and academic development have been effected and damaged by rapid technological and cultural changes. These changes intromit emphasis on testing in education, computer games, junk food, intense marketing on children, even the long hours parents work.All of these factors (which werent as dominant in society, in the past) have negative effects i. e. an profit in child obesity. Neil Postman has a similar negative opinion on childhood- he stated that childhood is disappearing at a dazzling speed. In contrast to Palmers opinion that children are macrocosm affected by ra pid technological and cultural changes, Postman believes the fade of childhood is d feature to young people being given the equivalent rights as adults. Similarities in the way children and adults dress, the decrease of traditional unsupervised games, ven high-flown cases of children committing adults crimes, such as murder. Also, as education intensifies, young people give be able to enter the adult world at an early age, rapidly increasing the disappearance of childhood. Though Iona Opie argues that this is not true that childhood is not disappearing she believes there is still evidence that childhood close exists, based on a lifetime of research into childrens games, rhymes and songs (led by herself and her husband, Peter Opie).Contradictory to Postmans findings, Opie came to the conclusion that children can, and do, create their own independent culture which is fragmentise from that of adults. Child liberations argue against both Palmers and Postman- they argue that weste rn ideas of childhood are being globalised (far from disappearing). International humanitarian and offbeat agencies have imposed western norms on the world, of what childhood should be- a separate life stage, based in the nuclear family and school, where children are innocent, dependant & vulnerable and have no economic role.Therefore, childhood is far from disappearing, but western notions are simply being globalised. For example, anti child labour campaigns, or concerns about street children in less economically developed countries, consult western ideas of what childhood is ought to be like. Though this kind of activity could be the norm for children in that specific culture possibly important training for adult life in their society. So in this view, childhood isnt disappearing, but it is spreading across the world.