Representations of childhood in Greek language school textbooks: from rural to urban childhood

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study explores the representations of childhood in Greek language school textbooks for primary second graders within a broad chronological period, from 1934 to date. School textbooks are understood as social representations of social categories and social phenomena which Greek pupils are assumed to embed. Drawing from the “new sociology of childhood” which perceives childhood as a social construction we examine the representations of childhood in school textbooks concerning their positioning in different contexts, namely the rural versus urban contexts of children’s lives. Childhood representations are analysed through a thematic analysis of texts. Findings show different representations of childhood in rural and urban contexts that however change during the course of time. Representations of childhood in rural contexts construct a perception of a homogeneous, deficit, “adult-to-be” childhood, either evil or innocent, but mainly close to John Locke’s conception of the “immanent child”. On the other hand, as time goes by, and particularly after the 1980s, childhood images construct a dominant image of urban childhood, which depicts children as spontaneous, free to take the initiative and enact their interests relating in this way to the tribal childhood discourse with references to an agentic childhood. Overall, our findings show that childhood is not represented as an unchangeable continuum but its construction is affected by changes observed in the time period over which textbooks are written.