CPSY1904: International and Cross-cultural Studies of Childhood

Through reading, discussion, and written reflection, the course seeks to help students examine what it means to develop as a human being, to think about the practical and ethical issues humans face in guiding children?s development, and to learn how these issues are resolved in different communities around the world. The course seeks to develop an appreciation of the variety of human childhoods, and how the changes that humans themselves make in their economic and political structures, can affect this at both familial and societal levels. This course seeks to introduce students to the very wide variety of experiences that comprise human childhood across a wide variety of geographical, economic, and cultural circumstances. Students will learn about the basic paths and purposes of childhood in human societies ranging from modern European societies, traditional African and South Asian, Japanese and Indonesian societies, through technologically primitive societies in New Guinea. Students will develop a strong sense of the roles that historical societies played in the development of our contemporary understanding of human childhood.

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