Home › Articles› Abstract
Research Article

A Study on the Formation of the View on Child in Modern Japan

Hun Park

Sogang Institute for East Asian Studies, Sogang University

Published: August 2005 · Vol. 24 No. 2 · pp. 135-162
Full Text

Abstract

Unlike our common sense, the concept of the 'innocent child', 'childish innocent' had been historically made up. In Europe, children who had been viewed as 'the little adults' so far, began to be the innocent being and separated into school and home from 17C to 18C. Now, the life stage of the childhood was newly installed and the artists and manufacturers began to create fairy tales, lullabies and toys, targetting to the new market of the children. With the establishment of Meiji government in later 19C, the life stage of the childhood was clearly recognized by the introduction of primary school system and the confrontation of the state and the home without any meditator such as local societies or feudal lords as the past. By the Meiji era, many Japanese considered the children as the resources bearing the state of Japan on their shoulders in the future. In Taisho era, however, the children were considered innocent beings sharpy distinguished from the adults. In Japan, the journalism for children played the crucial role to create the new view of the children, and Akaitori, or the red bird was a key journal. We could see the birth of the term of 'dowa' or a fairy tale and 'doshin' or a mind of a child, and the concept of the 'innocent child', 'childish innocent' was spreaded.
Keywords: childschooleducationpuritanOkawa Mimei