Childhood Innocence and Experience: Memory, Discourse, Practice

• In Event: Unpacking Early Childhood Education With a Critical Lens

Abstract

This article examines how the Western construct of childhood innocence is taken up in (92) childhood memories of undergraduate students in programs dedicated to the study of children and their wellbeing in four sites in the United States and Canada. Situating innocence as a discursive construct in the context of Foucault’s theory of discourse, we examine how three emergent themes of analysis - innocence as not knowing, innocence as being provided for, and loss of innocence as exposure to adversity - construct childhood as the absence of conflict. This discourse of innocence perpetuates the myth of an innocence/experience binary and encourages a deficit perspective of childhood that may limit educational and care practices.

Authors

• Julie C. Garlen, Carleton University

• Sandra Chang-Kredl, Concordia University

• Lisa Farley, York University

• Debbie Sonu, City University of New York (CUNY)