Conceptual Underlyings of Childhood in the Evulution of History: Toward an Islamic Conceptualization of Childhood

The main aim of this study is to investigate and analyze the evolution of the concept of childhood through human history. First of all, we traced the various meanings of childhood in four historical periods (Ancient period, middle Ages, Renaissance and ultimately contemporary period) and their implications for child education. After that, applying conceptual analysis as our method we attempted to infer the key conceptual elements of childhood. Accordingly, this analysis provides four perspectives against which the conceptual patterns of childhood could be categorized and investigated. These perspectives, in spite of their different definitions and approaches toward child education, put forward four essential questions to be answered by philosophers of education dealing with childhood concept. The dependence of childhood concept on the concept of adulthood, and the nature of this dependence, is related to the first question. The second question is about the value dimensions of human nature and its nascent state in the child. The third question focuses on children’s abilities and the mechanisms of their growth, and the final question is concerned with the various dimensions of these abilities involving cognition, emotion and volition. Along the above line of thought, the four aforementioned components were considered for a possible use in connection with an Islamic approach to child education.This approach attempts to organize educational activities on the basis of the presence of one ability versus the absence of another.