Exploring and Criticizing Childhood images in Act of Iranian Preschool Curriculum

This paper aims to deduct the concept of childhood presumed in the "Guide of the curriculum and educational and training activities of preschool" document and criticize it. For this purpose, hidden childhood images supposed in this document was explored. Then, these images were criticized. While in internal critique, inconsistencies were explained, in external critique, these images were examined from the view of Islamic theory of action. The method of inferring childhood images was transcendental analysis and content analysis. Also, whereas the internal critique has done was conceptual structure evaluation, the external critique has done by constant comparative analysis. After examining the document, seven childhood images were inferred: the child as an organism, the child as a mechanism, the child as the capital, the child as a pre-adult person, and the child as a potentially innocent person. The most important incompatibility that was found in the document emerged between the child as an organism and the child as a mechanism. In the external critique, the childhood images in Islamic Theory of Action were listed as "child as a pseudo-agent" and "child as a wildflower which relies on a caretaker". Our findings showed that the curriculum framework does not consider due attention to the young age of the plant and its dependence on the caretaker. Furthermore, the image of child as machine wasn't considered acceptable for humans, whether children or adults.