現代日本における「子ども」の揺らぎ : 中学生新聞投書欄から分析する子どもから見た「子ども」  [in Japanese] Images of Childhood in Contemporary Japan : From an Examination of Children's Writings in a Student Newspaper's Readers' Column  [in Japanese]

This paper examines present-day images of "childhood" by analyzing "childhood" images of children themselves, as they appear in the reader's column of Mainichi Chugakusei Shimbun from 1983 to 2002. Nowadays, many people think that "childhood" is changing and some have even predicted the "end of childhood." However, much of a decline has there been in the influence of school and peer culture, which make "childhood" visible for children? It is necessary to examine whether children have doubts concerning the old images or whether they still consider them to be obvious. Consequently, this paper examines children's concerns and criticisms about school or school friends and looks at whether their own images of "childhood" are changing. The findings can be summarized as follows. First, from the 1990s, and especially from the second half of the decade and the end of the century, children's doubts concerning the old images strengthened and "childhood," distinguished from adulthood, seemed to be coming to an end to them. However, on the other hand, they never ceased to believe in the image. Therefore, "childhood" for children seems to have entered a state of suspension, and the concept itself will not disappear. The second and more important finding is that children have come to use the rhetoric of individuality, or self. Of course, there is nothing new about young people seeking their own identities in the course of becoming adults. But the contemporary insistence on self-choice is new, because children are supposed to be "selves" now, and this rhetoric blurs the distinction between "children" and "adults." Accordingly, it is necessary to continue focus on this issue. At the same time, there is a need to place the findings in a wider context: such as a historical analysis of reflexivity in the educational system and a comparative analysis with other social systems.