Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
- LAST REVIEWED: 26 August 2014
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2024
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0149
- LAST REVIEWED: 26 August 2014
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2024
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0149
Introduction
Current research on the evolution of childhood is largely interdisciplinary, highlighting the significance of biosocial perspectives that integrate cross-cultural variation, growth and development, ecology, and adaptation. Evolutionary studies of childhood are integral to understanding how this life history stage compares to that of other mammals, in general, and to that of nonhuman primates, in particular. An understanding of how human childhood differs across primate taxa and fossil hominin species can inform our understanding of the evolution of growth and development, cognition, prosociality, and many other notable hallmarks of human evolution. Increasingly, evolutionary studies of childhood view this developmental phase as culturally diverse and biologically based. The evolution of childhood has been explored most notably within the domains of anthropology, psychology, and human development, and the readings selected here reflect those academic traditions. Much of the most relevant work in the evolutionary study of childhood focuses on the intersection between biological processes and social dynamics. For further discussions, not explicitly evolutionary in their approach, see Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies articles Archaeology of Childhood and Anthropology of Childhood.
General Overviews
The evolution of childhood has been explored most notably within the domains of anthropology, psychology, and human development. The key texts in this field offer an integration of both biological and social perspectives. Small 2001 provides an overview that is targeted to the interested general reader and reviews the relevant research in evolutionary biology, human development, and child psychology. Panter-Brick 1998 is an edited volume providing biosocial and comparative socioecological perspectives, respectively. Both compilations provide multiple perspectives on growth and development, reproductive ecology, and life history. Lancy 2022 presents a comprehensive review of the corpus of literature on childhood, incorporating work in anthropology, sociology, history, psychology, and evolutionary biology. Narváez, et al. 2014 is a multidisciplinary edited volume on the evolutionary foundations of attachment and child development and includes the most current data, theory, and practice in the fields of developmental and evolutionary psychology in regard to child development and attachment processes. Konner 2011 provides an ambitious and wide-ranging tome, offering a distinctly Darwinian interpretation of human development.
Konner, Melvin. The Evolution of Childhood: Relationships, Emotion, Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1p6hnrx
A Darwinian interpretation of human development, this thorough analysis of childhood within an evolutionary framework explores the links between an extended period of dependency with brain growth, cooperation, and social behavior. Detailed discussion of play, cognition, and cultural evolution successfully link biological, psychological, neurological, and ethnographic approaches to understanding childhood. Also see Social Learning.
Lancy, David F. The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, and Changelings. 3d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
This comprehensive literature review on childhood successfully integrates perspectives from anthropology, sociology, history, psychology, and biology. Lancy explores the myriad ways that children are viewed cross-culturally, examining family formation, constellation of caregivers, work, education, foundations of play, and the formal and informal ways in which children acquire their culture.
Narváez, Darcia, Kristin Valentino, Agustín Fuentes, James J. McKenna, and Peter Gray, eds. Ancestral Landscapes in Human Evolution: Culture, Childrearing and Social Wellbeing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199964253.001.0001
An ambitious edited volume covering a wide range of topics in the domains of psychology and anthropology, including attachment, cross-cultural data on child development and childrearing, evolution of family formation, hunter-gatherer childhood, and mammalian development (with a focus on nonhuman primates). Targeted to specialists, researchers, and students.
Panter-Brick, Catherine, ed. Biosocial Perspectives on Children. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Integrating biological and social perspectives, this volume explores evolutionary dimensions of growth and development, social constructions of childhood, reproductive ecology of child health and survival, and cross-cultural perspectives on child development. Targeted to undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of anthropology, developmental psychology, human ecology, and human evolution.
Small, Meredith F. Kids: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Raise Young Children. New York: Anchor, 2001.
Written by an anthropologist who studies the evolution of human behavior, this popular science book explores child development through age six. Small successfully integrates research in human biology and evolution with research on cross-cultural variation. The topics that Small tackles include human growth, language acquisition, emotional development, and identity formation.
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Article
- Abduction of Children
- Aboriginal Childhoods
- Addams, Jane
- ADHD, Sociological Perspectives on
- Adolescence and Youth
- Adolescent Consent to Medical Treatment
- Adoption and Fostering
- Adoption and Fostering, History of Cross-Country
- Adoption and Fostering in Canada, History of
- Advertising and Marketing, Psychological Approaches to
- Advertising and Marketing, Sociocultural Approaches to
- Africa, Children and Young People in
- African American Children and Childhood
- After-school Hours and Activities
- Aggression across the Lifespan
- Ancient Near and Middle East, Child Sacrifice in the
- Animals, Children and
- Animations, Comic Books, and Manga
- Anthropology of Childhood
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Ariès, Philippe
- Art History, Children in
- Attachment in Children and Adolescents
- Australia, History of Adoption and Fostering in
- Australian Indigenous Contexts and Childhood Experiences
- Autism, Females and
- Autism, Medical Model Perspectives on
- Autobiography and Childhood
- Benjamin, Walter
- Bereavement
- Best Interest of the Child
- Bioarchaeology of Childhood
- Body, Children and the
- Body Image
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Boy Scouts/Girl Guides
- Boys and Fatherhood
- Breastfeeding
- Bronfenbrenner, Urie
- Bruner, Jerome
- Buddhist Views of Childhood
- Byzantine Childhoods
- Care, Early Childhood Education and
- Child and Adolescent Anger
- Child Beauty Pageants
- Child Homelessness
- Child Mortality, Historical Perspectives on Infant and
- Child Protection
- Child Protection, Children, Neoliberalism, and
- Child Public Health
- Child Trafficking and Slavery
- Childcare Manuals
- Childhod, Agency and
- Childhood and Borders
- Childhood and Empire
- Childhood as Discourse
- Childhood, Confucian Views of Children and
- Childhood, Memory and
- Childhood Publics
- Childhood Studies and Leisure Studies
- Childhood Studies in France
- Childhood Studies, Interdisciplinarity in
- Childhood Studies, Posthumanism and
- Childhoods in the United States, Sports and
- Childism
- Children and Dance
- Children and Film-Making
- Children and Money
- Children and Social Media
- Children and Sport
- Children and Sustainable Cities
- Children as Language Brokers
- Children as Perpetrators of Crime
- Children, Code-switching and
- Children in the Industrial Revolution
- Children with Autism in a Brazilian Context
- Children, Young People, and Architecture
- Children's Humor
- Children’s Museums
- Children’s Parliaments
- Children’s Reading Development and Instruction
- Children's Views of Childhood
- China, Japan, and Korea
- China's One Child Policy
- Citizenship
- Civil Rights Movement and Desegregation
- Class
- Classical World, Children in the
- Clothes and Costume, Children’s
- Collective Memory in Latin America, Childhoods and Collect...
- Colonial America, Child Witches in
- Colonialism and Human Rights
- Colonization and Nationalism
- Color Symbolism and Child Development
- Common World Childhoods
- Competitiveness, Children and
- Conceptual Development in Early Childhood
- Congenital Disabilities
- Constructivist Approaches to Childhood
- Consumer Culture, Children and
- Consumption, Child and Teen
- Conversation Analysis and Research with Children
- Critical Approaches to Children’s Work and the Concept of ...
- Crying
- Cultural psychology and human development
- Debt and Financialization of Childhood
- Disability
- Discipline and Punishment
- Discrimination
- Disney, Walt
- Divorce And Custody
- Dolls
- Domestic Violence
- Drawings, Children’s
- Early Childhood
- Early Childhood Care and Education, Selected History of
- Eating disorders and obesity
- Education: Learning and Schooling Worldwide
- Environment, Children and the
- Environmental Education and Children
- Ethics in Research with Children
- Eugenics
- Europe (including Greece and Rome), Child Sacrifice in
- Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
- Family Meals
- Fandom (Fan Studies)
- Fathers
- Female Genital Cutting
- Feminist New Materialist Approaches to Childhood Studies
- Feral and "Wild" Children
- Fetuses and Embryos
- Filicide
- Films about Children
- Films for Children
- Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and
- Folklore
- Food
- Foundlings and Abandoned Children
- Freud, Anna
- Freud, Sigmund
- Friends and Peers: Psychological Perspectives
- Froebel, Friedrich
- Gangs
- Gay and Lesbian Parents
- Gender and Childhood
- Generations, The Concept of
- Geographies, Children's
- Gifted and Talented Children
- Global South, Skilling Youth in the
- Globalization
- Growing Up in the Digital Era
- Hall, G. Stanley
- Happiness in Children
- Hindu Views of Childhood and Child Rearing
- Hispanic Childhoods (U.S.)
- Historical Approaches to Child Witches
- History of Childhood in America
- History of Childhood in Canada
- HIV/AIDS, Growing Up with
- Homeschooling
- Humor and Laughter
- Images of Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age in Children’s ...
- Infancy and Ethnography
- Infant Mortality in a Global Context
- Innocence and Childhood
- Institutional Care
- Intercultural Learning and Teaching with Children
- Islamic Views of Childhood
- Japan, Childhood in
- Juvenile Detention in the US
- Key, Ellen
- Klein, Melanie
- Labor, Child
- Latin America
- Learning, Language
- Learning to Write
- Legends, Contemporary
- Literary Representations of Childhood
- Literature, Children's
- Love and Care in the Early Years
- Magazines for Teenagers
- Maltreatment, Child
- Maria Montessori
- Marxism and Childhood
- Masculinities/Boyhood
- Material Cultures of Western Childhoods
- Mead, Margaret
- Media, Children in the
- Media Culture, Children's
- Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Childhoods
- Menstruation
- Middle Childhood
- Middle East
- Migration
- Miscarriage
- Missionaries/Evangelism
- Moral Development
- Moral Panics
- Mothers
- Multi-culturalism and Education
- Music and Babies
- Nation and Childhood
- Native American and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood
- New Reproductive Technologies and Assisted Conception
- Nursery Rhymes
- Organizations, Nongovernmental
- Orphans
- Parental Gender Preferences, The Social Construction of
- Parenting
- Pediatrics, History of
- Peer Culture
- Perspectives on Boys' Circumcision
- Peter Pan
- Philosophy and Childhood
- Piaget, Jean
- Play
- Politics, Children and
- Postcolonial Childhoods
- Post-Modernism
- Poverty, Rights, and Well-being, Child
- Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica Childhoods
- Premodern China, Conceptions of Childhood in
- Prostitution and Pornography, Child
- Psychoanalysis
- Queer Theory and Childhood
- Race and Ethnicity
- Racism, Children and
- Radio, Children, and Young People
- Readers, Children as
- Refugee and Displaced Children
- Reimagining Early Childhood Education, Reconceptualizing a...
- Relational Ontologies
- Relational Pedagogies
- Rights, Children’s
- Risk and Resilience
- Russia
- School Shootings
- Sex Education in the United States
- Sexuality
- Siblings
- Siblings, Learning Disabilities and
- Social and Cultural Capital of Childhood
- Social Habitus in Childhood
- Social Movements, Children's
- Social Policy, Children and
- Socialization and Child Rearing
- Socio-cultural Perspectives on Children's Spirituality
- Sociology of Childhood
- South African Birth to Twenty Project
- South Asia
- South Asia, History of Childhood in
- Special Education
- Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
- Spock, Benjamin
- Sports and Organized Games
- Street Children
- Street Children And Brazil
- Subcultures
- Sure Start
- Teenage Fathers
- Teenage Pregnancy
- Television
- The Bible and Children
- The Harms and Prevention of Drugs and Alcohol on Children
- The Spaces of Childhood
- Theater for Children and Young People
- Theories, Pedagogic
- Tourism
- Toys
- Transgender Children
- Tweens
- Twins and Multiple Births
- Unaccompanied Migrant Children
- United Kingdom, History of Adoption and Fostering in the
- United States, Schooling in the
- Value of Children
- Views of Childhood, Jewish and Christian
- Violence, Children and
- Visual Representations of Childhood
- Voice, Participation, and Agency
- Vygotsky, Lev and His Cultural-historical Approach to Deve...
- War
- Welfare Law in the United States, Child
- Well-Being, Child
- Western Europe and Scandinavia
- Western Literature, The Urban Child in
- Witchcraft in the Contemporary World, Children and
- Work and Apprenticeship, Children's
- Young Carers
- Young Children and Inclusion
- Young Children’s Imagination
- Young Lives
- Young People, Alcohol, and Urban Life
- Young People and Climate Activism
- Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Co...