The cultural ideal in childhood definition

Abstract

The representations about the phases of life have been changing significantly in the last decades. Concerning to children, moves from the idea of childhood as a modern invention, to the suspicion that was disappearing. At academic debates many think that the issues related to these changes, at times separating, at times bringing adults and children closer, not paying attention to what operates as a cultural ideal: the significant young/youth. This article points out a certain way of significant and what it determines as a cultural ideal, having the speculative devices in mind, that currently define the place of childhood, as the Barbie device analised at the end of this article.