ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces some philosophical ideas pertaining to childhood and the key issues in contemporary debates regarding childhood. It examines different accounts of childism and adultism and how they open up thinking about positions of children and relationships between adults and children. Plato argued that children should be removed from their parents for the purposes of education, and placed under the guidance of guardians, so that training could be strictly controlled and access to arts and literature carefully censored. Aristotle's recommendations for children, resting on the idea that reasonable life is the way to happiness, indicate that the best approach to curriculum planning is that 'reasonable adults know what is best for their merely wilful charges'. The chapter concludes with a case study, philosophy for children, an educational approach that raises new questions about childhood and philosophy. Childhood studies are multi- and interdisciplinary, drawing from a variety of subjects such as anthropology, psychoanalysis, history, sociology, psychology, literature and philosophy.
