Abstract
Childhood, in middle-class homes, is no longer the innocent, happy and carefree life that many of us, or our children, experienced decades ago. The matrix of easy access to gadgets and social media or games depicting sexual activity, violence and war on online platforms has deprived children of the innocence of childhood. It is no longer about playing outside with friends, running wild in parks and gardens, eating mangoes on hot summer afternoons or sweltering in the heat under slow-moving fans, awaiting the cool evening breeze. Adolescence is even worse. Apart from the different changes taking place in growing up, both biologically and psychologically, the liminal and complex stage of adolescence is under the strain of having to ‘fit into’ a rapidly evolving peer culture. This appears to be driven by the social and cultural impulses that result from a severe media onslaught. Children and adolescents are therefore now coping with more than just being themselves; they are being tunnelled through a storm into a hugely conflicting, deeply divisive and extremely influential ‘way’ of being. To be a young person in these muddled times is to inhabit a deeply confused, divided and violent world. And if we care about the future of the world and the well-being of humanity, children, adolescents and youth deserve our care and undivided attention. This book is therefore a welcome and timely addition to the growing literature on the social, cultural and importantly, psychological issues pertaining to children and adolescents.
In her introduction to the volume, Namita Ranganathan sets the tone for the book, highlighting the processes of development, as well as multiple forms of diversity and inclusion. She leads us through the growth processes of young children, which tend to be slower and reach a ‘plateau stage’ in late childhood. In particular, she emphasises the significance of the ‘growth curve’ for education. How children grow shapes their participation in the classroom and compels us to address the ways teachers choose to work with children. Adolescents face a sharper growth curve, with rapid physiological changes that impact their psychological development as well. These have consequences that require us to think outside the normative box of what to expect as adolescent behaviour and to bring ourselves to lend a more empathetic ear. Ranganathan also discusses the work of Piaget, Kohlberg and Vygotsky on the developmental processes in young children and adolescents. In addition, she briefly mentions Carol Gilligan’s work, which surpasses earlier work, as she pays attention to the developmental process of young girls, particularly in the context of an ‘ethics of care’. The gender dimension of growing up and its outcome for different categories of individuals are important aspects of understanding adolescence.
Gilligan has made a seminal contribution by not merely offering a critique of the more male-centred perspective offered by Kohlberg and other developmental theorists, but also by understanding the vastly different perspective offered by young girls. Vishakha Kumar, in her chapter on ‘The Adolescent World’, examines Gilligan’s contribution to the discipline through her detailed exposition of Gilligan’s perspective in the context of both classical and contemporary theorists of adolescence, such as Freud, Erikson, Piaget and others. This chapter, in fact, focuses on contemporary research on adolescence, thereby foregrounding the more impactful aspects of this work in understanding the modern-day young. An important finding is paying attention to ‘voice’ among adolescents, as it is a ‘powerful psychological instrument...connecting inner and outer worlds’ (Gilligan, as cited by Kumar, p. 86). How do educators listen to this voice, with empathy and understanding, and incorporate it into their everyday interactions with the young in schools? This is one aspect of the book where the authors try to comprehend multiple intersecting issues, such as the impact of the digital world on children and adolescents (Chandan Shrivastava), peer engagement (Rashi Mukhopadhyay), gender-related issues (Neema Chaurasiya), diversity and inclusion (Yukti Sharma), and multiple intelligences (Charu Sharma).
Another important dimension that the book uncovers is the multilayered and cross-cultural component of adolescence in different societies. While race and class may be significant criteria affecting the experience of adolescence in one society, class and caste may play a more important role in another. Similarly, gender, ethnicity and religion may characterise the transition into adulthood in different ways. Paying attention to the cross-cultural variations among the young is critical to developing a global perspective among students and scholars of education. Margaret Mead and her findings in Samoa in the Pacific, contested as her research methods may be, revolutionised how Americans began to understand their adolescents and their behaviour. In the book under review, Vishakha Kumar’s chapter discusses the important work of T.S. Saraswathi, raising some important questions indicating variations in understanding adolescence in India, such as the rural–urban divide, social class and gender, all of which are markedly different from conventional understandings that are grounded in a western developmental approach. Gender is an important construct in this context, for example, as Saraswathi’s work shows us, in India, girls may not experience adolescence as a separate stage in the developmental process, as they may be thrust into marriage at an early stage. There can therefore be no uniform approach to understanding childhood and adolescence across cultures, and we must record variations that highlight important differences in terms of both development as well as the lived experience of young persons.
Seminal to understanding childhood and adolescence, in whichever part of the world, is a focus on the self and identity. The formative years of childhood fashion the self in different ways, depending on social and cultural factors, including location and class. The chapter by Toolika Wadhwa undertakes this somewhat onerous task, providing a psychological dimension to the social and cultural contexts in which children grow up. Understanding the self is a humongous task beset with different psychological, religious and philosophical points of view. Unpacking this in the context of children and adolescents is even more difficult, as both stages of human development are fluid, liminal stages and the self is not a fixed entity. The chapter considers and briefly explains the different approaches to understanding the self, beginning with the work of William James, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and others. While the chapter provides a competent summary and brief criticism of different approaches, it points to the limitations of these perspectives, as they are based on western ideas of individualism, as opposed to Asian cultures, which Wadhwa characterises as ‘collectivist’ in nature. Wadhwa concludes by pointing to the work of Sudhir Kakar in the Indian context, wherein a familial and collective home and parenting style is being gradually transformed into a more individualist approach.
An important chapter by Shivani Arora emphasises the need to look beyond the gender binary and pay attention to the gender-diverse child. In the world of education, the significance of this perspective cannot be overemphasised. Every student–teacher and in-service teacher needs to understand this perspective, as this aspect of gender identity is increasingly prevalent in school settings. Teachers are often unaware of how to deal with students who express gender diversity and tend to label or judge them, leading to great insecurity, low self-esteem and a turbulent perception of themselves that does not augur well for the healthy development of children and adolescents. Beginning with a moving description of one such individual, the chapter examines and dismisses several myths that are rife in social settings and influence teachers’ and students’ attitudes. Arora also provides a succinct understanding of transgender identity and transsexuality, which helps in unpacking the multiple intersecting issues around trans people and their lives in a cultural landscape that still needs to acknowledge and understand gender diversity. The recent Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026, has raised further dilemmas for the trans community and also needs to be understood in all its dimensions. In this context, as well, Arora’s contribution is a very important part of this book that needs to be compulsory reading for teachers in our schools.
The last two chapters in the book offer crucial insights into childhood from psychological and philosophical points of view. Sandeep Kumar warns us of the dangers of understanding childhood only from the point of view of the adult, as well as of objectifying children and childhood. Through a brief vignette of a classroom setting, Kumar shows us the limitations of adult-centred education and points to the need to allow children to discover the world themselves. Educational spaces must construct spaces and programmes that enable such exploration and learning. In this country, we tend to have a very deterministic view of what learning is, even when we are considering it from the child’s point of view. The need to be more flexible and open in government planning and implementation of early childhood education is essential. This means allowing educators to work creatively in different cultural and social contexts by evolving programmes and strategies that work best in their particular settings. The experience of ‘multiple childhoods’ implies that policymakers and educators must simultaneously allow for a variety of creative programmes, prepared on the ground, for varied contexts, to enable learning in a positive and sustainable environment.
The final chapter by Vikas Baniwal is a reflective piece, urging educators to view children from a non-developmental perspective. Instead of viewing children as evolving and thereby improving over a period of time in different, well-marked stages until they reach adulthood, considered an attainment indicative of maturity, Baniwal argues that children are capable of critical thinking and ethical reasoning in their early years. This is well borne out by the Philosophy for Children movement, which recognises children’s capacity for dialogical inquiry through their natural curiosity. In the Philosophy for Children sessions, children are not treated as unknowing or insensitive underdeveloped beings. Rather, with a facilitator, children are able to understand and examine issues such as justice and inclusion through ‘strong moral reasoning’ with a ‘rational justification’. Such an approach to children and mode of learning has, in turn, a positive outcome for educational achievement as well. The movement has spread across different countries and is in practice in schools, teacher training institutions and universities worldwide.
Baniwal’s essay provides an excellent closure to the volume, as it compels us to rethink childhood in a totally different way. This perspective understands children as both uniquely positioned to perceive things as they are and capable of critical thinking and philosophical inquiry. Dialogue is a profoundly useful tool for engaging with children, in building relationships with them, and in understanding the diverse worlds children inhabit. By raising questions about the developmental approach to understanding children, Baniwal has drawn attention to the dilemmas educators face: of slotting children into age-appropriate silos, of having expectations about them that are tethered to these silos, and of labelling children who diverge as deficient, deviant, or underdeveloped. How we understand children and adolescents impacts the way we engage with them in educational contexts. This book provides insights into how we may do this through a range of perspectives that dwell on children’s lived experiences as well as on the educators’ efforts to look at children as knowing subjects, capable of critical and rational thought. At the same time, we must ensure that adolescents are not neglected through their struggles with physical changes and the emotional turbulence they may undergo. An empathetic, compassionate and aware approach to children and adolescents is essential to our role as educators, and the essays in this book compel us to work in that direction.
