Innocence and Childhood

The notion of innocence refers to children’s simplicity, their lack of knowledge, and their (assumed or conceded) purity not yet spoiled by mundane affairs. Such innocence is seen as the promise of a renewal of the society through children. This is why the idea often accompanies nation-building processes. The emphasis on childlike innocence is usually a call for the protection of children. This obligation discriminates on the basis of race, class, and nationality, and it does not benefit all children. Innocence has been ascribed to children at all times, and by no means only by Western societies of the nineteenth century, as is sometimes oversimplified today. But the content and social function of such glorifying valuations show considerable variation over time and context and the valuation is never unanimous among contemporaries. Innocence used to be a religious concept. With the Enlightenment nature becomes a new point of reference. From the nineteenth century onward, the idea of children’s innocence is interrelated with children’s sexuality. Innocence is not a scientific term; therefore, the numerous studies concerning processes, seminal ideas, and functions of the value assessment of children and childhood do not constitute a unified research area. Researchers deal with questions of children’s innocence often rather implicitly. They do so while analyzing the social construction and reconstruction of childhood in different historical and contemporary contexts. They do so as well in the interpretation of classic pedagogy, as innocence is a conceptual element in the writings of several pedagogues. Last but not least, we find references to notions of innocence in studies on discourses and political programs concerning children’s sexuality and in the scientific reconstruction of “moral panics”: public outcries about improper childhoods. Put together, these studies, which are scattered over multiple research fields, support the following conclusions: (1) various value assessments of children may be found at all times, the notion of innocence is never uncontested; (2) historical notions of innocence are complex and may as well recognize children’s agency; (3) the attribution of innocence to children is often functionalized by interest groups to support their claims. It may, therefore, be a value assessment of little benefit to children, but of great benefit to interest groups; (4) while the attribution of innocence has had a clear reference to religion and nature implicating far-reaching assumptions concerning humankind, it is narrowed down to debates on children’s sexuality and sexual endangerment in the early twenty-first century.