Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

World Service,10 Jun 2017,40 mins

Childhood: From Toddlers to Teenagers

The Forum

Available for over a year

Why do humans have such a long period of immaturity? And how have our ideas about childhood changed through the ages and across the world? Bridget Kendall explores some of the key moments and figures in the history of childhood, including Confucian China, Victorian factories and the 'endless childhood' that some young people seem to be living today. Her guests are Alison Gopnik, Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley; Ping-chen Hsiung Professor of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Hugh Cunningham Professor of Social History at the University of Kent. Photo: a young girl walks through an entrance to a walled garden (BBC)

Programme Website
More episodes