Philippe Ariès’s discovery of childhood after fifty years: the impact of a classic study on educational research

Les droits de l’enfant. Genèse, institutionnalisation et diffusion (1924-1989)

“…ne porte pas la même signification à l'époque étudiée par rapport à celle qui lui est opposée. À ce sujet, voir Archard (2004), Cunningham (2005), Dekker et Groenendijk (2012) et Heywood (2001 Qualifier de « nouvelle » l'attention portée aux enfants et à l'enfance, dès la deuxième moitié du xix e siècle, n'est pas à strictement parler anachronique vu que des variations d'ordre qualitatif et quantitatif peuvent être observées. Nous pourrions même, dans un souci de clarification terminologique, parler d'une attention renouvelée dans un double sens : premièrement au regard de la transformation profonde des intentions et des objectifs visés par l'étude de l'objet, et deuxièmement au sens littéraire du terme, induisant l'action de faire renaître ou de raviver des questionnements, des pratiques et des conceptions relatifs à l'enfance.…”

Educational Research: Material Culture and Its Representation

“…The famous exception with major impact on the history of education and childhood was the outsider Philippe Ariès (1914Ariès ( -1984 with his L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime , released in 1960Régime , released in , published in 1962 in English as Centuries of Childhood , and, according to Robert Woods, "highly infl uential not only in France but also, after translation, among a wide international audience" (Woods 2006 , p. 10;Dekker and Groenendijk 2012 ;Dekker et al 2012a ;Frijhoff 2012 ). The book became famous with its historical explanation of the existence of the modern family with its concentration on preparing children for adulthood and its affectionate parenting style, and with the coining of the concepts of 'le sentiment de la famille' and 'le sentiment de l'enfance' as explanatory concepts for that birth, or rebirth, from the late middle ages.…”

“…The book became famous with its historical explanation of the existence of the modern family with its concentration on preparing children for adulthood and its affectionate parenting style, and with the coining of the concepts of 'le sentiment de la famille' and 'le sentiment de l'enfance' as explanatory concepts for that birth, or rebirth, from the late middle ages. Being infl uential for historians and social scientists, this book became a founding text for the emerging discipline of history of education (Dekker and Groenendijk 2012 ). Although Ariès was apparently an Annales-like historian and got a professional formation as a demographic historian at the Sorbonne, he was no formal member of the Annales group until his appointment in 1978 when aged 64 as a director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (E.H.E.S.S.…”

“…), the successor of the Sixth Section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Burguière and Todd 2009 ;Alten et al 1986 ;Born 1964 ;Hutton 2004 ). Ariès called himself a 'historien du dimanche' and managed for many decades a tropical fruit trade information centre (Dekker and Groenendijk 2012 ). His appointment at the E.H.E.S.S.…”

“…According to the art historian Francis Haskell, "Philippe Ariès was far more aware than any of the Annales historians of the signifi cance of fi gurative sources" (Haskell 1993 , pp. 496-497, n. 21;Dekker and Groenendijk 2012 ).…”