What can not be said: the failure of the ‘child’s century’

The author analyses the dramatic problem facing us today: on the one hand, laws, universal declarations on the rights of children and highly advanced theories and experiments in defending and protecting childhood have evolved but, on the other, we can observe with anguish the proliferation of violence in general and definitely great violence against children. The author asks why all the great theoretical and scientific progress, the increased awareness of the problems of childhood, the social and socio-educational services at the disposal of families, the supervision and constant training of operators, the spread of blogs and in general of websites on children, fail to have a sufficient impact on the constant violation of childhood. Our society moves in a deep-reaching and radical traumatization, which has to do with the violence that human beings have always perpetrated on one another, not only physically or sexually but also psychologically and with education. The traumatization has led to dissociation, through phenomena of negation and repression of pain in contemporary society. The author points out the need to proceed with a lucid although painful acknowledgement of the state of things, acting through educational practices aimed at repairing and empowerment.

Keywords:abuse, childhood, trauma, repression, education

Maria Grazia Riva, What can not be said: the failure of the ‘child’s century’ in "EDUCATION SCIENCES AND SOCIETY" 1/2017, pp , DOI: 10.3280/ess1-2017oa4970