Tibetans' Views On Children

Children's lives,welfare,learning and development have long been a public interest.The experience of children's childhood is a premise for their future life.The way how we understand children can be inferred from many perspectives,including adults,family,society,and the nation.The way how we understand children is not only the foundation of Childhood Studies,but also the essence of education,it decides the direction of education.To explore the people,namely,adults' perspectives on children can attribute to the school education and also promote human civilization.Childhood Studies have provided us a new framework on the way how people understand children and childhood.It focuses on children's perspective,their empowerment,agency and rights.Childhood Studies emphasised that childhood is not universal,and it is important to understand childhood from various cultures underpin it.Different culture will construct different perspectives on children.A qualitative research methodology is proposed for this research.Based on the phenomenological framework,this research aims to explore how Tibetan parents and their children experienced their childhood,and present the construction of Tibetan childhood and its transitions.Two approaches were designed for data collection,including 1)semi structured individual interviews with parents in the form of photovoice;2)semi structured individual interviews with each child in the form of photovoice.Within the framework of Childhood Studies,this research discusses the way Tibetan understand children from several dimensions,which are: children's status,children's image,children's role,parents' education,childhood and adulthood,children's activity and children's right.The results show that although Tibetan adults as the object of views on children,the way how they understand children were constructed through the interaction with their children.Tibetan children as agents who construct the way how adults understand them.Further,how Tibetans understand their children were influenced by the traditional culture and belief.As the products of social construction,some evolutions happened in Tibetan children's lives through the introduction and development of education and new technologies.The way Tibetans understand children were changed at some extent,but there still exists some essence of how they understand children were maintained.Moreover,this research addresses that Tibetan children have been experiencing their childhoods in their distinctive cultural communities historically and contemporarily,and explains the factors that contribute to the evolution of how Tibetans understand children and the notion of children in Tibetan communities.In the end,this research discusses the importance that school education should combine how Tibetans' notion of children into educational practices.