Document Type : پژوهشی
Authors
1
Associate Professor, Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran .
2
M.A. in Educational Sciences, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman ,Kerman, Iran
3
Assistant Professor, Departement of Educational Science, Farhangian University ,Tehran, Iran
10.22067/fedu.2026.99637.1532
Abstract
This study investigates children’s lived experience of the concept of childhood and its educational implications. In contrast to previous research, which has often represented childhood from an adult-centric perspective, this qualitative study employs a descriptive phenomenological approach to foreground children’s own voices. Data were collected through semi-structured, narrative-oriented interviews with 60 elementary school children aged 7 to 10 years and analyzed using Colaizzi’s seven-step method. The analysis yielded 143 sub-themes, 21 organizing themes, and five implicit themes: children’s constrained agency; the tension between childhood desires and adult authority; cultural teachings and conceptualizations of childhood; emotional economy and material resources; and concealed anger/sadness along with a silence that encompasses harm and the denial of children’s competence. The findings indicate that, from the children’s perspective, childhood constitutes a unique, meaningful, and intrinsically valuable world—an experience interwoven with play, joy, freedom, and deep relationships, serving as a sphere for social agency and living in the present. Children view childhood as an autonomous period with its own necessities and meanings, not merely a transitional stage toward adulthood. Their lived experience reveals agency that is limited within cultural, emotional, and power structures—a context in which efforts to exercise agency and have their voices and experiences heard in the adult world sometimes manifest as silence or conformity. These results underscore the necessity of rethinking educational attitudes, which should be founded on recognizing children’s agency and voice and on understanding the exigencies of their lifeworld.
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