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J Youth Adolescence (2014) 43:12201223 DOI 10.1007/s10964-014-0115-x
BOOK REVIEW
Kerry H. Robinson: Innocence, Knowledge, and the Construction of Childhood
Routledge, New York, NY, 2013, 207 pp, ISBN: 978-0415607636
Kiley Keefe
Received: 3 March 2014 / Accepted: 3 March 2014 / Published online: 11 March 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Innocence, Knowledge, and the Construction of Childhood, by Kerry H. Robinson, assesses how childrens access to knowledge is regulated and its impact on child development in terms of the susceptibility and defenselessness of the uninformed. The book is based on 15 years of research into child sexuality and examines the development of gender and sexual biases. Robinson argues that knowledge gleaned from studies steeped in real world experience, rather than societal norms and government regulations in the best interest of the child, should guide the development of sex education programs and child protection policies. He further argues that what is done in the name of the best interests of the child has the potential, in fact, to encourage their manipulation and susceptibility to abuse. This book takes a candid look at how the governance of children, in particular with regard to sensitive knowledge such as sexuality, impacts childhood through to adulthood as well as the parent/child relationship and the continuation of normative standards that are fraught with contradiction and irrationality.
The widely held belief that knowledge of sexuality promotes sexual promiscuity, along with an increased awareness of child abuse, has propagated stranger danger campaigns, while advances in technology have increased fears surrounding childrens access to adult information. Parental controls and media regulation are the desperate measures of adults who feel that childhood and innocence is threatened. Such censorship, Robinson maintains, forces our children to adopt normative standards without the benet of information critical to decision making and thoughtful evaluation of subjective ideas.
Robinson contends that strict regulation in the name of preserving innocence shields children from the very information that would empower and enlighten. Children are sexual beings; their sexuality needs to be addressed openly without forced suppression in a somewhat disguised attempt at their heteronormalization. Children are facing a world that is different from that of their parents and grandparents where the other (those who live outside of normative standards) are not so...