[MUSIC] There are few cases in history where the birth of a can be precisely dated. The history of childhood is one of these exceptions. Indeed, this specific field of restorical interest was born in 1960 with the publication of the famous book, the French historian Phillippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood, A Social History of Family Life. True, even before this date, a fair amount of research had already been led by historical demographers after World War II. Biological structures of everyday life in societies. Among other features, they pointed out the mother of the nuclear family already prevailed back in the 17th century. Due to the high infant mortality rates Which of course limited the size of the families. But this demographic approach made it difficult to grasp exactly what will happen within Within these families, in terms of emotional relationship. Idea was to find all the all the archives, such as family archives and so on. In order to track down precisely the emergence of what he called Now, how could you translate this idea? You could translate it as a sense of a feeling about childhood. What he really meant by this expression is the will to consider the child as a specific being with specific need, requiring specific care, specific measures of protection. According to Philip it was not until the 17th century that regime societies recognized and valued childhood. As a consequence of this rather late discovery of childhood as put it Western societies would from then on develop a whole new range of attitudes, discourses, and institutions, specifically dedicated and directed to children. These institutions were intended to cater to their specific needs, for example, in terms of education. Now Arya's conclusions arose much controversies and criticisms. As a result, many historians have since then discovered or used various archives in order to contest or on the contrary to validate his opinions Anyway, no doubt the history of as a field of research was directly fed by such controversies, such debates, before becoming a separate discipline of its own right, something like 30 years ago. Philip Arya's main legacy was not only to draw attention to an area of research so far, barely studied. He also contributed to validate the idea. The chance within youth are no timeless categories. Rather These are categories which are socially constructed which means they change and evolve over time. And if the representations underlying the perceptions of childhood and youth evolve over decades or over centuries Then of course institutions or policies that embodied these very ideas change as well. Historians have then been prone to delve into the archives to try to understand precisely how childhood perceptions have changed over the centuries. And also, of course, what were the effects of these changes in terms of new policies, new institutions, new actors taking care of children and youth. This is particularly true with a dominant feature of contemporary politics, that of state intervention. Historians have dedicated many rich case studies to understand how and when states did make it a priority to safe guard, manage, control, and protect childhood. Other result is true of child who have now come of age. Case studies and scholarly works do abound, relating to all categories of children and youth. Even in terms of age, in terms of gender, in terms of social class, in term of ethnic origin. Their life courses have been duly explored, such as conditions of birth. Family ties, schooling, child labor and so on. And also, unconventional or exceptional children have also been widely considered and widely explored, as well as the special institutions which were entrusted with their care. Such as, for example, institutions for disabled children, orphans, or also young offenders, girls and boys. More recently, the life of children in the globalized world has also come to light, thanks to studies that strive to measure the impact of globalization process on the lives Of younger generations. Particularly of course in recent decades. Children may have been negatively affected by globalization. For example by colonization or migrations. But they may also have been positively impacted. For example By the modelization in favor of human rights, devices specific to children, for example, ILO campaigns against child labor. Finally, we can say that history of childhood appear as a quite dynamic field of research. And yet Some gray areas still remain. The most intriguing of them would be the difficulty to take stock of children's voices and feelings about their own experiences. Indeed the history of childhood as we do it today, still remains to use the words Of the British historian Harry Hendrick, the history of what adults had thought about and done to children. Let us hope that someday somehow historians will finally find out how to make these distant voices of children heard. This will further enrich Is already well known, centuries of childhood. [MUSIC]