The author in the article examines current problems in the study of childhood, which are closely related to determining the ways of forming the meanings of this phenomenon in history and culture. It is suggested that scientific approaches that proceed from pre-established knowledge about the phenomenon of childhood and reduce it to identifying a number of criteria and characteristics that allow a clear demarcation between children and adults are incorrect. The search for new methodologies for studying childhood in the context of interdisciplinary synthesis and philosophical phenomenological and hermeneutic perspectives for its consideration, focused on an essential and meaningful understanding of this phenomenon, and the formation of an integrative idea of it, is being updated.

phenomenon of childhood, adulthood, epistemology of childhood, child-adult relations, philosophy of childhood, image of childhood

Doronina Svetlana Gennadievna,  ,  orcid.org/0000-0002-0536-7587,  Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus