Posted: December 30th, 2016

In America, we tend to think of childhood and even adolescence as a time of play and innocence, when young people should not have to worry about too much responsibility or burden

In America, we tend to think of childhood and even adolescence as a time of play and innocence, when young people should not have to worry about too much responsibility or burden. In contrast, in the low and some middle income countries around the world, children go to work at a very early age and do not experience the freedom and lack of concern that we in America tend to believe goes hand in hand with childhood.

In the United States, we tend to place great value on school and obtaining an education. Youngsters in other parts of the world don t have such opportunities. Do you think it is ethnocentric for people living in high income nations to condemn the practice of child labor because we think youngsters belong in school? Why or why not (Macionis, 2006, p. 52)?