Abstract

This article describes the results of a qualitative study, based on the perspective of critical discourse analysis, which explores the discourse on childhood of 10- and 11-year-old boys and girls from a middle-income socioeconomic sector in Santiago, Chile. Among the findings, a complex and relational notion of childhood is highlighted. The children perceive themselves as overwhelmed and subjected to excessive demands by grown-ups, and conceive of adulthood as a state without real freedom due to the excessive demands of work and family.