selection of topics or concepts to be taught to early adolescent stage
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Children between the ages of 6 and 12 are in the age period commonly referred to as middle childhood. As an age group, 6- to 12-year-olds are less obviously set apart than infants, adolescents, and even preschool children are in most Western societies. Nevertheless, the implicit grouping of ages 6-12 appears to be neither an idiosyncratic invention of Western cultures nor merely a category by default among arbitrarily defined periods of human development. Rather, these years universally mark a distinctive period between major developmental transition points.
In diverse cultures the 5-7 age period is regarded as the beginning of the ''age of reason'' (Rogoff et al., 1975). Children are assumed to develop new capabilities at this age and are assigned roles and responsibilities in their families and communities. Middle childhood has also been differentiated from adolescence cross-culturally, largely by the onset of puberty. Recent emphasis on cognitive differences between 10- to 12-year-olds and relatively mature adolescents has also contributed to popular and scholarly distinctions between middle childhood and adolescence.
Historically, in many cultures the age of 6 or 7 was the time at which children were absorbed into the world of adults, helping shoulder family responsibilities and fill work roles alongside their elders. Only in recent centuries have changing concepts of the family and the advent of formal schooling removed children of this age from wide participation in adult society (Aries, 1962). Today and for most of this century, the ages of 6-12 have continued to be set apart from younger ages because they correspond to the first 6 of the 12 compulsory school years. The segregation of children ages 6-12 in elementary schools provides a distinctive basis for the social definition of children and a social structure that constrains and channels development during this period.
Increasingly, however, the social norms and structures that determine the age grading of 6- to 12-year-olds are being blurred by secular trends toward earlier schooling and earlier puberty. Growing numbers of children younger than age 6 are beginning some kind of formal schooling, sometimes compulsory. The trend toward earlier puberty means that many 10-, 11-, and 12-year-olds are experiencing the physical changes traditionally associated with adolescence but out of synchrony with the transition into the teen years. The impact of this secular trend can be seen in experiments with school organizations in the past decade in an attempt to find workable age groupings for children whose physical, cognitive, and social characteristics are in transition. The term preteen has emerged to acknowledge this earlier advent of teenage characteristics.