Education, parenting and concepts of childhood in England, c. 1945 to c. 1979
Both education and parenting became increasingly ‘child-centred’, or ‘progressive’, in post-war England. This article contends that the impact of this shift for concepts of childhood, and for children themselves, was equivocal. Progressive methods were physically and emotionally demanding for both t...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Routledge
2016
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| _version_ | 1797088273681612800 |
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| author | Tisdall, L |
| author_facet | Tisdall, L |
| author_sort | Tisdall, L |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Both education and parenting became increasingly ‘child-centred’, or ‘progressive’, in post-war England. This article contends that the impact of this shift for concepts of childhood, and for children themselves, was equivocal. Progressive methods were physically and emotionally demanding for both teachers and parents, and popularised versions of developmental psychology and psychoanalysis shaped a limiting concept of the child. This article also suggests, in line with recent work by Thomson and Shapira, that changing concepts of childhood map democratic selfhood because the capabilities that children lacked were those that must be possessed by the adult citizen. By exploring how children were defined in relation to adults, and how adults’ needs were increasingly subordinated to those of the child, this article also begins to question how we might usefully use age as a ‘category of historical analysis’. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T02:47:40Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:ac9408b1-67cf-44db-9860-75969d9ca462 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T02:47:40Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Routledge |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:ac9408b1-67cf-44db-9860-75969d9ca4622022-03-27T03:29:55ZEducation, parenting and concepts of childhood in England, c. 1945 to c. 1979Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:ac9408b1-67cf-44db-9860-75969d9ca462Symplectic Elements at OxfordRoutledge2016Tisdall, LBoth education and parenting became increasingly ‘child-centred’, or ‘progressive’, in post-war England. This article contends that the impact of this shift for concepts of childhood, and for children themselves, was equivocal. Progressive methods were physically and emotionally demanding for both teachers and parents, and popularised versions of developmental psychology and psychoanalysis shaped a limiting concept of the child. This article also suggests, in line with recent work by Thomson and Shapira, that changing concepts of childhood map democratic selfhood because the capabilities that children lacked were those that must be possessed by the adult citizen. By exploring how children were defined in relation to adults, and how adults’ needs were increasingly subordinated to those of the child, this article also begins to question how we might usefully use age as a ‘category of historical analysis’. |
| spellingShingle | Tisdall, L Education, parenting and concepts of childhood in England, c. 1945 to c. 1979 |
| title | Education, parenting and concepts of childhood in England, c. 1945 to c. 1979 |
| title_full | Education, parenting and concepts of childhood in England, c. 1945 to c. 1979 |
| title_fullStr | Education, parenting and concepts of childhood in England, c. 1945 to c. 1979 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Education, parenting and concepts of childhood in England, c. 1945 to c. 1979 |
| title_short | Education, parenting and concepts of childhood in England, c. 1945 to c. 1979 |
| title_sort | education parenting and concepts of childhood in england c 1945 to c 1979 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tisdalll educationparentingandconceptsofchildhoodinenglandc1945toc1979 |