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The paper explores the interaction of culture and political structures on social movement activities by examining the "use" of children - their images, appeals to their corporeal, spiritual and civic health, etc. - in the collective action frames devised by opposing sides of the Newfoundland "Confederation debate" of 1948. The messages concerning children appearing in the most partisan rhetoric produced by supporters and opponents of union with Canada were shaped by the cultural specificity of the political structures surrounding children in Newfoundland. In particular, the cultural link between children and the state that prevailed in Britain and Canada at the time, that which presented children as "future citizens" best nurtured by the state, was undeveloped in 1948 Newfoundland, owing in part to political structures that supported denominational schooling in the country. As a result, pro- and anti-Confederate interests were compelled to frame the Newfoundland "nation" in ways that diverged from more familiar discourses on children and nation. The paper shows how the political structures surrounding children and the corresponding cultural construction of children can shape nationalist debates, and highlights the restrictive as well as enabling aspects of culture on social movement activities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper represents my attempt to systematize research around children and the nation by 1) classifying approaches taken to the study of the child and nation; then 2) offering comment on how such a classification might help to better conceptualise and analyse the link between children and the modern nation. I propose that studies pertaining to the child and the nation fall into three categories: how the nation affects the child; how "the child" affects the nation; and their interactive effects. The first two categories, I argue, produce research that is largely descriptive in nature. The last encompasses research that ponders the deeper ways that constructions of children and childhood interrelate with developments in the modern nation-state. Both are required to expand our knowledge of the links between children and the nation: descriptive studies to continue to draw attention to the (often overlooked) presence of children in national discourse and the varied ways they participate in national processes; and analytical studies to link children and childhood to wider debates on the modern state and the conditions of modernity. I then ponder some of the advantages and implications of sorting and pursuing research on children and the nation in these ways, providing examples of some of what I feel is the most compelling scholarship and that holds the most promise for "bringing children in" to the study of nations and of politics more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]