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This set of reflections aims to indicate some possible paths, to be followed in the field of comparative education, which might contribute to defining the idea of childhood and to seeking the best form of educational care for children in the context of a European and world history of education. This new history, which also poses numerous methodological questions, has not yet been fully delineated in its development and its anthropological declinations: an attempt is made here, including through examples (which are in no way intended to be exhaustive, but only with the aim of clarifying the discourse), to give a glimpse of its possibilities in terms of epistemology, methodology and content.

On 21 February 2007, 15-year-old Carly Ryan’s body was found in the waters at Port Elliot in South Australia. A highly public investigation and trial followed, during which it was revealed that 48-year-old Melburnian man Garry Francis Newman had used a false online identity to seduce and lure Ryan to her death. In its coverage, the Australian media scrutinised Ryan’s online profiles and dramatised the dangers that cyberspace posed to young women. Examining these reports reveals wider anxieties over the internet blurring the boundary between public and private—a boundary historically assumed to keep young women safe. Journalists presented the online world as being both entirely public and inappropriately hidden from adult view. Cyberspace was framed as a place where young women could “act out” (self-sexualise) outside parents’ control and invite the “wrong” kind of attention. In this article, I contextualise this coverage within historic fears about stranger danger. I demonstrate how journalists drew from the contemporary debate in Australia surrounding the sexualisation of children in media—and its gendered nature. Further, I argue that the Australian media framed the internet as disrupting the idea of the family home as a safe haven and upsetting traditional parent–child relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This bibliography details women's history articles that have appeared in the Indiana Magazine of History during its 120 years of publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article, based on previously unpublished archival sources, examines the process of organizing the first pioneer detachments in Samara, as well as their activities in 1922–1923 using the comparative historical method and microhistorical approach, methods of social constructivism, political-legal and systemic approaches. The study is based on the study of individual incidents. Firstly, the authors prove that in the early 1920-ies there were many «disorganized» children on the streets of Samara, who made up the bulk of the first pioneer detachments of the city. The pioneer movement was formed by order of the Central Committee of the RKSM, had an ideological content and was introduced «from above». In Samara, children from the streets were attracted by playing on sports grounds, singing songs, and then by the external attributes of the children’s pioneer – a flag, a red banner, badges, and drumming. Secondly, behind the apparent simplicity of the children’s attitude towards the pioneers, a significant result was hidden: along with the red tie, over time, the names of leaders and politicians, revolutionary attributes, conversations about communism, a clear organization of collective detachment activities, wall newspapers, and socialist competitions became a habit, becoming part of life. The pioneer provided children with a space of expression and independent existence – within certain boundaries, strictly prescribed in the Charter and the oath that the children took when tying a red tie. The value system of the «new man», designed by the government, has acquired a dualistic character. It combined the values of sociocentric and anthropocentric nature. Also, thirdly, due to the lack of methodological support from the party, the guidance for the instructors-counselors was provided by random books and pamphlets about Boy scouts released in pre-revolutionary times. Many of these books were taken to the pioneer organization, both on methodological and practical issues. The conclusion is drawn about the importance of these three aspects in the formation of a pioneer organization in Samara.

This article examines the role, meaning, and practice of letter writing in the lives of two Finnish girls during the Second World War (WWII). We use a particular set of letters (N = 41) from the wartime letter collection kept in the Tampere University Folklife Archives and argue that they give us an interesting perspective on not only the girls’ wartime experiences, but also on the role of communication and pen-pal writing in everyday life. In particular, we focus on one evacuee – Ritva – who during the period 1939–1945 changed class six times, requiring her to constantly adapt to new class environments and peer relationships. However, from 1942 onwards, the correspondence with her pen pal Ella provided Ritva with a sense of continuous friendship free from the pressures of local peers. We suggest that pen-pal writing formed an arena of communication which allowed the two girls to share experiences, nurture mutual feelings, and give each other support – elements which might have sometimes been lacking in relationships they had locally with adults and peers at this time. In theoretical terms, this article is inspired by approaches from the history of experiences and history of emotions. These provide useful concepts for pinpointing the historical and cultural layers involved in the social process of cultivating a pen-pal correspondence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article analyzes modern approaches to the study of the childrens movement on the basis of historiographical sources, and the problem of interpretation of childrens texts in modern research, including at the regional level, is considered on the basis of archival sources. The scientific focus is historical anthropology. The leading principles are historicism and objectivity. In connection with the problems of research, it became necessary to turn to a micro-historical approach, political and legal, as well as systemic approaches. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by the new formulation of the problem in the study of the childrens movement, as well as by the fact that at the provincial level within the borders of the Samara Region, no one addressed the topic of the childrens movement of the first years of Soviet power at the new historiographical stage. The aim of the study is to study modern approaches in the study of the childrens movement in the first years of Soviet power, as well as the consideration of childrens texts at the provincial level. In the course of the study , the following results were obtained: 1) modern researchers strive to rid Soviet childhood of mythologization and analyze the methods, ways and means used by the Soviet government to implant new Soviet values in childrens consciousness; 2) in separate studies, the system of educating a new person through childrens fiction and educational literature, periodicals, as well as cinematography is considered; 3) the authors turn to the analysis of the process of generating an artistic image based on real historical events; 4) the basis of most studies are directive and administrative and accounting documents, and childrens sources occupy a much smaller place. The conclusion, according to the results, is as follows: childrens texts allow us to expand the boundaries of the historical vision of the problem of acquiring Sovietism. The involvement of sources of personal origin helps to resolve the issue of identifying the archetype of children in conditions of extreme dependence and pressure on them from the state.

In 2014, the Danish school system celebrated its 200-year anniversary with a five-volume publication entitled Dansk skolehistorie gennem 500 år (500 years of Danish school history). As editors-in-chief, we took our inspiration from the cultural turn within history more generally and the search for the black box of schooling among historians of education more specifically. Our ambition was to write a history about how schooling was done, experienced, negotiated, and contested by a range of agents, from pupils to parents, teachers, and authorities. We wanted to write the history of education as intimately connected to and intertwined with changing childhoods and broader cultural and social developments. In addition, we decided to write from the perspective of diversity with regard to agents, contexts, schools, sources, and methodologies. Our approach is new within Danish educational history writing and as such not yet reflected in international work on the Danish school system. The purpose of this article is therefore to present our arguments, chronologies, and conclusions. The article also introduces our research design and a description of four methodological tools we found helpful when writing the history of education from a bottom-up perspective. The article ends by outlining our main conclusions and reflecting on the challenges we encountered when opening "the black box of schooling". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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From Bill Kessen’s idea of the child as a “cultural invention” (Kessen, 1983) it follows that developmental psychology can-not function fruitfully without historical analysis. Developmentalists should stop “positivistic dreaming” and develop a historical developmental psychology. The history of childhood shows how a historical process of infantilization has tak-en place since Rousseau and the 19th century pedagogical and educational theories and institutions. In the 20th century a new process of de-infantilization took place, caused mainly by the modern mass media (Postman, 1982). It is demonstrat-ed how this led to the “disappearance of childhood”. Babies no longer were considered and studied as “empty-headed” (William James’ conception of the baby experiencing “one great blooming, buzzing confusion”): impressive new research methods and data “filled the baby’s brain” and made the baby much more human than ever before in history. With the narrowing of the gap between childhood and adulthood adolescence as a bridge is less necessary than before. Not only the disappearance of childhood is going on; at the same time there is a correlated disappearance of adolescence. The conclusion must be that the study of cognitive, social and personality development should take into consideration the cultural historical embeddedness.

From Bill Kessen's idea of the child as a "cultural invention" (Kessen, 1983) it follows that developmental psychology cannot function fruitfully without historical analysis. Developmentalists should stop "positivistic dreaming" and develop a historical developmental psychology. The history of childhood shows how a historical process of infantilization has taken place since Rousseau and the 19th century pedagogical and educational theories and institutions. In the 20th century a new process of de-infantilization took place, caused mainly by the modern mass media (Postman, 1982). It is demonstrated how this led to the "disappearance of childhood". Babies no longer were considered and studied as "empty-headed" (William James' conception of the baby experiencing "one great blooming, buzzing confusion"): impressive new research methods and data "filled the baby's brain" and made the baby much more human than ever before in history. With the narrowing of the gap between childhood and adulthood adolescence as a bridge is less necessary than before. Not only the disappearance of childhood is going on; at the same time there is a correlated disappearance of adolescence. The conclusion must be that the study of cognitive, social and personality development should take into consideration the cultural historical embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are multiple vantage points from which historians have observed the ways in which both diseased and healthy bodies (as well as their constituent parts) have served as tools of knowledge generation, instruction and coercion in the hands of medical practitioners. From spaces of formal, specialist education such as the medical school to more informal environments and modes of learning, there is a seemingly never-ending array of environments, actors and materials to consider when trying to construct a representative survey of the two fields. Focusing primarily on the British case, this article takes a selective view of the different kinds of environments, actors and approaches historians have used to understand pedagogies of health and medicine in the modern period before suggesting new avenues of potential inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditionally Catholic countries, First Communion has widely functioned as a key rite of passage. In the modern age, and in particular during the eighteenth century, children were not admitted to the sacrament of the Eucharist until adolescence or even until the age of twenty. The ceremony thus represented a rite of passage that marked the transition to adulthood. A reversal of tradition came in some pastoral experiences of the nineteenth century and was officially established by the decree Quam singulari Christus amore – ordered in 1910 by Pope Pius X – which set the age for receiving Holy Communion at around seven years. First Communion still retained the form of a rite of passage, albeit without the adultist religious language surrounding Confirmation and without the pessimism about childhood that had been inherited from the past. The new educational outlook initiated by Pius X was also confirmed by his successors. Analysis of official Church pronouncements, devotional literature for children, and selected religious images – examined with an interdisciplinary heuristic approach – allows to shed light on a key shift in the Italian Catholic educational imaginary over the first half of the twentieth century, when Communion was seen as a typical childhood experience, in accordance with the changes underway in the upbringing and socialization of children and with the educational theories that valued children’s spontaneity and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper studies ego-documents of Russian female historians written in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries, with a focus on the works of N.I. Gagen-Thorn, E.V. Gutnova, M.M. Levis, V.N. Kharuzina, S.V. Zhitomirskaya, E.N. Shchepkina, and N.D. Flittner. How do these authors, in their childhood descriptions, discuss their professional choices? By producing ego-documents, the female historians wanted to preserve their memory of childhood events in the form of a new historical source. In so doing they followed the principles that they also adhered to when wri- ting historical essays. At the same time their texts are very subjective: each reflects the respective researcher's personal experiences. Each text is unique, and there are few overlaps with the memoirs of other female historians of their time, or with those of younger colleagues. In many ways, the women were influenced by authors of the Russian memoirist tradition; they often adhered to self-censorship (even when there was no clear ideological pressure from society). As a result, the narrative about childhood turned into a narrative about the prerequisites for the self-identification of women as scientists. Memories became a form of self-representation, and this conditioned the selective nature of childhood narratives; later success in the profession was projected back onto childhood memories. The childhood narratives of Russian female historians differ from texts of their male colleagues: women preferred to describe their impressions with references to material artifacts and to everyday rituals, writing carefully about their emotional experiences. One of the most important subjects in these womens memoirs and diaries was when they for the first time experienced the gender conflict in their lives: when they understood that their scholarly ambition runs against the common attitudes about gender attitudes that they had internalized in early childhood.

Although there is a rich, original archive of Phillis Wheatley's poetry about children, Wheatley's role in writing the culture of American childhood has not been widely noted. Conversely, while little can be archivally reconstructed about Wheatley's young life, popular biographies of the poet have, since the nineteenth century, placed emphasis on her childhood precocity. This essay intervenes in the first problem and deconstructs the latter, arguing that Wheatley was a major architect of American childhood who carved political interventions in childhood's pliant terms, and who pressed audaciously on its hardening racial boundaries. Placing Wheatley at the center of the early American epistemic, pedagogical, and political struggle over childhood's meaning, this essay traces the dominant racial politics of childhood that came to diminish Wheatley—as either a childlike poet or an exceptional child—in dialogue with Wheatley's own invocations of childhood, family, knowledge, and freedom in her personal writings and published work. Reading Wheatley's elegies to deceased white children beside the poem in which she casts herself—"young in life"—this essay argues that Wheatley drafted early lines in modern American childhood's recognizable form, while expanding beyond the American imagination of childhood's cognitive, social, and racial limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Research on the history of childhood faces fundamental challenges in tracing children's voices. Not yet skilled in forms of written self-documentation, children leave few documents behind. Other forms of expression (i.e. drawings) must thus be recognised as valuable historical sources and appropriate methods must be applied. These research challenges are aggravated in regard to persecuted children under the National Socialist regime. Few artefacts produced by children have been preserved, and in many cases nobody is left to tell the stories attached to them. The rare preserved artefacts thus paradoxically refer to the absence of children's voices in history. Referring to the epistemological concept of the trace and a material culture perspective, I address some of these remarkable exceptions to discuss their potential and limitations as historical sources to research children's lives. Two drawings by an 11-year-old girl from her lessons at the Private Jewish Elementary School in Düsseldorf serve as the starting point of a case study. Beginning with the materiality this study raises further questions about conditions of origin and preservation. Furthermore I discuss the researcher's role in identifying artefacts as sources and creating meaning. In this way, I contribute to the methodological discussion of how research on children's history can draw on artefacts like drawings produced by children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the Civil War, state judges lost their long-held right to inquire into the legality of federal detentions. Habeas corpus—once almost solely the business of state courts—was largely transformed into a federal remedy. We argue that the wartime furor surrounding underage enlistees was a key factor in driving this legal change. Whereas scholarship on the use of habeas corpus at this time generally concentrates on cases involving freedom of speech or political association, thousands of parents and guardians also petitioned Union authorities and state courts to retrieve children who had enlisted without their consent. Parents, who understood their control over the personhood and labor of minors as one of the bedrocks of American liberty, angrily protested the state’s abrogation of their rights, while state court judges fought to retain their jurisdiction over such cases. We illuminate these conflicts by drawing on a rich array of sources that capture the perspectives of federal and state court judges, Lincoln Administration officials, elected representatives, military officers and parents, and minors themselves. In the process, we show the halting, contested nature of debates over habeas corpus, the outcome of which ultimately redefined the relationship between American citizens and their government, preventing aggrieved parents from using state courts to safeguard their rights against federal and military authorities, and blocking state courts from querying the legality of federal detentions of any kind.

Samenvatting: In dit essay wordt de geschiedenis van de opvattingen van kinderlijke ontwikkeling beschreven als een proces van infantilisering, waarin het kinderlijke tijdperk steeds langer wordt en de afstand tussen kinderen en volwassenen steeds groter. Rousseau gaf in de 18de eeuw met zijn Emile een sterke impuls aan de historische infantilisering. Hij wilde een nieuwe Franse samenleving; hij wees de heersende cultuur af en was daarmee een voorloper van de Franse revolutie. Hij beval aan dat kinderen pas laat in de ontwikkeling gingen lezen om niet beïnvloed te worden door de heersende cultuur. Het eerste boek voor zijn Émile was de Robinson Crusoë, die immers op een onbewoond eiland alles zelf moest uitvinden. In dit essay wordt aangetoond dat de Pinokkio van Collodi een vergelijkbare rol heeft gespeeld in het infantiliseringsproces: de Pinokkio is een oproep tot begrip van de eigen aard van kinderen: spontaniteit, impulsiviteit en een geleidelijke ontwikkeling naar volwassenheid. Ook Collodi was revolutionair en wilde een nieuwe Italiaanse samenleving. Zowel de Robinson Crusoë als de Pinokkio hebben wereldwijd bijgedragen aan de verdere infantilisering, aan de opvatting dat een natuurlijk ontwikkelingsproces noodzakelijk voorafgaat aan volwassenwording [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines the practice of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) specifically, explaining the choice of words and giving accepted definitions, as well as offering a definition of its own, i.e. that CSA is the disempowering and overpowering of children through sexual means. The paper aims to give an overview of the societal factors contributing to how CSA is framed and received in mainstream society. Throughout this piece of writing the concept of a taboo is used as an analytical category. The paper aims at presenting a wide-ranging view of the practice of CSA, using the writer's main societal reference point, that of the Anglo world, specifically calling on examples from the United Kingdom (UK) to contextualise the argument. The discussion frames CSA as a taboo, illustrating this through historical inquiry, with a focus on the evolution of morality surrounding the sexuality of children and the nature of acceptable sexual relations during the period of childhood. A (CSA) survivor perspective is offered in the form of personal biographical confession, as well as survivor narratives that are explored more broadly, pointing to those that society deems acceptable, or not. A triangulation between the taboo nature of the practice, the stigma it generates and the effect it has on childhood is drawn up. The impending effects of shame in processing CSA are explored in respect to disclosure and rehabilitation for those disclosing, but also for those being disclosed to, and society at large. Finally, a nuanced postcolonial approach is proposed, whereby CSA is framed as an invasion or overpowering of a body in much the same way one nation-state invades, land-grabs or takes legislative and governmental control over another landmass during the process of colonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on instructions and advice on making toys for children and by children, recommendations regarding their use, as well as organization of children's games. The temporal scope covers the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The aim of the present study is to describe selected ideas for making children's toys published in pedagogical press, women's magazines, and press for children and adolescents, as well as methodological pedagogy guidebooks. The article also describes recommendations for the use of the so-called educational toys, used for learning through play. The text contains critical descriptions of selected guides containing suggestions on the organization of children's games, addressed to children, parents and educators, as well as inspirations for games found in the literature and press addressed to the youngest readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a summary of the keynote panel conversation that took place as part of the “Childhood and Time” conference, May 10–12, 2021. The speakers respond to the question of how they place childhood in time relations, giving examples from their own research and outlining an agenda for considering time in childhood studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiences of children are notoriously elusive in the sources on which historians traditionally rely. This paper will discuss several projects in which Trove has expanded the history of childhood in Australia, uncovering a nation-wide trade in children through adoption advertisements, and enriching our knowledge of out-of-home care, and the many inquiries into its failings. Trove has democratised the practice of history – allowing care leavers and abuse survivors to research their own histories – and enabled new avenues for identifying microhistories. However, this article also argues that Trove-focused history without an understanding of context can be misleading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the education and upbringing of aristocrats in late imperial Russia (1855 - 1917). It draws mainly from sources of a personal nature (non-published and published memoirs and diaries). Their analysis shows the main elements, continuity and discontinuity in the education of boys and girls from aristocratic families during their childhood, i.e. from the age of six to twelve/thirteen. In the vast majority of cases, aristocrats' childhood memories were positive. The children's world was filled with studying and games, often in the idyllic setting of a country estate (usaďba). The study deals with educational priorities and an educational strategy concerning the future careers of Russian aristocrats. Besides other things, the author comments on the importance of education in the aristocratic value system. The article emphasizes the absolute predominance of the home education of aristocratic children, which lasted from the first half of the 19th century until the First World War and the Revolution. More significant changes in education became evident only in adolescence, which was more influenced by state educational reforms, growing civic awareness, and various ideas about the best preparation for future life and a career. Aristocratic families chose from among elite aristocratic schools, private lyceums, or state gymnasiums and the education of adolescent boys and girls was much more dynamic. The characteristic features of the educational process were a cosmopolitan orientation, an emphasis on versatility, and knowledge of foreign languages. Religion and the moral authority of parents played an important role in education, too. Over the centuries, parental involvement in child-rearing increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World War I represented a turning point not only for the emergence of the Lithuanian nation-state but also for the implementation of nation-building practices. Throughout wartime, the Lithuanian War Relief Committee profited from its position as a tool to develop a network of facilities devoted to children assistance. While having unprecedented rights to autonomously administer relief facilities, the Committee, as far as financial conditions allowed it, supported isolation in hostels as the favourite child relief format. Through formal and informal educational activities as well as the adoption of particular hygiene norms and, later, children relocation, the Lithuanian élite tried and transformed hostels and relief in veritable tools of nation-building aimed at transforming children in would-be conscious nationals. The goal to create prototypical Lithuanians, however, at least partially failed due by children's alternative (if not opposite) agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented which discusses topics within the issue including the impact of the two World Wars and the Cold War on childhood, and the relationship between political and social transformation processes and their implications for children's lives in the 20th century.

The animated Schoolhouse Rock! shorts that ABC ran between Saturday morning cartoons from 1973 through 1985 (and again in the 1990s) formed many children's understanding of civics and US history. The Schoolhouse Rock! cartoons, however, were better at celebrating the accomplishments of the United States than presenting varied perspectives or addressing difficult historical issues. So what lessons can this program offer to twenty-first century historians seeking to offer children a more inclusive and nuanced story of the past? This article uses oral histories, promotional materials, and corporate records to examine the process of making these wildly popular models of public history. It also hypothesizes how a Schoolhouse Rock! for the 2020s could bridge scholarly and public discussions about the relationship between civics and history, while simultaneously creating diverse and critical historical narratives that are (hopefully) as engaging and memorable to young consumers as the original series was for their parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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