Children, Childhood and English Society, 1880–1990

This study combines historical research with that of social scientists to produce a concise and reliable account of the evolution of some of the most important developments in adult-child relations during the last one hundred years. It will be essential reading for students of social history, education, sociology and social policy.

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This book is intended to be a guide to the burgeoning literature on the history of childhood. Harry Hendrick reviews the most important debates and the main findings of a number of historians on a range of topics including the changing social constructions of childhood, child-parent relations, social policy, schooling, leisure and the thesis that modern childhood is 'disappearing'. The intention of this concise study is to provide readers with a reliable account of the evolution of some of the most important developments in adult-child relations during the last one hundred years. The author draws his material not only from historians but also from sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and children's rights activists. Thus he successfully shows how much of our 'modern' understanding of childhood and of children results from both an historical and a social scientific understanding.