Overview

The Erosion of Childhood discusses the changing status of children from the mid-Victorian period to the end of the First World War. The author emphasises that their status was as objects to be used and abused, rather than as people with personalities in their own right. The book encompasses the worlds of work, school and home, in which the children were exploited, and reviews the conditions to which they were subjected. Lionel Rose shows how, with time, such conditions came to be improved, and looks at the way in which the child as worker inspired the first legislative attempts to ensure a basic education. Such attempts were, he believes, inspired not so much from altruistic reasons as to make' the child more civilised' and disciplined as good factory fodder. The Erosion of Childhood expresses an underlying cynicism about the real reasons for the development of state schooling after 1870. Technological advances were displacing children from some trades, and they had to be put somewhere so as not to become a menace on the street. Schools, rather than being places of enlightenment, were corrals where children were subjected to rote learning which was often meaningless. The emphasis on Payment by Results' (teachers' earnings being related to exam results), has echoes in today's new National Curriculum in which schools are expected to compete in the pupil market'.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lionel Rose
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 13.80cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.498kg
ISBN:  

9780415001656

ISBN 10:   041500165
Pages:   302
Publication Date:   20 June 1991
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Publisher’s note, 1. Children without childhood: an introduction, 2. Factories and mines legislation, 3. Sweatshops, cottage labour and moonlighting up to the First World War, 4. Children on the land and children at sea, 5. Young slaves—children in domestic service, 6. Brickyard and canal boat children and chimney sweeps, 7. Theatrical, circus and fairground children, 8. Juvenile street traders, 9. Waifs and beggars, 10. Vagrancy, 11. The blind-alley job problem, 12. Employers, education and the part-time system, 13. School curriculum codes and the ‘Standards’ 1862–1918, 14. Teaching methods 1860–1918, 15. Health and schooling, 16. Schooling and the upper classes, 17. Pupil society and school discipline, 18. School attendance, 19. The formative results of education, 20. Education and economic mobility, 21. Exploitation, discipline and duty in the working-class home, 22. Upbringing in the upper-class home, 23. The child protection movement, Conclusion, Notes, Bibliography, Index

Reviews

`It is almost impossible to overpraise this book, which must stand as the classic study of the subject for a long time. ... rivetingly readable.' - Times Education Supplement

`It is almost impossible to overpraise this book, which must stand as the classic study of the subject for a long time. ... rivetingly readable.' - Times Education Supplement

Author Information

Lionel Rose

Tab Content 6

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