Agents of future promise: the ideological use of children in culture and politics (Britain and France, c.1880-c.1950)

儿童在政治中有多活跃？他们不投票。他们很少支持政党。他们似乎没有被政治诽谤所玷污，没有被战争贩子的罪行所玷污。相反，他们似乎是无辜的、脆弱的和被动的。但它们是政治性的。他们肩负着国家、地区、宗教、社会和家庭的希望。无论是在暴力和革命的时刻，还是在寻求和平与稳定的过程中，他们都处于成年人对新未来的预测的核心。自从童年在英国、欧洲和其他地方被“发明”以来，成年人就在个人和集体层面上利用儿童来宣传他们自己对未来的看法。儿童承担着社会期望的负担：他们是“未来承诺的代理人”。虽然这个研究项目旨在研究西方过去的儿童和意识形态，但它也开始思考儿童在当代世界中如何仍然被意识形态所利用。通过与外部合作伙伴的合作，我们将开始研究过去的见解如何影响现在的实践。该项目基于三个研究问题：1.儿童在意识形态上如何被用于政治/文化目的？2.为什么他们被这样使用？3.我们如何更好地理解这种工具化的后果？我们将完成三个案例研究，比较社会，时间和地点，并使用历史和考古方法。以英国和法国为例进行跨国比较，揭示了在国家建设、国内和国际冲突以及重建的关键时刻，君主制和共和制中儿童、家庭和国家之间关系的巨大差异。金将分析儿童在第二次世界大战结束时和英国战后时期对新未来的预测中所起的作用。将出现另外两个案例研究，与PI的研究进行直接比较。克鲁将研究儿童的物质文化在英国从19世纪末到20世纪初世纪和它的方式，动员性别，帝国和战争的意识形态。多德的工作重点是分配给法国儿童（1940年至1944年）的作用，作为国家统一的移动的代理人，任务是治愈国家的政治分歧。从三个案例研究得出的结论将进行比较和传播，然后写入一份历史与政策文件，以提请决策者注意儿童的意识形态工具化问题。该项目的一个关键目标是在项目接近尾声时举行跨部门会议。会议旨在汇集一个学术研究人员和决策者、非政府组织、教育和博物馆从业人员的网络，所有人都关心儿童的教育、健康、福利或文化。通过介绍研究和实践，圆桌讨论和想法的产生，我们将为未来的项目奠定基础，将对过去的研究转化为现在的实践服务。该项目有助于对过去的童年和青年的新兴历史辩论。它还寻求提高对意识形态（性别、政治、宗教、商业）利用儿童的认识。通过建立我们可以与能够很好地利用我们过去的见解的从业者更好地合作的方法，这项研究将有利于儿童未来的福祉。

How active are children in politics? They don't vote. They rarely support political parties. They seem untainted by political mudslinging, unsullied by the warmongers' guilt. Rather, they appear innocent, vulnerable and passive. Yet they are political. They carry upon their shoulders the hopes of nation, region, religion, society, family. In this latent potentiality, they sit at the heart of adults' projections of new futures, whether at moments of violence and revolution or within the quest for peace and stability.Since childhood was 'invented' in Britain, Europe and beyond, adults have made use of children at an individual and collective level to promote their own notions of the future. Children bear the burden of social expectations: they are 'agents of future promise'. While this research project seeks to examine children and ideology in the Western past, it also begins to think about how children are still being ideologically used in the contemporary world. Through our collaboration with external partners, we will start to examine how past insights can influence present practice.The project is underpinned by three research questions:1. How have children been ideologically used for political/cultural purposes?2. Why have they been used like this?3. How can we better understand the consequences of this instrumentalisation?We will complete three case studies comparing societies, time and place, and using historical and archaeological methodologies. Using Britain and France in cross-national comparison reveals the sharp differences in the relationship between children, family and state in a monarchy and a republic, at key moments of nation-building, domestic and international conflict, and reconstruction. King will analyse the way that children featured in projections of new futures towards the end of the Second World War and into the postwar era in Britain. Two further case studies will emerge in direct comparison to the PI's research. Crewe will examine children's material culture in Britain from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century and the way that it mobilized ideologies of gender, empire and war. Dodd's work focuses on the role assigned to French children (1940-1944) as mobile agents of national unity, tasked rhetorically and practically with healing national political divisions. The conclusions drawn from the three case studies will be compared and disseminated, and then written into a History & Policy paper in order to bring the question of the ideological instrumentalisation of children to the attention of policy makers. A key objective of the project is the cross-sector conference, held towards the end of the project. The conference seeks to assemble a network of academic researchers and policymakers, NGO, education and museum practitioners, all concerned with childhood whether in terms of education, health, welfare or culture. Through the presentation of research and practice, roundtable discussions and ideas generation, we will prepare the ground for future projects that put research on the past into the service of practice in the present.The project contributes to the burgeoning historical debate on childhood and youth in the past. It also seeks to raise awareness of the ideological use of children (gendered, political, religious, commercial). By establishing ways in which we can work better with practitioners who can make good use of our insights from the past, the research will have benefits for children's wellbeing in the future.