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

孩子们在政治中有多活跃？他们不投票。他们很少支持政党。他们似乎没有受到政治诽谤的玷污，没有被战争贩子的罪行玷污。相反，他们看起来无辜、脆弱和被动。然而，它们是政治性的。他们肩负着民族、地区、宗教、社会、家庭的希望。在这种潜在的潜力中，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概念。儿童肩负着社会期望的重担：他们是未来承诺的代理人。这项研究项目试图考察西方过去的儿童和意识形态，同时也开始思考儿童在当代世界如何在意识形态上仍然被利用。通过我们与外部合作伙伴的合作，我们将开始研究过去的洞察力如何影响目前的实践。该项目的基础是三个研究问题：1.儿童如何在意识形态上被用于政治/文化目的？2.为什么他们被如此利用？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。用英国和法国进行跨国比较，揭示了在建国、国内和国际冲突以及重建的关键时刻，君主制和共和政体中儿童、家庭和国家之间的关系的巨大差异。金将分析儿童在第二次世界大战结束后进入英国战后时代的新未来预测中所表现的方式。将出现两个进一步的案例研究，与国际和平研究所的研究进行直接比较。克鲁将研究19世纪末至20世纪初英国儿童的物质文化，以及它如何动员性别、帝国和战争的意识形态。多德的工作重点是赋予法国儿童(1940-1944)作为国家统一的流动代理人的角色，从修辞上和实践上肩负着弥合国家政治分歧的任务。将比较和传播从三个案例研究得出的结论，然后将其写入一份《历史与政策》文件，以便提请政策制定者注意儿童意识形态工具化的问题。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。这次会议旨在召集一个由学术研究人员和政策制定者、非政府组织、教育和博物馆从业人员组成的网络，他们都与儿童有关，无论是在教育、卫生、福利还是文化方面。通过介绍研究和实践、圆桌讨论和想法产生，我们将为未来的项目奠定基础，这些项目将过去的研究转化为现在的实践。该项目为过去关于儿童和青年的蓬勃发展的历史辩论做出了贡献。它还力求提高人们对利用儿童的意识形态(性别、政治、宗教、商业)的认识。通过建立我们可以更好地与从业者合作的方式，这些从业者可以很好地利用我们过去的见解，这项研究将对未来的儿童福祉有所裨益。

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.