Changing Childhoods: The Educational Experiences of Working-Class Children in the 1860s

今天，大多数人理所当然地认为，孩子们应该去上学，而学校，即使不是完全一样，也应该教授相同的课程，倡导相似的价值观。这种理解是对童年的特定社会文化概念化的结果，并不总是如此。在义务教育到来之前，父母有责任决定他们的孩子是呆在家里，还是出去工作，还是去上学。最重大的立法变化是1870年的《初等教育法案》，它实际上创造了现代的儿童观。因此，这项研究项目打算调查英国工人阶级儿童在此之前的一段时间内的教育经历，当时可接受的童年行为和职业的范围开始缩小。它对教育问题采取了广泛的方法，不仅着眼于目前向工薪阶层儿童开放的全日制学校选择，而且还着眼于主日制学校、半日制教育以及一些儿童通过小学生-教师制度获得继续教育和一定程度的社会流动的机会。本质上，它试图发现关于童年的观念的变化如何影响这些儿童的教育和教育经历。该项目的理论基础是新的儿童社会学、社会建构主义和福柯的话语概念，区分了儿童客观的生理不成熟以及与这种不成熟有关的文化和时间上的或有意义，这些意义形成了儿童的童年概念。这些漫不经心的概念化塑造了影响儿童生活的政策和制度。在十九世纪中叶，关于儿童的有影响的论述包括卢梭-浪漫主义的儿童天真和亲近自然的观点，洛克的儿童是Tabula rasa的观点，以及关于儿童的价值在于他们未来对社会的政治和经济贡献的功利主义观点。这一研究项目将通过它们与儿童个体生活经历的关系来探讨这些概念，以及儿童作为经济家庭单位的生产性成员的旧概念。它将考察学校作为一个机构，在其中这些不同的意识形态观点是明确的，试验和测试。研究将通过文件分析，检查广泛的主要文件从1850年至1870年。这些将包括学校日志和相关记录、工人阶级自传、演讲和讲座的文字记录、议会议事录记录、视察报告和教学手册。这些材料和其他材料一起，将呈现一幅图景，既有儿童的生活教育经历，也有成年人通过政策和实践塑造这些经历的观点。其目的是在这一时期创造一幅复杂的童年和教育图景的详细图景，纳入认知、感觉和情感层面，并突出这一时期向工薪阶层儿童开放的多种教育选择，以及由此产生的教育经验。对这些经历的分析将基于对当时的政治、文化和社会经济条件的理解，以及由此产生的童年话语。

Today it is taken for granted by most that the proper place for children to be is at school, and that schools, even if not exactly alike, should teach the same curriculum and promote similar values. This understanding comes as a result of particular socio-cultural conceptualisations of childhood, and has not always been the case. Before the advent of compulsory schooling, responsibility lay with parents to decide whether their children should stay at home, go out to work, or attend school. The most significant legislative change was the 1870 Elementary Education Act, which in effect created the modern view of childhood. This research project, therefore, intends to investigate the educational experiences of working-class children in England during the period immediately preceding it, before the range of acceptable childhood behaviours and occupations began to narrow. It takes a broad approach to the topic of education, looking not only at the full-time schooling options open to working-class children at this time, but also Sunday schools, half-time education, and the opportunity for some children to access further education and a degree of social mobility through the pupil-teacher system. Essentially, it seeks to discover how changing ideas about childhood influenced these children's experiences of education and schooling.The project is theoretically grounded in the new sociology of childhood, social constructionism and the Foucauldian concept of discourse, distinguishing between the objective biological immaturity of children, and the culturally and temporally contingent meanings attached to that immaturity, which form notions of 'childhood'. These discursive conceptualisations shaped the policies and institutions which affected children's lives. During the mid-nineteenth century, influential discourses of childhood included the Rousseauian-Romantic view of the child as innocent and close to nature, the Lockean view of the child as tabula rasa, and the utilitarian view of the child's value lying in their future political and economic contribution to society. These, together with the older conceptualisation of the child as a productive member of an economic family unit, will be explored in this research project through their relation to the lived experiences of individual children. It will examine the school as an institution within which these varying ideological viewpoints were made manifest, trialled and tested.The research will be carried out through document analysis, examining a wide range of primary documents from the period 1850-1870. These will include school logbooks and associated records, working-class autobiographies, transcripts of speeches and lectures, Hansard records of parliamentary debates, inspection reports, and pedagogical manuals. Together, these and other materials will present a picture both of the lived educational experiences of children, and the views of the adults shaping those experiences through policy and practice. The intention is to create a detailed picture of the complex landscape of childhood and education at this time, incorporating cognitive, sensory and emotional dimensions, and highlighting the plurality of educational options, and thus of educational experiences, open to working-class children during this period. Analysis of these experiences will be grounded in an understanding of the political, cultural, and socio-economic conditions of the time, and the discourses of childhood which arose from them.