Citizens of the future1
Keyword(s):
This chapter explores the history of ideas about intervention in family, highlighting attempts to shape children's upbringing for the sake of the nation's future. A consistent and influential idea has been that undesirable attitudes and actions, and the propensity for deprivation, are transmitted down the generations through the way that parenting shapes children's minds and brains. The chapter considers the relationship between interventions designed to address fears about the state of the nation in the form of poverty, crime, and disorder, and understandings of the role of parents and families as they link to shifting emphasises of the capitalist system across time.