The fragile boundary between ‘education’ and ‘educationalisation’: some personal reflections on the often exaggerated educational aspirations of museums

Although the origins of school museums and museums of children and childhood do not coincide directly, they nevertheless have moved into the same direction during the past decades. Especially because chil­dren are an important part of the visitors, a lot is invested by these mu­seums in educational support and activities. Pedagogical arguments form the backbone of their mission statements. A bit against the tide of this trend, I want to pay attention here to the often exaggerated educa­tional aspirations. To my mind the boundary between “education” and “educationalisation” is a fragile one and can be easily exceeded if the cultural-historical context of the museum content is ignored too much. Educating young people does not necessarily mean taking them by the hand and leading them through well-developed work packages, but is related to the more complex process of Bildung – the formation of a per­son, which usually starts, in view of attitudes and behaviour, by reflec­tion about self-identity as well as societal values and norms. In my opin­ion the encounter with well-chosen artefacts of former pedagogical mentalities and realities in museums of education, children and child­hood, can be helpful in this respect. Therefore, my plea for more cul­ture-historical contemplation and less educational strategy in represent­ing education, children and childhood is not to be understood as phasing efforts in this sector. On the contrary, the shift of emphasis from the neoliberal focus on efficiency, management, and social relevance (also in terms of a possible instrumentalization) of educational history towards more scientific, cultural-historical underpinning will need continuous support.

Sources for Research on Childhood and Childhood History in Poland in the 19th and Early 20th Century – Selected Problems

The aim of the present article is to draw attention to the informative value of selected types of source materials which may provide a basis for research on childhood and childhood in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the same time, an attempt will be made to indicate the sorts of research problems which can be analyzed using these sources. Some types of sources will be discussed in more depth, with emphasis on those that are particularly rich and valuable in terms of information about children and childhood, but have not yet been fully exploited by researchers in historical and pedagogical analyses, have been used only occasionally, or have even been ignored altogether. The informative potential of the source materials for the study of history of children and childhood will be presented using the examples of such written sources as women’s, family and children’s press, diaries and memoirs, children’s literature, guidebooks, as well as iconographic sources. Comparing and combining sources, as well as considering them in a complementary manner may contribute to reconstructing the as yet incomplete picture of childhood and children in the Polish historiography of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Indonesian street children's negotiation of play

Street children are often constructed as fragile individuals who lose their innocent childhood since they have to work and do not have the opportunity to play like most of their peers. Using Bourdieu's concept of field, capital and habitus, this article seeks to go beyond the existing notion of play by exploring how street children in Bandung, Indonesia, understand and negotiate play with working as part of their everyday lives. The authors took an ethnographic approach to collect data from 14 street children and their guardians, mainly through observation and ongoing conversation. The findings suggest that the children are able not only to navigate the meaning of play, but also to negotiate their social position with adults on the street. This article serves as an invitation for educators and policymakers to develop educational programmes that are sensitive to multiple meanings of play, children and childhood.

Child Metaphors in the New Testament

Within literary studies, the term metaphor has a variety of uses. Most narrowly, the term refers to the symbolic use of a word or phrase, applying a nonliteral meaning to a concrete group or object in order to express an abstract concept. For the purposes of this bibliography, a broader approach is applied, understanding child metaphors to encompass both figurative uses of the term child and related images and the role that child-centered readings can play in shaping the understanding of abstractions such as discipleship and the kingdom of God portrayed in the New Testament. Given this broad starting place, it should come as no surprise that exegetical study of metaphor in general, and of child metaphors in particular, is prolific. Extended studies of the use of metaphor in the Bible date to the middle of the 20th century, as Western literary studies began to influence the practice of exegesis and, in some cases, even before narrative criticism fully took hold. Nevertheless, awareness of the use of metaphor, symbol, and analogy to convey ideas about God and God’s relationship with humanity can be traced back to the earliest allegorical interpretations of Scripture performed by Paul himself. What is unique about more recent scholarship on child metaphors in the New Testament, then, is not attention to these passages as metaphors, but rather increased precision in understanding the use of the child as a metaphorical frame to understand such concepts and attention to the role that real children themselves can offer in terms of understanding child-related metaphors in their cultural contexts. To this end, Halvor Moxnes’s 1997 volume Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor (Moxnes 1997, cited under General Overviews) was groundbreaking in its attention to social and cultural trends around family and children in the 1st-century Mediterranean world in order to better understand and interpret metaphors of family and children used by biblical authors embedded in this culture. Over the past thirty years, scholarly attention to the metaphorical frames of children and childhood has expanded as scholars seek to understand these frames within their cultural context and with more specific attention to the real children associated with them. This latter approach has been variously described as child-centered or childist. Child-centered interpretations employ interdisciplinary tools to focus on the socially constructed nature of childhood, while childist interpretations describes an ideological approach that touches upon “assigning voice to the (silent) child, asserting agency and filling in the gaps in a child’s narrative, pointing to the adult-centric nature or interpretation, . . . and, finally, noting the interplay between the value and vulnerability that children experience” (Kristine Henriksen Garroway and John W. Martens, “Introduction: The Study of Children in the Bible: New Questions or a New Method?,” in Children and Methods: Listening To and Learning From Children in the Biblical World, edited by Kristine Henriksen Garroway and John W. Martens [Leiden: Brill, 2020]). Across these approaches, three major modes of interpreting child and childhood metaphors in the New Testament texts have emerged, with attention to the attributes of childhood, family structure, and the spiritual application of child metaphors.

Iconographies of ‘Childness’ and the Contemporary British Novel: Book Covers, Discourses, and Cultural Models

A sizeable segment of the contemporary British fiction market for adult readers consists of novels that focus on children and childhood. In accordance with interdisciplinary Childhood Studies, such texts can be understood as contributions to the social construction of children and childhood, or ‘childness’. Such constructions appear to be in particular demand in this phase of late modernity, when childhood is conceptualized as an antidote to the many uncertainties contemporary post-industrial societies are faced with. While on the level of societies, public constructions of childhood are best understood in terms of a Foucauldian notion of discourse, discourses are not what individual readers and book-buyers actually have in their minds when choosing a title. Rather, this article argues that the cover illustrations of these novels both activate and reinforce cultural models of ‘childness’ that readers have stored as schemata shared with their cultural community. On the basis of this alignment of discourse theory with a concept from cognitive anthropology, the article demonstrates that book covers play a role in maintaining particular conceptions of ‘childness’, and in feeding them back into the minds of the readers. Furthermore, the relevance of the book as a material artefact is once again acknowledged.1

Consideration of the Child’s Image in Historical and Social Context in Modern Consumptive Society of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

The authors focus on a pluriperspective analysis of the image and status of children, with the emphasis on print media and consumer environment which is researched in the framework of special historical and social conditions. The research shows how the historical and social context of society in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina is related to the image of the child in the relevant print media, scientific analyses and literature. Through this new thesis authors conclude that the present situation directly implies the need for proper care for the status of children and childhood within modern pedagogical science.

The state of journals on children and childhood studies: Insights and challenges from a citation analysis

This article investigates journal influence of childhood studies journals in 2011–2019. Using CiteScore metrics, results show that childhood studies journals have gained influence over the past decade, suggesting that research in childhood has become more visible. However, certain journals flourish disproportionately within the network of childhood research. Overall, the findings demonstrate the rapid maturation of childhood studies as a discipline and the increasing relevance of journals in the process. Overall, the results serve as signposts for the direction of childhood studies and reminders to childhood scholars of their responsibility to maintain the integrity in childhood studies.

Age-Distinctions, The Philosophy of Childhood, and Political Participation

<p><b>In the philosophy of childhood, conceptions about children and childhood are often understood to be contextually dependent on time and place. I explore and question contemporary conceptions about childhood and how these might be subject to change in the political sphere. Not only is there much vagueness inherent in the adult-child distinction, but many implied inaccuracies as well. Although these distinctions allow for the efficient structuring of social institutions, this comes at the cost of exacerbating the problems brought about by this vagueness and inaccurateness. I challenge the different enfranchisement status of children and adults, arguing that it is better to do away with age-based distinctions in politics. These distinctions are arbitrary and constitute ageism towards children. </b></p> <p>My approach is unique in applying a philosophy of childhood lens to children’s enfranchisement. Emerging ‘strengths-based’ conceptions about childhood that move away from ‘deficit’ conceptions allow for a more accurate representation of children and support a case for their political inclusion. This reconceptualisation of childhood involves a shift in focus away from what children lack relative to adults. Consistently with the strengths-based conception, broader understandings of competency allow us to see children’s perspectives and lack of habituation to the world as an asset, including in the political sphere.</p> <p>Age-based demarcations that prohibit children’s inclusion reinforce inaccurate, exaggerated and misleading stereotypes about children and adults alike. Actively challenging these stereotypes allows us to overcome these inaccurate understandings about children to see their political inclusion as justified. Practical concerns with children’s inclusion, including whether this would compromise the ‘goods of childhood’, are addressed and quelled. I also speculate on the possible implications of children’s enfranchisement in other domains. Challenging the adult-child distinction does not amount to an argument to do away with talk about ‘adults’ or ‘children’, but it does command a critical analysis of the implications associated with these terms. Ultimately, there are many avenues for political participation, of which voting is just one. Still, this paper provides a framework for establishing on what terms citizens are justifiably involved in political participation at all.</p>