Telling stories, washing hands: exploring the role of narrative in development programmes targeting children

McCarthy, Annie

doi:10.1201/9780429354540-6

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…44 Particular attributes linked to Global North conceptions of what children 'should' be like at given ages can be used to ascribe agency only to children who meet these norms, as Annie McCarthy explores in her work on NGO policies intended to promote children's participation in a handwashing campaign in Delhi, which saw children as natural storytellers and valorised children who could tell creative narratives. 45 Some scholars, such as Sarah Maza, assert unquestioningly that the history of childhood is distinct from the histories of other oppressed and marginalised groups because children do not have shared political aims related to the category of childhood, and have 'never set collective agendas for themselves'. 46 This is straightforwardly not true.…”

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

State of the Field: The Modern History of Childhood

Tisdall

2022

History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This state of the field article presents three questions for students and scholars of childhood: first, who is included in the history of childhood? Second, why does the history of childhood matter? Third, how should we do the history of childhood? It argues that all historians of childhood need to reflect upon modern developmental concepts of childhood which purport to tell us what children of different chronological ages can think, understand and feel. These limiting concepts of childhood originate from eighteenth-century Anglo-American concepts of liberal personhood that position children as non-people due to their lack of reason and their dependence on others. However, as 'childhood studies' scholars have shown, they still govern many of our instincts and assumptions about childhood today. Historians of childhood will have most to offer once we have interrogated our own concepts of childhood, but also when we fully consider how childhood has been historically constructed in relation to adulthood. I'The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken,' wrote Lloyd deMause in 1974. 1 DeMause was suggesting that premodern childhoods were marked by suffering, abuse and pain, and that only modern Western ideas about child welfare could save children from this horror. Despite the huge strides that historians of childhood have made over the last fifty years, this kind of assertion -that there is a 'right' kind of childhood that all children ought to experience -has been remarkably persistent. Paula Fass argued in 2013 that modern childhood is 'a privileged state' and that all children across the globe should have equal access to this model of protected innocence confined safely within the private sphere. 2 This ideal is relatively new. Late eighteenth-century Anglo-American classical liberalism introduced new dividing lines between childhood and adulthood, based on children's supposed lack of 'reason', and, in the Global North, this led to the development of ideas about the necessity of childhood 'freedom' from 1 Lloyd deMause (ed.), The History of Childhood (New York, 1974), p. 1. 2 Paula Fass (ed.), The Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World (Oxon, 2013), p. 2.

show abstract

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

State of the Field: The Modern History of Childhood

Tisdall

2022

History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…McCarthy [26] illustrates the ways that development discourses about desirable childhood practices compete with advertising messages from the mass media.…”

Section: Conceptualizations Of Childhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intersections Between Western and Indian Childhoods

Meynert¹

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article explores the intersections between discourses on children from the North and South (India as a case in point). Some similarities can be seen between Western and Indian conceptualizations with the child occupying subaltern spaces. Both in the North and South children are marginalized in sociological discourses; there is a perceived emergent decrease in patriarchal control of children by adults, with adult-child relations becoming more democratic and participatory, manifested in greater negotiation of control by children. The New Sociology of Childhood that evolved in the "Century of the Child" notable as childhood has brought children into the arena of International politics and academic debates in both the North and the South.

show abstract

Telling stories, washing hands: exploring the role of narrative in development programmes targeting children

Cited by 2 publications

References 1 publication

State of the Field: The Modern History of Childhood

State of the Field: The Modern History of Childhood

Intersections Between Western and Indian Childhoods

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About