AUTUMN SEMINAR
Wednesday November 30th
James Conroy, University of Glasgow
Time: 4.00pm - 5.30pm
Location: Behrens 0.1, Didsbury Campus
Caught in the Middle: Childhood, Education and Adult Responsibility.
Abstract:
This paper suggests that the assumptions made about the constructed nature of childhood in a post-Aries world are founded on modest historical and theoretical foundations and that, despite the parlous nature of these foundations, children's education has been and is increasingly shaped by the belief that the notion of childhood as a special, somehow protected space is mere romanticism. Children are no more or less responsible for the world than adults. The issues this throws up for the relationship between the public spaces of politics and economics and the more shaded spaces of childhood are complex and politicians of all persuasions are apt to imagine that educating children in such a way as to remedy the defects of the adult political spaces will likely remedy social, cultural and political defects. Drawing on Arendt's insights I wish to argue that this misunderstands the nature of childhood, the purposes of education and the responsibilities of adults, and that the attempts of politicians of all hues to manipulate the educational spaces for highly specified ends is mistaken both in intention and in import.