Entering into the Fray: Historians of Childhood and Public Policy

Can historians of childhood inform children’s policy, and if so, how? Spurred by a panel at the 2009 meeting of the Society for the History of Childhood and Youth, this examination of scholarship on orphanages, juvenile delinquency, preschools, and the “boy problem,” suggests that in addressing themes such as agency, social control, children’s rights, and the relationship of the child and the state, many historians have attempted to provide perspective on policy issues. An outgrowth in part of concerns about children’s policy in the 1960s, much research in the history of childhood explores how past policies went awry. In analyzing child abuse and abductions, for instance, historians have drawn attention to how panics are constructed and affect policy, with sometimes problematic consequences. When historians “enter the fray” of child advocacy, as have many of the leading players in the SHCY, their work can be used in unsettling ways when stakeholders seek simplistic solutions to complex problems. At the same time, the authors believe that there are many lessons from the past that can be used to illuminate contemporary conversations about children’s needs and rights and promising policies for bettering their lives.