The influence of changing discourses of childhood on 1860s educational policy

Abstract

The educational policies of 1860s Britain came into being as a result of the interplay between social, economic and political conditions, and the changing discourses of childhood and education that arose from them. While essentialised conceptualisations of ‘the child’ had existed since the early Enlightenment period, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that universalised notions of childhood gained popular acceptance. Economic pressures and the rise of utilitarianism, coupled with a discursive construction of the child as the future of the state, led to the instrumentalism of the Revised Code. Both this understanding and the Romantic view of the innocent child influenced measures that increased levels of educational compulsion, culminating in the 1870 Elementary Education Act. Despite these prevailing discourses, however, a significant minority, particularly among the labouring classes, still saw economic productivity, often alongside education, as an ordinary part of childhood.