Seminar 5: Historical perspectives

Oxford Brookes University
7 July 2009

Notions of resilience, optimism, stoicism and a positive view of life as new themes in policies for emotional well-being contrast with more diminished images in the first manifestations of New Labour social policy, and with other images in earlier periods. Historical perspectives illuminate continuity and change in conceptualisations of well-being, social justice and the human subject, and their relationship to debates about moral education and moral risk, schooling’s role in children’s health and welfare and about provision for groups with special educational needs.

Speakers

• William Gibson, Professor in Ecclesiastical History, Oxford Brookes University: The therapeutic abuse of history
• Harry Hendrick, Visiting Associate Professor, University of Southern Denmark: The coming of the child as an emotional subject, c.1900-1950s
• John Stewart, Professor of Health History, Glasgow Caledonian University: The ‘normal’ child and the ‘maladjusted’ child: the case of British child guidance 1918-1955