ABSTRACT
This has been a long textbook. I have two defences. First, so much has happened in the area of social policy for children over the last 120 years, and so little is known about these developments among a general audience (aside from specialists), that in order to provide a proper historical perspective it has been necessary to offer a broad and comprehensive sweep. In bringing together so many different policies I have tried to show the ways in which children were gradually incorporated into a kind of social citizenship (which has not always benefited them), and also to describe the continuities and discontinuities in the motives and objectives of reformers and other policy-makers. The implicit argument of this book is that future historical surveys of social policy should not ignore the connections between children and welfare. It should now be clear that the relationship has been sometimes indicative of, and very often central to, debates about the role of the State, the family, education, citizenship and social stability, not to mention more grandiose themes concerning national culture and morality. The hope is that by considering the variety of developments across a wide range of policies we may begin to appreciate the complex roles demanded of children by these inquiries.
