ABSTRACT
Beginning with a reflection on the issue of periodisation, this chapter intends to define the ‘contemporary’ period in the literary and cultural history of childhood. It suggests why and in what ways the cultural and societal grounds on which childhood is constructed in England changed significantly around the 1980s. Drawing on the works of Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim and Anthony Giddens, this chapter posits that recent transformations of childhood can be plausibly explained with the theory of late modernity and explores its major tenets (reflexivity, individualisation, ontological insecurity and detraditionalisation). In view of rising divorce rates, the pluralisation of family practices and new technological developments, childhood gains a unique status in this period as a remnant of ontological certainty and universality. The second half of this chapter underpins these propositions with historical and cultural evidence by tracing the most important changes in child care law, family, educational policy and public discourses of childhood from the Thatcher years (1979–1990) to the Cameron-Clegg government (2010–2015). The chapter suggests that a neoliberal discourse of childhood forms during these years, which regards the child as future human capital and in terms of risk.
