ABSTRACT
Our increasingly risk-aware society has witnessed an explosion in panics concerning children. Parents worry that children are at risk of abduction by paedophiles or abuse by relatives. If they remain at home, children could be prey to ‘groomers’ in Internet chat rooms or at risk of obesity from a couch-potato lifestyle. The food children eat could cause cancer or the vaccinations designed to protect them could trigger autism. Teachers are not immune to these panics and we need to question the extent to which concerns over child-rearing can be allowed to influence classroom practice.
