SSRU Seminar: Doing their Bit: Children and the war effort (1939-45)
05 May 2010
12:30 to 13:30 , Room G1, 18 Woburn Square
Professor Berry Mayall
The speaker Berry Mayall has worked since 1973 in research and latterly in teaching too at the Institute of Education. She is Professor of Childhood Studies and has worked for many years on the sociology of childhood. She is currently working with Dr. Virginia Morrow (ECPE) on a book: Doing their Bit: Children's contributions to the war effort 1939-45 (to be published in 2011 by the Institute of Education Press).
She will be speaking on English children's contributions to the war effort. "Doing their Bit: Children and the war effort (1939-45)". The seminar will present and discuss the work English children did towards the war effort in the Second World War. Children carried out a range of work (for instance, growing food, collecting salvage, substituting for the work of adults). Of interest theoretically is the understandings of childhood at the time which allowed for children to be encouraged and exhorted to do their bit. We suggest that at the time, childhood had not yet been scholarised, and that children as workers was a commonly understood concept.
For further information please contact Leo Geissler : ssruadmin@ioe.ac.uk