Growing up in out-of-home care: Histories of children and youths in foster families and residential homes (2017-2022)
Convenors: Joëlle Droux, University of Geneva (CH); Jeroen J.H. Dekker, University of Groningen (NL); Els Dumortier, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (B); Aurore François, Université catholique de Louvain (B); David Niget, Angers University (F).
Description and main objectives: Since the late 1990s, forced out-of-home placement of children and youth became an issue in the public debate in several western countries, starting with Australia and Canada. When care leavers, who were placed out-of-home during their childhood and / or adolescence, decided in growing numbers to testify about their experiences, including maltreatment and sexual abuse, and to require explanation and / or compensation, the political authorities, responsible for forced out-of-home placements, in many countries mandated research teams to shed light on the long term history of welfare policies and historical abuse. Some of these investigations have been completed, others are ongoing or still in their early stages. Focusing on the extent of abuse and mistreatment, including sexual abuse, which occurred in residential homes and in foster families, these investigations also touched upon a variety of related issues: origin and evolution over time of public policies regarding child and family welfare; political and economic issues underlying these policies; categories and categorization of children and young people in relation to public intervention (orphans, illegitimates, delinquents, maladjusted, disabled…); social and cultural origins of those children in care; situations of the families and the individual vulnerability of the children behind out-of-home placement; the nature of educational institutions (private, public); the recruitment, training and profile of staff in educational institutions (lay / religious; gender perspective); the role of various experts and professionals in placement-related processes (psychiatrists, psychologists, judges, social workers, educationalists, etc.); educational and diagnostic methods and therapeutic practices applied in the institutions; attitudes and practices toward families. This whole line of inquiries not only touches upon past discourses and practices, but also resonates with current practices and professional interrogations in the ever-growing field of child and youth welfare. Fed by this steady stream of political and media interest and scholarly input, the issue of child out-of-home placement now and in the past has thus gained an undeniably audience in Western societies and public opinions over the last decade. Its societal and scientific importance justifies an in-depth analysis within an ISCHE SWG. The issue is not new for ISCHE. ISCHE 29 in Hamburg, 2007, was dedicated to the topic of “Children and Youth at Risk”, and in the last few years various individual contributions and panels were related to this field of research (Chicago 2016, Istanbul 2015). The establishment of this new SWG will make possible to create an invaluable platform of discussion for scholars and research teams on this topic. It will result into international comparisons on the history, experiences and memories of out-of-home care and education. This new SWG aims at the contribution to a debate of great topical importance, so enabling historians of education to get in touch with the concerns of society. This SWG aims to stimulate research in a wide range of geographical regions, which have been brought during various stages of history into contact with colonial and western-inspired child welfare policies (Latin America, Asia, Africa), but also in other political contexts (such as the Ottoman empire or former communist regimes).
For additional information and to become involved, please contact Joelle.Droux@unige.ch, j.j.h.dekker@rug.nl, els.dumortier@vub.ac.be, aurore.francois@uclouvain.be , david.niget@univ-anger.fr
