Laura Lee Downs Social protection and social class in twentieth

Laura Lee Downs
Social protection and social class in twentieth century France - G46.1510
This course approaches the gradual construction of social welfare institutions in France from
the point of view of child welfare, particularly children of the popular classes. Much has been
written on the force of pro-natalism and familialist politics in shaping the construction of a
family-based welfare politics in early-twentieth century France, but little is known about the
host of policies that, from 1874 onward, targeted working-class children as a population in
need of material and spiritual/educational sustenance. We will be looking at private and
public initiatives, and concentrate particular attention on a range of semi-public institutions
that arose at the confluence of public and private: colonies de vacances, neighbourhood social
centres, patronages, gouttes de lait, medical dispensaries, cliniques de neurospychiatrie
infantile, maisons d’éducation surveillée, garderies, écoles maternelles, etc. In order to grasp
the specificity of developments in France, we will place the French case in broader
comparative context. Here, we will rely in particular on comparison with the very different
evolution of such welfare policies in Great Britain over the period 1875-1970.
Each week features a common reading plus an array of articles or selections from books that
different members of the seminar will read and present at each session. One or more members
of the seminar will thus preside over each session, presenting the readings and a series of
questions to launch the day’s discussion. At the end of the half-semester, each member will
write a substantial paper (15-20 pp) exploring in depth one or more of the questions raised by
the literature under consideration. The bibliographie indicative, which I will distribute at the
first session, should serve as a point of departure for this paper.
Sept 5 La république à l’épreuve du social
Alan Mitchell, A Stranger in Paris: Germany's Role in Republican Paris, 1870-1940
Berghahn, 2006, entire
Suggested:
Pierre Bouretz, La République et l’universel, Gallimard, 2000, entire
Marc Lazar, « La République à l’épreuve du social » in Marc Sadoun, ed., La Démocratie en
France. Tome 2. Limites, Gallimard, 2000, p 309-406
Sept 10-12 Republican solidarity, fears of national degeneration and the politics of
childhood, 1870-1914
childhood, 1870-1914
Sylvia Schafer, Children in Moral Danger and the Problem of Government in Third Republic
France, Princeton, 1997, entire
Robert Nye, Crime, Madness and Politics in Modern France. The Medical Concept of
National Decline, Princeton, 1984, Introduction, Chapter IV-VII & X (p xi-xv, 97-264; 33039)
Suggested:
Paul-André Rosental, L’intelligence démographique, Paris, 2003, p 9-53
Karen Offen, “Depopulation, Nationalism and Feminism in Fin-de-Siècle France”, American
Historical Review, 89, (1984), 648-76
William Schneider, “The Eugenic Movement in France”, in Mark Adams, The Wellborn
Science, Oxford, 1990
Sept 17-19 The evolution of popular practices around childrearing: l’Assistance
publique, la mise-en-nourrice et la loi Roussel (1874)
Ivan Jablonka, Ni père ni mère. Histoire des enfants de l’Assistance publique (1974-1939), Le
Seuil, 2006, entire
Pascal Quincy-Lefebvre, Familles, institutions et déviances. Une histoire de l’enfance
difficile. 1880-fin des années trente (Paris, 1997), Inroduction, ch 1-2 & 5
Suggested:
Rachel Fuchs, Abandoned Children: Foundlings and Child Welfare in 19th Century France,
Albany, 1984, selection to be announced
Catherine Rollet-Echalier, La Politique à l’égard de la petite enfance sous la IIIe République,
Paris, 1990, selection to be announced
Sept 24-26 Sauver la graine : Colonies de vacances and the politics of child health and
welfare, 1880-1960
Laura Lee Downs, Childhood in the Promised Land. Working-class movements and the
colonies de vacances in France, 1880-1960, Duke University Press, 2002, entire
« ‘In order to reunite the National Family in the folds of the tri-colour flag’ : Gender and the
social politics of working-class childhood on the extreme right. The case of the Croix de feu,
1930-39”
Suggested:
« Dai Faucons Rouges alle colonies rouges : la pedagogia socialista della repubblica dei
ragazzi in Francia, 1932- 1952 », in Marco Fincardi, ed., Le Reppubliche dei ragazzi nel
mondo, Annali dell’Istituto Gramsci dell’Emilia-Romagna 4-5/00-01, Bologna: Eds. Clueb,
2003, p. 69-96 (version anglaise, en manuscrit)
“What’s feminist theory got to do with it? Municipal socialism and the politics of childhood:
Suresnes, 1919-1945”
Oct 1-3 Aux origins de l’Etat-providence en France
Susan Pedersen, Family, Dependence and the Origins of the Welfare State. Britain and
France, 1914-1945, Cambridge, 1993, entire
Siân Reynolds, “Who Wanted the Crèches? Working mothers and the birth-rate in France,
1900-1950”, Continuity and Change, 1990, vol. 5, n. 2
Suggested:
Timothy Smith, Creating the Welfare State in France, Montreal, 2003, selection to be
announced
Paul Dutton, Origins of the French Welfare State: The Struggle for Social Reform in France,
Cambridge, 2002, selection to be announced
Oct 8-10 L’enfance inadaptée, family/familialist politics and the problem of juvenile
delinquency
Sarah Fishman, The Battle for Children: World War II, Youth Crime and Juvenile Justice in
20th Century France, Cambridge, 2002, entire
Béatrice Koeppel, « Les temps forts de la rééducation des filles (de Cadillac à Brécourt),
1935-1950 », Les Cahiers du CRIV 2, 1985
Marie Bienne, « ‘Les enfants terribles’. La psychiatrie infantile au secours de la famille : la
consultation du professeur Georges Heuyer en 1950 » in Les Sciences du psychisme et
l’enfance “irrégulière”, Le Temps de l’histoire, oct 2004, Vaucresson, p 69-90
Suggested :
Ludivine Bantigny, « Sciences du psychisme et centre d’observation en France dans les
années cinquante », in Les Sciences du psychisme et l’enfance “irrégulière”, Le Temps de
l’histoire, oct 2004, Vaucresson, p 93-119
Michel Chauvière, Enfance inadaptée. L’héritage de Vichy Paris, 1980, selection to be
announced
Cyril Burt, The Delinquent Child, London, 1925, selection to be announced
Oct 15-17 The redefinition of childhood at the confluence of psychiatry, medicine and
education: A Franco-British comparison
Erica Burman, Deconstructing social psychology, Routledge, 1994, entire
Carolyn Steedman, Childhood, Culture and Class in Britain. Margaret MacMillan (18601931), New Brunswick, 1991, Introduction, ch 2-6, 8-11 (p 3-13, 33-140, 156-214)
Suggested :
Lev Vygotsky, « Le problème du langage et de la pensée chez l’enfant dans la théorie de J.
Piaget », dans Vygotsky, Pensée et langage, Paris, 1997
Jean Piaget, Le Langage et la pensée de l’enfant : Etudes sur la logique de l’enfant, Paris,
1984, selection to be announced
Melanie Klein, « The development of a child », in Klein, Love, Guilt and Reparation and
Other Works 1921-1945
Françoise Dolto, « Le Travail psychothérapeutique » in F Dolto et J-D Nasio, L’Enfant du
miroir, Paris, Payot, 1987, p 109-160
John Morss, The Bioligising of childhood. Developmental psychology and the Darwinian
myth, London, 1990, selection to be announced
James Vernon, “The Ethics of Hunger and the Assembly of Society: The techno-politics of
the school meal in modern Britain” American Historical Review 110:3 (ca. 2005)
Roger Cooter, In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare in England, 1880-1940, London,
1992, selection to be announced
Oct 22-24 Milieu social ou milieu familial? Evacuation and the evolution of theories and
practices around childrearing among the popular classes in France and Britain, 1939-45
« Milieu social or milieu familial ? Theories and practices of childrearing among the popular
classes in 20th century France and Britain: the case of evacuation (1939-1945)”, Family and
Community History, 8, 2, 2005, 49-66.
“A ‘Very British’ Revolution?” L’évacuation des enfants urbains vers les campagnes
anglaises, 1939-45 », Vingtième siècle, numéro spécial sous la direction de Stéphane AudoinRouzeau sur « Enfants et violences de guerre », n 89 janvier-mars 2006, 47-60.
Geoffrey Field, « Perspectives on the Working-Class Family in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945
», International Labor and Working-Class History 38, Fall 1990
Suggested:
Dorothy Burlingham & Anna Freud, Infants without Families. The case for and against
residential nurseries, London, 1944, selection to be announced
Donald Winnicott, Deprivation and Delinquency, London, 1984, Editor’s introduction,
“Evacuation of small children”, “Children in the war”, “The deprived mother”, “The
evacuated child”, “The return of the evacuated child”, “Home again”, “Residential
management for difficult children”, “Children’s hostels in war and peace”
(p 9-21, 25-77)
Denise Riley, War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and Mother, London, 1983
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