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Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

A Cultural History of Middle-Class Childhood and Gender

Mary Hatfield author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:10th Oct '19

Should be back in stock very soon

Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century Ireland cover

Why do we send children to school? Who should take responsibility for children's health and education? Should girls and boys be educated separately or together? These questions provoke much contemporary debate, but also have a longer, often-overlooked history. Mary Hatfield explores these questions and more in this comprehensive cultural history of childhood in nineteenth-century Ireland. Many modern ideas about Irish childhood have their roots in the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, when an emerging middle-class took a disproportionate role in shaping the definition of a 'good' childhood. This study deconstructs several key changes in medical care, educational provision, and ideals of parental care. It takes an innovative holistic approach to the middle-class child's social world, by synthesising a broad base of documentary, visual, and material sources, including clothes, books, medical treatises, religious tracts, photographs, illustrations, and autobiographies. It offers invaluable new insights into Irish boarding schools, the material culture of childhood, and the experience of boys and girls in education.

an entertaining and informative book ... It is essential reading for any scholar of nighteenth-century culture and ideas, particularly within education, gender and colonialism * Maeve O'Riordan, Cultural and Social History *

ISBN: 9780198843429

Dimensions: 220mm x 146mm x 24mm

Weight: 512g

296 pages