Narrating Policy - Second Independent Paper - Children/Childhood: Historical Educational Perspectives (1/16/2017)

Narrating Policy - Second Independent Paper *Excavating Concepts of Children and Childhood in Ireland (1900 – 1940) from an Historical Educational Policy Perspective* - Dr Thomas Walsh (Maynooth University) Concepts of children and childhood are time specific and linked to wider contextual and societal issues (James and Prout, 1997; Jenks, 1998). Using narrative policy to provide a framework for historical documentary analysis (Bowen, 2009; Roe, 1994), this presentation will trace the changing conceptualisation of childhood in Ireland from an educational perspective in the opening decades of the twentieth century. The main policy artefact of exploration will be the successive primary school curricula from the era, specifically the Revised Programme of Instruction (1900) and the curricula developed in Ireland following the achievement of political independence in the 1920s. The presentation will focus in particular on the dramatic changes catalysed by the advent of political independence and interrogate through policy analysis the respective roles of the State (pre- and postindependence) and the churches in constructing and reconstructing this conceptualisation of childhood. The presentation will conclude with a review of the implications for children and society of this changing construction of childhood pre- and post-independence. 'Narrating Policy: Exploring Narrative in Policy and Policy Analysis' was a one-day symposium held at the University of Leeds, organised by James Beresford and Ashley R. Bullard, doctoral researchers in the School of Sociology and Social Policy. The day was dedicated to the various and variegated ways narrative and narrative analysis informs policy and policy analysis. The symposium was sponsored by the Leeds Social Science Institution and the Sociology and Social Policy’s Policy Research Cluster.

Dr Thomas Walsh

1/16/2017 1:51:28 PM