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From Sickly Survival to the Realisation of Potential: Child Health as a Social Project in Twentieth Century England
Author(s) -
Baistow Karen
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
children and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.538
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1099-0860
pISSN - 0951-0605
DOI - 10.1111/j.1099-0860.1995.tb00439.x
Subject(s) - realisation , population , welfare , public health , sociology , economic growth , political science , medicine , social science , demography , nursing , law , economics , physics , quantum mechanics
SUMMARY: During the last century the improvement of child health has become an important matter of public concern, reflecting preoccupations with the quality of the future adult population as well as with the current welfare of children. This paper traces some of the changing ideas and practices associated with this social project, from the late nineteenth century to the postwar years of the twentieth. From a period when survival beyond birth and infancy was the critical area of social concern to one when psychological adjustment and behaviour emerged as the essential indices of children's present and future health status.