Wow! eBook
You Can Help Your Country: English Children's Work During the Second World War
Author(s): Berry Mayall (Author), Virginia Morrow (Author)
- Publisher: UCL IOE Press
- Publication Date: April 22, 2011
- Language: English
- Print length: 330 pages
- ISBN-10: 0854738894
- ISBN-13: 9780854738892
Book Description
This book not only examines the lives of children during WWII in unprecedented detail, but also it sheds light on the role of children in society generally. The inter-war years were a time when the character and proper activities of childhood were being debated. While protecting the next generation of citizens through evacuation was one strand in thinking, commentators in education and workers’ organizations debated whether children should be mainly regarded as learners at school, or could combine that kind of activity with war-related work. This asked a question that still has relevance today: should children be conceptualized as citizens for the future or as participating citizens now?
This debate leads to even larger questions about the social construction of childhood. As children have increasingly been withdrawn from paid and unpaid work, their contribution can be understood through their work at school; though this is often disguised or devalued since adults may conceptualize it as socialization by adults. The inter-war years and the war years in England were a key time for re-thinking childhood, and the issues that were raised then still have relevance to the role of children in society today.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Mayall and Morrow provide an accessible, ambitious, and compelling history of English children’s work during WWII. The authors foreground young people’s agency, participation, and voice to solidly locate their history within current sociological studies of childhood… This is a grounded exploration foregrounding children’s ability and exposing ambuguity in the meanings of childhood that people continue to grapple with today. Summing Up: Highly Recommended.” ―
Choice Published On: 2012-01-01“”Children,” said The Lady in 1940, “should not be thought of ‘as charming pets to be kept away from real life’… They too are British people and they may be better British people if their patriotism is tested in their early years.”
You Can Help Your Country usefully (if in textbook style) extends our understanding about children in wartime by showing what was expected of them – and, for most, childhood was over by 14 – when Britain was at war. Children’s contributions were manifold, collecting salvage, helping on the land, saving and digging for victory, knitting for the troops, running errands for ARP wardens, raising funds for battleships and contributing pocket money for Spitfires.Working-class children had always been part of the domestic economy but the “social contract” that the war effort forged helped consolidate their right to be recognised primarily as learners rather than earners.” — Juliet Gardiner, author of
Blitz: The British Under Attack (HarperPress, 2010)“In emphasising children’s agency in the war effort rather than their victimhood, Mayall and Morrow offer a new way of understanding children’s experiences of the war. In examining contemporary debates about children’s war work, they furthermore reveal a great deal about shifting conceptions of childhood, both then and now.” ―
The Times Higher Education Published On: 2011-06-01“Another major contribution to the sociology of childhood by two pioneers in the field.” — Sarane Spencer Boocock, Emeritus Professor of Sociology
“Think of children and the Second World War, and evacuation comes immediately to mind. Berry Mayall and Virginia Morrow have a different story to tell, one in which all the children of the nation were encouraged to contribute to the war effort.” — Hugh Cunningham, Emeritus Professor
“In raising questions about the nature of children/childhood, this is a timely, relevant and accessibly written book, and is an ideal text for students in education, history and sociology.” — Harry Hendrick, Associate Fellow
About the Author
Virginia Morrow is Senior Research Officer in the Department of International Development, University of Oxford.
