Leiden University Student Repository

Mair, Laura Marilyn (2012)

The pauper problem: How and why was childhood poverty problematised by the Ragged School Union between 1844 and 1864?

Master thesis | History (MA)

This research follows the discourse of the ragged school movement across a twenty-year period, and through this provides a greater understanding of problem-formation and problem-solving. By analysing the movement using ideas of problematisation and sub-culture solidification as the theoretical framework, this thesis contends with contemporary views of the child-saving movement. Unlike the wider historiographical work on the child-savers, this work has investigated the problematising function of language that was used in ragged school material, and has shown how the rhetoric that was used sought to mobilise and involve the general public. During this research, factors such as the identification of deviants, the fluidity of categorisation, the association of broader issues, and the importance of problem solvability have been explored in a manner that had not yet been done in association with the child-saving movement. Beyond this, this work has contributed to current theories of...Show moreThis research follows the discourse of the ragged school movement across a twenty-year period, and through this provides a greater understanding of problem-formation and problem-solving. By analysing the movement using ideas of problematisation and sub-culture solidification as the theoretical framework, this thesis contends with contemporary views of the child-saving movement. Unlike the wider historiographical work on the child-savers, this work has investigated the problematising function of language that was used in ragged school material, and has shown how the rhetoric that was used sought to mobilise and involve the general public. During this research, factors such as the identification of deviants, the fluidity of categorisation, the association of broader issues, and the importance of problem solvability have been explored in a manner that had not yet been done in association with the child-saving movement. Beyond this, this work has contributed to current theories of problematisation by focusing on how a problem can be built around an intended solution.Show less

Problematisation

Solvability

Transformation

Linkage

Sub-culture

Categorisation

Author

Mair, Laura Marilyn

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

MA Political culture and national identity

Supervisors

Schrover, Marlou

ECTS Credits

30

Language

en