Shaping elites and children at risk: public discourse about the residential care for children at risk in nineteenth-century Brno

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F18%3A00101116" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/18:00101116 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-8769.69.5" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-8769.69.5</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-8769.69.5" target="_blank" >10.7220/2335-8769.69.5</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Shaping elites and children at risk: public discourse about the residential care for children at risk in nineteenth-century Brno

Original language description

The long lasting tradition of creating huge institutions of residential care for children at risk in the Czech lands and Moravia in particular may be traced back to the needs of nineteenth-century philanthropic elites and the discursive presentation in the local press of the “best kind of care.” In Brno, several aristocrats and representatives of the higher clergy cooperated with a small but wealthy middle class elite when organizing care for children with audial and visual impairments as well as children endangered by “moral negligence.” Political connections of those civic philanthropists allowed gaining public funding for expanding expensive institutions of residential care. At the same time, public discourse presented the institutes as important meeting places of the local old and new elites. The compromises of socially, religiously, and ethnically heterogeneous but cooperating sectors moulded social careers, promoted religious tolerance or equal linguistic rights of two Moravian nations in the public discourse. The taste and gifts of local philanthropists also shaped the care that children received. The help itself was ever more strongly presented as the duty of the society; this duty was fulfilled under the leadership of those “on top.” The help was presented by metaphors of “raising up.” The child would be taken away from its original surrounding in order to be “raised up” to a productive, free, or even “noble” individual. The long-lasting need of providing proofs that the care was effective was satisfied by the means of preselection of children for the institutes. Somewhat exaggerated optimism about the effectivity of philanthropy resulted in an original tendency to reject the pessimism of rising eugenics concerning the handicapped in Brno philanthropic circles. The prestigious publicity that those institutes received allowed medical doctors and pedagogues to build their individual and collective careers. Newspapers praised them for volunteering, professional know-how and their ability to bring fame to the region. Professionals also contributed to the image of effective residential care by presenting their exclusive ability to help children at risk and to show the native environment of children to be unsuitable or dangerous. While gaining ever more public financing, the institutes were gradually turned into domains for professionals.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_ost - Miscellaneous article in a specialist periodical

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA15-10625S" target="_blank" >GA15-10625S: Child welfare discourses and practices in the Czech lands: the segregation of Roma and disabled children in the nineteenth and until current period</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2018

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Darbai ir Dienos

ISSN

1392-0588

e-ISSN

2335-8769

Volume of the periodical

69

Issue of the periodical within the volume

13

Country of publishing house

LT - LITHUANIA

Number of pages

48

Pages from-to

65-112

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

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