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Contribution
The main goals of this paper are to examine poor children and education within a discourse analytical framework. The paper will draw attention to the way the poor relief and child welfare policies affected the formation of the question of poor children's education. Foucault uses a concept of strategy in sense that discourses are historically organised and they are connected relations of power in the society. The conceptual repertoires are also linked to social and cultural institutions, such as education. The analysis is based on a discourse analytical reading of contemporary sources by poor relief and child welfare. The sources consists of various governmental, legislative and administrative texts: for example contemporary literature, articles from magazines and journals connected to poor relief, child welfare or education, and other official documents - such as laws, statutes, parliamentary documents, committee memoranda. Official statistics will also be used on analyses. In addition numbers and amounts statistics constructed categorisations and divisions.The paper concludes that there was one main discourse, national-patriarchal discourse which can be divided into two subdiscourses: a pedagogical discourse and an administrative discourse. A difference between these two subdiscourses was a position constructed for poor children. Within the pedagogical discourse poor children were seen as an object of control and power. An idea presented in this discourse was poor childrens educational positions. Within the administrative discourse children were passed and ignored; the main interest lied on the definitions of sphere of authority. The pedagogical discourse had four subcategories: the discourse of moral duty, the discourse of equality, the discourse of practice and the discourse of selection. The focus moved from the discourse of moral duty to the discourse of equality (since 1910's) and to the discourse of selection (since 1920's).Nieminen, Marjo. 2007. Lastensuojelulapset ja koulutus sosiaali- ja koulutuspoliittisessa keskustelussa 1900-1930-lukujen Suomessa (Poor children and education in the Finnish professional and official debate, 1900s-1930s. (Will be published May 2007). Foucault, Michel. 1972/1994. The Archeology of Knowledge.The paper is a summary of my doctoral thesis. The doctoral thesis will be published in May 2007 (Annales Universitatis Turkuensis).
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