Abstract

MARTINS, Ernesto Candeias. Social representation of the Portuguese “Other Childhood” (19th and 20th centuries): Assistance and (re)educational care. Educ. Puc. [online]. 2018, vol.23, n.2, pp.251-272. ISSN 2318-0870.  https://doi.org/10.24220/2318-0870v23n2a4002.

The article addresses “the other childhood”, the one that escapes the so-called normalized childhood in society, in the context of the 19th and 20th centuries and its concepts or approaches that are rebuild over time and in the historical memory. Our hermeneutic analysis deals with those abandoned, marginalized, delinquent, and helpless children at risk, without any physical or moral presence of family, education or affection for their normal development, who were placed in social and legal, medico-pedagogical, assistance and institutional care. The historical connections related to this childhood conditions and social phenomena intertwined with their problems and reality shall be addressed. These childhoods will be discussed and historically contextualized in contemporary Portugal by means of argumentative digressions of anthropological, epistemological, pedagogical aspects and social history. These children were assisted and/or institutionalized in asylum schools and assistance centers for reeducation, where they received education for life. Portugal was prolific in creating different kinds of institutions, especially asylums and shelters in the nineteenth century and other reeducational institutions that survived in the twentieth century. The discussion is based on three aspects: emergence of problems and social conditions of childhood; the image of another childhood depicted in newspapers; childhood on the fringes of society and welfare measures and (re)education.

Keywords : Educational assistance; Childhood history; Differentiated childhood; Other childhood; Social representation.

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