Inspired by the work of the Swiss psychotherapist Alice Miller (For Your Own
Good, 1983) on the negative effects of traditional childrearing practices in Germany, this
thesis posits the existence in France of a similar tradition of "poisonous pedagogy," also
founded on a set of moral principles and pedagogical techniques designed to desensitize,
demoralize, and blame the child while protecting the parent/teacher.
Working under the banner of Cultural Studies, I study examples of pedagogical
discourse taken from a variety of cultural productions, ranging from moral treatises (lay
and religious) and books on infant care (puericulture) to children's stories, primary
school readers, and civics texts. Drawing on Michel Foucault's paradigms of
power/knowledge and the "archeology" of knowledge, this study focusses on the various
constructions of the child in nineteenth-century France.
Beginning with an analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's influential Emile ou de
l’education (1762), this study traces the legacy of poisonous pedagogy in France during
the July Monarchy, the Second Empire and the Third Republic. During the nineteenth
century the discourse on children was in constant mutation, and opposing perspectives
clashed throughout the century, although criticism of poisonous pedagogy became strong
only in the last quarter of the century during the Third Republic. Child advocates at this
time can be found in many different spheres-education, politics, medicine-but the
contribution of literary writers to the discourse on children is perhaps the most dramatic
of any group.
The harshest criticisms of poisonous pedagogy and its concomitant construction of
the child came at the end of the century in the form of two literary works: Jules Valles's
L'Enfant (1879), and Jules Renard's Poil de Carotte (1894). By skillfully weaving
powerful attacks on the techniques and principles of poisonous pedagogy into their texts,
these two writers prefigure the pedagogical discourse of modern-day psychologists and
child specialists.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10108 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Wallace, David Jeremy |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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