Social Policy, 'Deviant' Children, and the Public Health Apparatus in British Columbia Between the Wars

Abstract

Recently I finished a study that described how, over the years from the I 880s to the 1920s Anglophone Canadians developed a cluster of social policies that, by and large, still govern their treatment of their children. 1 I am now pursuing two closelyrelated lines of research that flow out of that study. First, I am trying to find out how the mass of Canadians moved (or were moved) from the old forms to the new; how it was that they came to apply the new notions of child-rearing, the new health practices, and the new schooling to an ever-increasing proportion of their youngsters. Second, I am trying to find out how families and children actually lived their lives under the new arrangements. This paper outlines some of my early discoveries in response to my first topic.