Children’s experiences of the care ‘system’ in Scotland since 1945

Abstract

This thesis explores children’s experiences of the Scottish care ‘system’ in the past and asks how we can uncover, recover and come to know them. It focuses on the experiences of those who were in the care of voluntary children’s homes run by charitable, religious organisations from the 1940s to the 1980s, when the homes largely ceased operation in Scotland. The concept of experience provides historians with new methodological possibilities. It allows us to move beyond seeking voice defined as a largely linguistic phenomenon to be traced in the written historical record. Experience is understood as an embodied culturally and situationally bound social process. By moving beyond the purely linguistic, this thesis seeks to develop new interpretative strategies that can uncover the perspectives and experiences of children who have, in the past, left little textual trace in the official record. The approach developed throughout this thesis contributes new analytical and conceptual strategies that can be adapted and adopted by scholars working in the fields of emotions history and the history of childhood. This thesis combines the analysis of the testimonies of 160 of those who were formerly in care, heard before the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, with both testimonies and archival materials from those who provided, managed and regulated their care in the past. By placing the memories and perspectives of those who were once children in care at the centre of its analysis, rather than the narratives of child welfare professionals in the past, this thesis deepens our understanding of the day-to-day lives of children in Scotland’s care ‘system’ in the decades following the end of the Second World War. In spite of significant legislative and structural change during this period, when it comes to Scotland’s care ‘system’, this study recasts it as a period of continuity and inertia in terms of children’s care. Moreover, this thesis recognises that care experience is lifelong and does not end when a child is discharged from the care ‘system’ and seeks to reflect the full life stories of those who testified before the Inquiry