Memories of harm in institutions of care:The Dutch historiography of institutional child abuse from a comparative perspective

This chapter discusses the Dutch historiography of institutional child abuse from a comparative perspective. It does so by comparing the outcomes of three recent large-scale inquiries into child (sexual) abuse and neglect in state-sponsored out-of-home care, including foster care, and into child sexual abuse in Roman Catholic institutions with the findings of similar inquiries and truth commissions in other countries. While the first reports chose a quantitative approach, focusing primarily on survey and archival data, only the last report on child abuse in out-of-home care meets the requirements of the testimonial driven and victim-centered model of inquiry that was first developed in Australia and copied in English-speaking and northern-European countries. In this De Winter report victims' stories confirm data from archival sources. By using this approach, it has given care-leavers a voice and an opportunity to reconcile to their harmful memories and the wider public the knowledge a society needs to prevent abuse of children in the future.</p

Professional competence and the classification and selection of pupils for schools for “feebleminded” children in the Netherlands (1900-1940)

This article explores the tensions between medical and pedagogical professionals involved with the classification and selection of pupils for the special day-schools for “feebleminded” children that were established from 1900 in the Netherlands to promote compulsory mass schooling’s efficiency. These are set against the increasing influence of child sciences, including the new technique of intelligence testing. These schools were meant for educable learning-disabled children, the classification of whom involved a child’s (ab)normality and (in)educability. The article discusses the categories defined and labels inscribed on children with learning disabilities. These focused mainly on a child’s capacity to communicate and learn to adapt to society, as the special schools aimed to educate productive members of society. In spite of the recognised merits of the schools, theorists turned out to be most concerned about undue placements of not “essentially backward” children, who would benefit more from educational support in a regular school. The selection and admission procedure of the schools was standardised by the introduction in 1920 of intelligence testing as part of a developing scientific assessment culture, which for want of psychologists and despite the headmasters’ professionalisation continued to be dominated by the medical profession up to the Second World War

Версия профессора Владимира Тетельмина: плотина Саяно-Шушенской ГЭС наползла на машинный зал

Авария на Саяно-Шушенской ГЭС вызвала огромный общественный резонанс. Официальное заключение о причинах крупнейшей в гидроэнергетике катастрофы будет готово еще не скоро. А пока авторитетные специалисты спорят о том, что же произошло на станции, которая считалась жемчужиной гидроэнергетики. Один из самых сведущих экспертов в гидротехнике — доктор технических наук Владимир Тетельмин, который 12 лет изучал плотину Саяно-Шушенской ГЭС. Он был депутатом Госдумы 1-го и 2-го созывов, стал одним из авторов закона "О безопасности гидротехнических сооружений"

In search of the unconscious:The science-based diagnostic observation of girls in a Dutch reformatory in the 1950s

This article discusses the science-based diagnostic observation in a Dutch girls’ reformatory in the 1950s. Scientisation of the observation implied that to the medical examination upon entry and observation of a child’s behaviour were added a psychological assessment, a psychiatric examination, and an inquiry into the family of origin. Inspired by dynamic psychology it was part of a strategy to promote a more professional and individualised treatment in child protection. The research addresses the claims to an additional value of child science in this procedure. It turns out that the psychological and psychiatric knowledges weighed heavier than the input from non-academic staff in regard to the representation of a girl in the observation report and advice to the juvenile court. Information concerning a girl’s observed behaviour and acceptance in the group was overruled by Freudian beliefs regarding the consequences of early childhood experiences for her unconscious feelings

Identifying the ‘subnormal’ child in an age of expansion of special schooling and child science in the Netherlands (c.1945-1965)

Between c.1945 and 1965 across the West special education has grown and differentiated substantially. In the Netherlands this expansion ran parallel to the academic recognition and rapid development of the study of learning disabilities. How are these two processes related? This article argues that in this country child science and special education have mutually stimulated each other’s growth and development. The creation of new categories of special-needs children brought about a climate in which the study of learning disabilities and their treatment could flourish. This, in turn, produced further differentiation between children with learning difficulties. Soon problems of identification and categorisation of mentally ‘subnormal’ children proved too complicated to rely on intelligence testing and medical-psychological diagnosis alone. Educational prognosis, based on long-term observation and all kinds of testing, became the key to a child’s future at school and educationists instead of psychologists became the foremost keyholders

Child guidance, dynamic psychology and the psychopathologisation of child-rearing culture (c. 1920-1940):a transnational perspective

The historiography of child guidance has focused primarily on the United States, where it first developed before travelling across the English-speaking world. The rapid expansion of child guidance in the interwar years was enabled by private philanthropy, which provided fellowships to foreign professionals to study in the United States. This article focuses upon the transnational transfer of child guidance, the dynamic psychology on which it was based, and the accompanying psychopathologisation of child-rearing culture to a non-English speaking country, the Netherlands. First, it discusses the development of child guidance and the reception of dynamic psychology in the United States and Britain. Next, it analyses the transfer to the Netherlands. It turns out that the Dutch did not copy the American model, but adapted it to fit their conditions and created a more diverse child guidance landscape, in which educational psychology played a less important role than child psychiatry