AP/HIST 3855 3.00

‘Bad’ Kids in History and Culture

We think of children as innocent, pure, and society’s hope for the future, but we are also bombarded with images of youngsters who are violent, spoiled, or out of control. This course analyzes the social and cultural construction of “bad” kids in the U.S. and Canada since the 1880s, with special attention to issues of delinquency and juvenile justice. We look at adult constructions of “bad” children and how “bad” children saw themselves, and we explore the mutually constitutive relationship between the ideal of innocent childhood and the belief that some children are fundamentally bad. A central question is: how have conceptions of “bad” children been shaped by race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability? Further, how have beliefs about why a child is “bad” and what constitutes “badness” changed over time?