HST2113 - Welfare children: The state, the family, and society in modern Britain

20 credits (Semester 1)

Module Leader: Dr Emily Baughan (2024-25)

Module Summary

This module charts the rise and decline of the welfare state through its influence of modern British childhood and on the family. With a particular focus on primary sources, it traces the ideological origins of welfare in British imperialism and eugenics, and is attentive to those who have been excluded from so-called universal entitlements. It engages with the scholarship of Black feminists who have termed the ‘welfare state’ a ‘malfare state’. We will examine the everyday lives reshaped by the state - through healthcare, work, education, housing, and maternity services - in the second half of the twentieth century, paying particular attention to the way that the city of Sheffield shaped and was shaped by the welfare state. We are also interested in the way that the political economy, specifically the shift from Keynesianism to Neoliberalism - changed society and the state. How did ordinary men, women, and children experience major economic change, and how did they challenge - or promote - these changes? In Sheffield, a city shaped by steel and then mass unemployment, this is a particularly fraught history. We draw on a number of different historiographical and political traditions in this course, including socialism, feminism, and liberalism. Primary sources are central to our analysis. We nuance our understanding through sources ranging from private diaries, family photographs, and archival ephemera through to political speeches and to public buildings, including those we see around us every day in the city of Sheffield.

Assessment

Please see this page for assessment details: Level 2 assessment

Learning Outcomes

LO1 - Have a strong knowledge of the development of British welfare policy and the shifts in family life from

1900 to the present

LO2 - Understand major shifts in the historiography of the welfare state, the family and childhood from 1900

LO3 - Demonstrate a critical analysis of a wide range of primary sources, including personal testimony, architecture, ephemera, political pamphlets, speeches, and photographs

LO4 - Develop the capability to organize and articulate ideas fluently

Background Reading

To follow.