HREQ 1800 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Youth Criminal Justice Act, Parens Patriae, Truancy

• School: York University
• Department: Human Rights and Equity Studies
• Course: HREQ 1800
• Professor: Livy Visano

Document Summary

Social construction; made by institutions to serve the institutions. The meaning of child or children, the beginning and end of childhood, vary from culture to culture, across time, and among organizations and institutions within any one society. I. e. the age at which children can work for pay, consent to sexual relations, etc. Especially protestantism, children were seen are evil; suffer from original sin; action (i. e baptism) must be taken to remove it. They would sometimes be beaten to beat the evil out of them. The father"s authority as patria potestas, the sovereign of the household, was clear and unchallenged. Children were not humans; they were property, just as women. Urbanization; from the farm to the factory to put them to work; they were seen as an asset to make. Public school: it was later on developed for the poor to discipline them, to keep them busy and to keep them from causing trouble on the streets.