Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities - Professorial Lecture

'Saving the Children': Family Intervention and Imagined Futures

Speaker: Professor Val Gillies

Professor Gillies will explore the history of morally-infused ideas and policies about intervention in family to shape children's upbringing for the sake of the nation’s future. Such notions are underpinned by the influential proposition that undesirable attitudes, actions and a propensity for deprivation are transmitted through the generations via the mind of the child, with parenting and familial experiences determining national prospects through the personality, character and behavior of their progeny. She will consider how state interventions have sought to harness this conviction over time and explore how understandings of the role of parents and family have adjusted to fit the political and cultural contours of the day.

Lecture 5.30 - 6.30 p.m., followed by a drinks reception in the Regent Street Foyer.