This international workshop will analyze the relationship between science, children, and childhood. We want to examine the methods developed to study children and the novel approaches in the human sciences they inspired more generally, as well as find new ways to conceptualize children as agents whose play and daily experiences shaped scientific work.

First, we want to situate the methods used to study infants and children in the broader intellectual, social, and cultural contexts in which they emerged. In so doing, we will focus on a broad range of actors engaged in child studies within and beyond academia. What motivated them to take up children as objects/subjects of scientific study? What were their educational and professional backgrounds, and what kinds of knowledge did they bring to the endeavor? Which methods did they rely on or develop to document children and childhood, and in what way did those methods influence knowledge practices and research agendas within and beyond child studies? How, in this process, did children become models for science? How were child-inspired methods applied back to adults?

Second, we want to explore the interplay between scientific research and children’s social worlds, and use the social and material history of childhood as a lens to uncover new insights in the history of science. In this context, we will examine how scientific practices and material cultures of research intersected with children’s lived experiences, not only in studies conducted with children as research participants, but also in research and methodologies that have surprising origins in children’s activities or experiences. We ask, how might children have experienced, and potentially influenced, the studies they participated in? How can historical inquiry make sense of the potential disconnect between scientists’ intentions and children’s own experiences or interpretations of studies? And how did children’s everyday practices and creative play shape research design and implementation in ways not previously recognized, and in areas not traditionally associated with childhood studies?

For the full program, see the pdf below.