‘The meaning of my life will always be to defend our Motherland’
Raising and educating citizens in a child protection institution in Mexico
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31265/jcsw.v14i1.233Keywords:
Child Protection, institutionalization, institutional upbringing, Childhood Studies, disciplinary, governmentality, Mexico, Protección infantil, institucionalización, crianza institucional, Estudios de la Infancia, disciplina, gobierno, MéxicoAbstract
English
The point of departure of this paper is that childhood is socially constructed and continuously re-defined through public policies, laws, practices and ideologies. The paper explores the perspectives on children, upbringing and socialization as reflected in the manuals, forms and questionnaires of social workers in a child protection institution in Mexico. It employs a theoretical lens borrowed from Childhood Studies, using three dominant images of childhood—the Dionysian, Apollonian and Athenian—to examine the links between discursive constructions of childhood and ways of governing institutionalized children. Four overarching themes were identified as representative of predominant concepts of values concerning children and child rearing in an institutionalized context in the documents: (1) Patriotism, (2) Work ethics, (3) Hygiene, and (4) Physical experiences and sexuality. The analysis reveals how children are perceived primarily as future citizens, with their upbringing being a part of a wider nation-building project. Hence, there is an emphasis on how to become a ‘decent’ labourer, internalize the values of- and loyalty to the nation-state, and develop into a ‘moral’ and ‘civilized’ citizen. It is argued that institutional socialization is part and parcel of a political ideology that reinforces the idea of children as relatively passive socialization objects.
Spanish
"El sentido de mi vida siempre será defender nuestra patria”: Criando y educando ciudadanos en instituciones de protección infantil en México.
El punto de partida de este artículo es que la infancia es construida socialmente, y que es continuamente redefinida a través de las políticas públicas, las leyes, las prácticas y las ideologías. Este artículo explora las perspectivas sobre los niños, la crianza, y la socialización según se reflejan en los manuales, planillas y cuestionarios de los trabajadores sociales en una institución de protección infantil en México. Se emplea la propuesta teórica tomada de los Estudios de la Infancia, usando tres imágenes dominantes (Dionisíaca, Apolínea y Ateniense) para examinar los vínculos entre las construcciones discursivas sobre la infancia y las formas que gobiernan a los niños institucionalizados. Se identificaron cuatro temas relevantes como representativos de los conceptos de valores predominantes en los documentos respecto a los niños, y cuidado infantil en un contexto institucionalizado: (1) Patriotismo, (2) Ética de trabajo, (3) Higiene, y (4) Experiencias físicas y sexualidad. El análisis revela cómo los niños son percibidos primeramente como futuros ciudadanos, y su crianza es parte de un proyecto más amplio de construcción de la nación. De este modo hay un énfasis en cómo convertirse en un trabajador “decente”, internalizar los valores de y la lealtad al Estado nación, y desarrollar un ciudadano moral y civilizado. Se afirma que la socialización institucional es parte de la ideología política que refuerza la idea de los niños como objetos de socialización relativamente pasivos.
References
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1d9nkbf
Anderson, B. (2006) [1983]. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.
Ayón, C., & Aisenberg, E. (2010). Negotiating cultural values and expectations within the public child welfare system. Child and Family Social Work, 15(3), 335-344.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2010.00682.x
Aréchiga Córdoba, E. (2007). Educación, propaganda o "dictadura sanitaria": Estrategias discursivas de higiene y salubridad pública en el México posrevolucionario, 1917-1945. Estudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea de México, 33, 57-88.
https://doi.org/10.22201/iih.24485004e.2007.033.3158
Bashford, A. (2004). Imperial hygiene. A critical history of colonialism, nationalism und public health. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508187
Blum, A. S. (2001). Conspicuous benevolence: Liberalism, public welfare, and private charity in Porfirian Mexico City, 1877-1910. The Americas, 58(1), 7-38.
https://doi.org/10.1353/tam.2001.0067
Blum, A. S. (2004). Cleaning the revolutionary household: Domestic servants and public welfare in Mexico City, 1900-1935. Journal of Women's History, 15(4), 67-90.
https://doi.org/10.1353/jowh.2004.0006
Boyden, J. (1997). Childhood and the policymakers: A contemporary perspective on the globalization of childhood. In A. James & A. Prout (Eds.), Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood, pp. 184-210. Basingstoke: Falmer Press.
Cardarello, A. (2012). The right to have a family: 'Legal trafficking of children', adoption and birth control in Brazil. Anthropology & Medicine, 19(2), 225-240.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2012.675047
Chong, N. G. (2008). Symbolic violence and sexualities in the myth making of Mexican national identity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(3), 524-542.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701568809
Cunningham, H. (1995). Children and childhood in western society since 1500. London: Longman.
Denzin, N. (1977). Childhood socialization. London: Transactions Publishers.
Douglas, M. (2002) [1966]. Purity and danger. London: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203361832
Eley, G., & Suny, R. (1996). Becoming national: A reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fendler, L. (2001). Educating flexible souls: The construction of subjectivity through developmentality and interaction. In K. Hultqvist & G. Dahlberg (Eds.), Governing the child in the new millennium, pp. 119-142. London: Routledge Falmer.
Fitzgerald, R., Graham, Smith, A., & Taylor, N. (2010). Children's participation as a struggle over recognition. In B. Percy-Smith & N. Thomas (Eds.) A handbook of children and young people's participation, pp. 293-305. London: Routledge.
Flint, J. (2002). Social housing agencies and the governance of anti-social behaviour. Housing Studies, 17(4), 619-38.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02673030220144376
Foucault, M. (1995) [1977]. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. London: Allen Lane.
Foucault, M. (1975). The history of sexuality (Vol. 1: An introduction. London: Penguin books.
Goffman, E. (1991) [1961]. Asylums. London: Penguin Books.
Gutiérrez, R. (2016). A history of Latino/a sexualities. In R. Gutierrez T. Almaguer (Eds.), The new Latino studies reader: A twenty-first century perspective, pp. 415-442. Oakland: University of California Press.
https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520960510-025
Hendrick, H. (2003). Child welfare: Historical dimensions, contemporary debate. Bristol: Policy Press.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1t898gt
Herrera, A. (2001). The hybrid construction of sexuality in Mexico and its impact on sex education. Sex Education, 1(3), 259-277.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14681810120080659
Hunter, I. (1996). Assembling the school. In A. Barry, T. Osborne & N. Rose (Eds.), Foucault and political reason: Liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government, pp. 143-166. London: UCL Press.
Ikonen, H. M., & Nikunen, M. (2018). Young adults and the tuning of the entrepreneurial mindset in neoliberal capitalism. Journal of Youth Studies, 1-15.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2018.1546383
James, A., Jenks, C., & Prout, A. (1998). Theorizing childhood. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jenks, C. (2005). Childhood. Abingdon: Routledge.
Karson, A., & Karson, M. (1976). The influence on American parenting styles of puritanism, rationalism and romanticism. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED133051.pdf
Kellett, M. (2014). Images of childhood and their influence on research. Understanding research with children and young people, 15-33.
https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526435637.n2
Khoo, E., Mancinas, S., & Skoog, V. (2015). We are not orphans. Children's experience of everyday life in institutional care in Mexico. Children and Youth Services Review, 59, 1-9.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.09.003
Kryger, N. (2004). Childhood and new learning in a Nordic context. In H. Brembeck, B. Johansson & J. Kampmann (Eds.), Beyond the competent child: Exploring contemporary childhoods in the Nordic welfare societies, pp. 153-176. Roskilde: Roskilde University Press.
Kuznesof, E. (2005). The house, the street, global society: Latin American families and childhood in the twenty-first century. Journal of Social History, 38(4), 859-872.
https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2005.0065
Mancinas, S. (2015). Social work with families in a Mexican context. Guest lecture, 22 Sept, University of Stavanger, Norway.
Manrique, L. (2016). Dreaming of a cosmic race: José Vasconcelos and the politics of race in Mexico, 1920s-1930s. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 3(1), 1-13.
https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2016.1218316
Malone, R. E. (1999). Policy as product: Mortality and metaphor in health policy discourse. The Hastings Center Report, 29(3), 16-22.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3528188
McKee, K. (2009). Post-Foucauldian governmentality: What does it offer critical social policy analysis? Critical Social Policy, 29(3), 465-486.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018309105180
Meichsner, S. (2014a). 'Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me': A case study on residential child and youth care in the
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137326317_3
Mexican-American border zone. In S. Spyrou & M. Christou (Eds.), Children and borders, pp. 47-61. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Meichsner, S. (2014b). A hard hand for the sake of God: The distinction between positive and negative violence in faith-based childcare. In K. Wells, E. Burman, H. Montgomery & A. Watson (Eds.), Childhood, youth and violence in a global context, pp. 67-83. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137322609_4
Morrow, V. (2011). Understanding children and childhood. Centre for Children and Young People Background Briefing Series, no. 1. Lismore: Southern Cross University.
Peter, E., Spalding, K., Kenny, N., Conrad, P., McKeever, P., & Macfarlane, A. (2007). Neither seen nor heard: Children and home care policy in Canada. Social Science & Medicine, 64(8), 1624-1635.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.12.002
Quiroga, M. G., & Hamilton-Giachritsis, C. (2014). "In the name of the children": Public policies for children in out-of-home care in Chile. Children and Youth Services Review, 44, 422-430.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.07.009
Rizzini, I. (2002). The child saving movement in Brazil. Ideology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In T. Hecht (Ed.), Minor omissions: Children in Latin American history and society, pp. 165-180. Madison: University of Wisconsin.
Rose, N. (1990) [1989]. Governing the soul: The shaping of the private self. London: Free Association Books.
Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488856
Rotegård, A. K. et al. (2010). Health assets: A concept analysis. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 47(4), 513-525.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2009.09.005
Sibley, D. (1995). Geographies of exclusion. London: Routledge.
Sistema Nacional DIF (2018). Sistema Nacional DIF, institución rectora de la asistencia social en México. https://www.gob.mx/difnacional/articulos/sistema-nacional-dif-institucion-rectora-de-la-asistencia-social-en-mexico
Smith, K. (2012). Producing governable subjects: Images of childhood old and new. Childhood, 19(1), 24-37.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568211401434
Stepan, N. (1991). "The hour of Eugenics": Race, gender, and nation in Latin America. London: Cornell University Press.
Stephens, S. (1997). Editorial introduction: Children and nationalism. Childhood, 4(1), 5-17.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568297004001001
Treviño, C. (2008). La Gota de Leche. De la mirada médica a la atención médico-social en el México posrevolucionario. Serie Historia Moderna y Contemporánea, 49. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. http://www.historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/publicadigital/libros/curar_sanar/494_04_07_gotadeleche.pdf
UNICEF (2013). La Situación de los niños, niñas y adolescentes en las instituciones de Protección y Cuidado de América Latina y el Caribe. http://www.unicef.org/lac/UNICEF_Estudio_sobre_ NNA_en_instituciones.pdf
Ursin, M. (2016). Contradictory and intersecting patterns of inclusion and exclusion of street youth in Salvador, Brazil. Social Inclusion, 4(4), 39-50.
https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v4i4.667
Ursin, M., Oltedal, S., & Muñoz, C. (2017). Recognizing the 'big things' and the 'little things' in child protection cases. Child & Family Social Work, 22(2), 932-941.
https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12313
White, M., & Hunt, A. (2000). Citizenship: Care of the self, character and personality. Citizenship Studies, 4(2), 93-116.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13621020050078041