CFP: History of Education Society Conference for Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers: "Learning to play the game: youth, recreation and voluntary action" - London, 26 March, 2011 - Deadline: Feb. 1, 2011

History of Education Society Conference for Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers:
Learning to play the game: youth, recreation and voluntary action

DATE: Saturday 26 March, 2011
VENUE: Queen Mary, University of London

Call for Applications

Although children and young people have been engaging in informal play since the dawn of
human history it wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that an organised approach was
adopted for the provision of wholesome recreation through the emergence of youth
institutes, clubs and groups run by volunteers across the UK and beyond. What started out as an
evangelical movement with militaristic overtones soon diversified and proliferated with a
discernable shift towards a concern for the general well-being and physical condition of
the young during a period of moral panic about juvenile delinquency and national efficiency.
Drill, team sports, community work, camping, first aid and many other activities besides
were promoted for the purpose of building character, teaching skills and encouraging
personal growth, self-sufficiency and team spiritedness.

Now, as then, the extra-curricular dimension of education is championed across the
social and political spectrum as a means of harnessing the power and potential of youth for the
creation of a more engaged and cohesive society. As enthusiasm for sporting, cultural
and other voluntary activities reaches fever pitch in the build up to the Olympics, this
special one day History of Education Society conference, held in conjunction with the
Voluntary Action History Society and British Society of Sports History, seeks to explore the
history of the movement by offering a forum for postgraduates and early career researchers
working in the field to present their research on the intersection of youth, recreation
and/or voluntary action.

We warmly invite you to join us and welcome papers on a wide range of topics, including,
but not limited to, the history of:

Youth groups, clubs and societies
Physical education
Youth and community work
Youth and voluntary action
Extra-curricular activities
Youth sport, gender and identity
Youth, Empire and athleticism

Proposals of up to 300 words should be submitted (see attached doc. 2) along with a
completed registration form (doc. 3) to Sarah Winfield on sjw91@cam.ac.uk<
mailto:sjw91@cam.ac.uk> by 1 February 2011.

The three postgraduate panels will be interspersed with keynote addresses by Dr
Mary-Clare Martin and Dr Mark Freeman, who will each speak of their research on the history of
voluntary youth associations. These papers, along with those presented in the postgraduate
sessions, will provide the basis for a round table discussion led by the two keynote
speakers in the concluding session.

Thanks to the generous support of the History of Education Society and Economic History
Society attendance at this conference is FREE of charge.

www . historyofeducation . org . uk
http://groupspaces.com/historyofeducation/item/101120

Even if your research does not correlate with the thematic focus of the conference I
would still encourage you to join us in March as this promises to be a fantastic opportunity
to meet with many others working in related fields as well as glean insights into a
critical dimension of the wider sphere of education.

With best wishes,

Sarah