The historiography of child guidance has focused primarily on the United States, where it first developed before travelling across the English-speaking world. The rapid expansion of child guidance in the interwar years was enabled by private philanthropy, which provided fellowships to foreign professionals to study in the United States. This…

This article discusses the science-based diagnostic observation in a Dutch girls' reformatory in the 1950s. Scientisation of the observation implied that to the medical examination upon entry and observation of a child's behaviour were added a psychological assessment, a psychiatric examination, and an inquiry into the family of origin. Inspired…

In 1855 the Revd C. E. Van Koetsveld established his "School for Idiots" in The Hague. Within two years, he had also opened a boarding facility that accommodated many of his pupils. Legal regulations demanded authorisation for a child to be placed in this asylum. This procedure included a questionnaire on the condition of the child. The…

Between c.1945 and 1965 across the West special education has grown and differentiated substantially. In the Netherlands this expansion ran parallel to the academic recognition and rapid development of the study of learning disabilities. How are these two processes related? This article argues that in this country child science and special…

Historical fiction is a powerful way of transmitting national history to later generations. It emerged in the nineteenth century as a means of building identity and fostering solidarity. This article investigates Dutch historical novels for children. First, it explores the relation between educational ideas and historical novels for children,…

This paper addresses the question of whether the political debate concerning comprehensive schooling in the Netherlands between 1965 and 1979 was obscured by incompatible meanings of the concept of "equal opportunity". On the basis of an analysis of ministerial plans and parliamentary debates the conclusion is drawn that Dutch…

At the end of the nineteenth century Aime Bogaerts, a Socialist primary school teacher at a Ghent municipal school and from 1901 on the chief editor of the Socialist newspaper "Vooruit", began a new educational initiative: "the children of the popular classes from Ghent" ("De Gentsche Volkskinderen"). Children from…

In this article the authors address the question of why school medical inspection in the Netherlands developed not only considerably slower than the British service but did so also on a more modest scale in terms of the impact on children's lives. In the Netherlands school doctors were not allowed to treat children's illnesses and therefore never…