Project

Discipline

Social Pedagogy; Life trajectories; Social work; Resilience; Child placement; Residential care; Child welfare; Medical expertise; Vulnerability; Social policy; Welfare state history

Lead
Während des 20. Jahrhunderts wuchsen in der Schweiz Zehntausende von Kindern und Jugendlichen in Heimen auf. Zeitzeugenberichte und neuere Forschungen zeigen, dass das Kindswohl und individuelle Bildungs- und Entwicklungschancen dabei vielfach zweitrangig waren. Für die betroffenen Kinder und Jugendlichen war die Unterbringung in einem Heim stattdessen oft mit der Erfahrung von Isolation und Lieblosigkeit, mit Arbeitszwang und in manchen Fällen mit psychischem und sexuellem Missbrauch verbunden.
Lay summary
Inhalt und Ziel des Forschungsprojekts Ziel des Projekts ist es, solche Erfahrungen in den zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext zu stellen und die Platzierung „gefährdeter“ und „verwahrloster“ Kindern in Heimen oder Pflegefamilien in einer vergleichenden Perspektive zu analysieren. Weiter geht es darum, den Wandel, den die Heimerziehung zwischen 1940 und 1990 erfuhr, besser zu verstehen. Untersucht werden die zeitgenössischen Konzepte und Debatten im Zusammenhang mit der Heimerziehung, die Versorgungspraxis in verschiedenen Kantonen sowie die Wirkungen der behördlichen Entscheide und Platzierungen auf die Lebensläufe der Betroffenen. Wissenschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Kontext Das Projekt kombiniert Ansätze mehrerer Disziplinen (Geschichte, Soziale Arbeit, Erziehungswissenschaft) und verknüpft verschiedene Fallstudien zu einer Gesamtsicht. Es stellt so den Anschluss der aktuellen Debatte an die internationale Forschung her und leistet einen Beitrag zum historischen Verständnis der Fremdplatzierungspraxis. Es erarbeitet Kontext- und Orientierungswissen, das für die Betroffenen, für eine an ihrer Sozialgeschichte interessierte Gesellschaft sowie für Forschung, Lehre und Praxis der Sozialen Arbeit, insbesondere in den Bereichen Kinderschutz, Kinder- und Jugendhilfe, relevant ist.

Direct link to Lay Summary

Last update: 18.11.2013

Active participation

Self-organised

Active participation

Self-organised

Communication	Title	Media	Place	Year

Number	Title	Start	Funding scheme

During the twentieth century, tens of thousands of children and adolescents in Switzerland were placed in foster families or care homes. Recent research indicates that the welfare of the children was often secondary. Placement in a care home or a foster family was often associated with social isolation, compulsory work or even with sexual or physical abuse, with life-long consequences for those affected. Several European countries have recently undertaken efforts to reappraise this past and make reparations. Similar steps are currently in preparation in Switzerland. The proposed Sinergia project builds on this international debate. Its goal is to place biographical experiences in the context of the discourses, policies and practices of outplacement in Switzerland from 1950 to 1980. To illuminate the complexity and the changes that took place over time, various analytical approaches will be linked together. As the issues of foster children and of contract or indentured children (Verdingkinder) have been relatively well studied already, the subprojects here focus primarily on aspects of outplacement into care homes as well as the educational issues associated with the care provided in these homes. The Sinergia network is composed of three subprojects. Subproject 1 will investigate the contemporary discourse and debates about care home upbringing and adolescents (1942-1990). Subproject 2 will analyse the regional varieties in institutional assignment and placement practices (1940-1980). Subproject 3 will focus on the effects placement decisions had on the biographies of the affected care home “clients” (1950-1990). Unlike in previously published case studies, this project emphasizes synopsis and comparison. The project addresses multiple cases and examples, which differ by language region, religious denomination, and along the rural-urban divide. This allows for multidimensional analyses that reveal the variety of discourses, norms, actors and practices that guided behaviour. It also makes specific influences more visible. In asking about the connection between discourse and practice, as well as the effects of outplacement on individual biographies, the project does not focus exclusively on past injustices or the problems with administrative supervision. The goal is to understand the issues in a more comprehensive and analytically reflected way with respect to their diversity, context specificity, and trajectory. The emphasis of the subprojects lies on a period hitherto barely examined: 1940 to 1990. Placement in these post-war decades was subject to rapid structural change - as was Swiss society more generally. The care home campaign (Heimkampagne) of 1970 and the revision of the child laws (Kindsrecht) in 1978 were decisive turning points. A further goal of the project is to investigate the causes and forms these shifts took. The project is interdisciplinary in nature (contemporary history, social work) and combines methodological approaches from the historical sciences (subprojects 1 and 2) with those from the social sciences (subprojects 1 and 3).