Urban Childhoods: Context, Culture, Images

“Institutions are the sites of childhood stories,
yet the lives experienced in them are essentially anonymous”

This research guide provides an introduction on how to research ‘childhood in the city’:

• How are Birmingham’s histories of diversity, education, immigration and labour, connected?
• Which sorts of materials give us insight into the conditions of urban childhood?

Chapters in this research guide include:

• Urban Childhoods: Introduction
• Inside the Classroom
• Remembered Moments
• Disciplining the Body
• Data Collection

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People and places mentioned in this research guide include: schooling; the classroom teacher; the pupil; school textbooks; classroom and playground rhymes; empire; racism; xenophobia; learning strategies; exercise books; school magazines; Nelson Street School; Floodgate Street School; autobiographies; Kathleen Dayus; Ann Marsh; school photographs; Blue Coat School; designed spaces; punishment ledgers; Price Albert School, Aston; Birmingham Education Census; Alfred H. Green; Ann Street Infant School; and, locating the urban child in Birmingham records.

Further links and research:

How to Research Black History - A Childhood Case Study

Connecting Histories learning package written by Professor Ian Grosvenor.

This case study attempts to identify the black school girl in the photograph using various sources.