Governance and institutional rehabilitation in Portuguese childhood vagrants and offenders at the turn of the 20th century

Abstract

We aim to take a «look at that childhood» in social difficulties and/or social conflict, in the field of the (Social) History of Education and/or the Social History of Childhood. To historiographically analyse this «other childhood», which was on the margins of social normality and the education system, at the beginning of the 20th century in Portugal. Questions of regeneration and rehabilitation of this childhood and modalities of governance in youth custody centres (reformatories) obeyed their own forms of rationality and time contexts, inserted in a movement of social reform, from the end of the 19th century. Taking into account the criminal legal provisions and the social, legal and institutional rehabilitation of the minors, in this historical period, we address: marginalisation and delinquency of children and youths as an object of the History of Social Education, in relation to the circumstances of social deviation and legislative regulation (the Child Protection Law of 1911); the mentor’s social and rehabilitation action in tutelary protection of minors (Antonio de Oliveira); the disciplinary regime and the socio-educational system in special establishments (Preparatory Section of the Reformatory School of Lisbon, 1912-21).

Key words: marginalisation and delinquency; child protection; governance and institutional rehabilitation; disciplinary regime; Preparatory Section of Lisbon.