Project description
A hidden history of childcare in modern Europe
How did caretakers rooted in families, communities and societies nurture very young children across history? How have care practices changed across different peoples, states and political economies in the dynamic 20th century? The ERC-funded CARECENTURY project answers these questions with a comparative study of early childcare in central and eastern Europe from 1905 to 2004. The project is the first to study early childcare in this region systematically and conceptualise the history of private and public caretaking in early life more broadly. It hypothesises that caretaking regimes are a collection of medical beliefs, moral assumptions, new technologies and advances in material culture interacting with changing political economies and inherited religious and ethnic sensitivities. Ultimately, the findings shed light on how and why caretakers used some childcare practices and not others in this illuminating milieu.
Objective
How did caretakers rooted in families, communities and societies nurture very young children across historical time? And, how have care practices changed across different peoples, states and political economies in the dynamic 20th century? This ambitious project answers these important, yet mostly overlooked, questions with a comparative study of early childcare in central and eastern Europe from 1905 to 2004.
The late Habsburg Empire and, after 1918, six of its successor states offer an ideal laboratory to explore how the invisible work of caretaking was impacted by changing political, social and economic circumstances. In this ethnically and religiously diverse region, care continued during depressions, wars, genocides, displacements and revolutions. This project will be the first to study early childcare in this region systematically and conceptualize the history of private and public caretaking in early life more broadly.
To achieve this goal of defining and explaining care practices, this project has three objectives: (1) to show the nature and scope of the invisible work required during the first 1,000 days of life using unexamined voices, spaces and things; (2) to use insights from sociological and economic literatures to conceptualize and theorize the caretaking regimes of central and eastern Europe and explain continuities and discontinuities of caretaking within one diverse region, and (3) to examine the afterlife of caretaking regimes after 1989 and European Union expansion, while also exploring the legacies and debates about caretaking which endure today.
This project hypothesizes that caretaking regimes – a collection of medical beliefs, moral assumptions, new technologies and advances in material culture –interacted with changing political economies and inherited religious and ethnic sensitivities. Variations across this interaction explain how and why caretakers utilized some childcare practices and not others in this illuminating milieu.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences law human rights human rights violations
- humanities history and archaeology history
- social sciences political sciences political transitions revolutions
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
2311 EZ Leiden
Netherlands
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