Schooling Bodies: School Practice and Public Discourse 1880-1950

Drawing extensively on primary source historical material, this book explores the social construction of children's bodies in Australian and British schools between 1880 and 1950, focusing on a matrix of discursive practices within three school sites: physical training, medical inspection and sport. The key argument of the book is that these discursive practices were part of a process of constructing the body in modernity. The docile body produced by these practices was pliable and yet economically productive, a body that could be regulated and normalized to ensure the healthy propagation of the race and a ready supply of economically-productive citizens. This study follows the use of these discursive practices in British and Australian schools up to, and including, the two World Wars and after.