Przemoc fizyczna i seksualna wobec dzieci w środowisku rodzinnym jako problem społeczno-pedagogiczny w publicystyce Królestwa Polskiego na przełomie XIX i XX wieku
Physical and sexual violence towards children in the family environment as a social and pedagogical problem in the journalism of the Kingdom of Poland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries

Summary/Abstract: Aim: The aim of the article is to research the presence of the violence towards children in the family environment in the technical press and social journals in the Kingdom of Poland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The crucial task is the analyses of the publicists, intellectuals and community activists’ texts in respect of the kind of problems connected with physical and sexual violence against children, which appeared in the social and science journals. Another big issue is the choice of criteria usedin explaining those problems. Methods: In the article some methods were applied which are usually used in the historical and pedagogical researches, including the philological method, which enables the carrying out the analysis of written texts. Results: The research showed that at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the symptoms of the violence and its considerations were described in the print media. There were attempts to determine the causes of family destabilisation and attempts to show ways of preventing domestic violence. At the beginning of the 20th century the problem of physical violence, sexual harassment and abuse was described not only in the technical journals, but also in the social and cultural press. The results of research conducted by pedagogues, doctors and lawyers’ in reagrd to the violence against children in the family environment were presented there. They stressed the need to support families which had difficulties with raising their offspring and to establish a social organisation which would protect children from lawlessness, cruelty and neglect from their parents. On the eve of the outbreak of the First World War, many experts spoke about the need to legitimise the state’s control over the private life of its citizens and interference in the family life for the sake of protecting the child. Z. Pietkiewicz and A. Mogilnicki were among those who wrote about these issues. Conclusions: At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries there was a sudden growth of interest in issues of violence against children and young persons. Publicists tried tocapture audience attention to condition of children in dysfunctional families, which earlier was taboo. The aim of this was to awaken people’ sense of responsibility. The issue of the violence was explained by conceptual apparatus and theoretical arrangements from the field of pedagogy and sciences connected with it.

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