Reading Analysis #1: Embodied Citizenship- Health in Schools

The readings that were assigned for the week dealt with the broad topic of “Embodied Citizenship”, with a more narrowed focus on “Health in Schools”. Each article that was assigned pertained to the topic of “Health in Schools”, however, each had a different take on health in schools.

In Mona Gleason’ article “School Medical Inspection and ‘Healthy’ Children in British Columbia, 1890-1930″, she “focuses on school medical inspection as a window in the social process of ‘constructing’ healthy children… [and] what the crusade to encourage clean, disease-free school children reveal about the social construction of health”[1]. Gleason looks at how important health in schools was and how race played an integral role in identifying health and cleanliness amongst children. “Public health officials drew repeated and unmistakable connections between Asian newcomers and filth and disease”[2]. It is evident to see that populations of people such as the Asian peoples were targeted to be less clean and sanitary than other populations of peoples such as the whites. To add to this, Myra Rutherdale’s article “Children, Health, and Hygiene in Northern Canadian Communities” discusses similar topics as see in Gleason’s article. Gleason looked at races such as the Asian population and public health officials/school medical inspectors, however, Rutherdale took a similar approach and looked at Aboriginal children and the inspection and surveillance of these children’s health and hygiene. “Teachers, missionaries, doctors, and nurses routinely inspected Aboriginal bodies… [and] whether in or out of school, children experienced great surveillance and control”[3]. Bathing for instance was a way of keeping the children clean and hygienic. Both hygiene and cleanliness were some main focuses throughout the article and the idea of bathing helped with the focus of health within the Aboriginal population. “Attention to hygiene and cleanliness were overwhelmingly visible… [and] hygiene was an utter obsession… with children in communities and schools”[4]. Rutherdale’s article shows how health is an important part in schools and communities.

Another way health is prominent in schools is shown through Catherine Gidney’s article “From Character to Personality: Changing Visions of Citizenship, 1940s to 1960s”. Gidney discusses physical education as a key course in schools that plays an important role in health in schools. “Physical Education for women makes some contribution to the development of the student as a whole person; it contributes, that is not only to her organic health but also to her expanding personality”[5], and it is noted that “physical education is a service programme which has as its aim the development of mentally, emotionally and organically sound citizen”[6]. It is seen throughout Gidney’s article that physical education has beneficial aspects in individual both for physical and mental health but also for the transformation of individuals’ character to personality. Similar aspect of Gidney’s article are seen in another one of Mona Gleason’s articles “‘Knowing Something I Was Not Meant to Know’: Exploring Vulnerability, Sexuality, and Childhood, 1900-1950”, she discusses the topic of sexuality and sex education. “Sexuality education was associated primarily with the control of venereal disease and anxiety over the spiritual and moral well-being of young people…children became key targets of both popular advice manuals and more formalized health education in this period”[7]. It is noted that sex education and the topic of sexuality amongst children and within schools was a touchy subject, thus some schools in this time took “a different approach: teaching sex education, starting in elementary schools, purely from the standpoint of animal and plant biology”[8]. With taking a different approach to “sex education [it] was keeping with social norms regarding the vulnerability of children to the dangers of knowing too much”[9]. In Gidney’s article she discussed physical education as an important course that is influential to the individual in many different aspects and with health in schools, whereas Gleason’s article discussed sex education and health within the schools and how that effected the child.

All these four articles discuss the topic of health in schools. The first Gleason article dealt with cleanliness in schools and the discrimination against different races such as the Asians being unclean and unhygienic. Rutherdale’s article had some similarities to the Gleason article by looking at cleanliness and hygiene amongst the Aboriginal population within schools and the community. However, on the other hand, the other two articles, one by Gidney and the other also by Gleason don’t focus on people within schools being “healthy” but rather focus on courses being taught in schools that deal with health and have health benefits. Gidney’s article talked about physical education as a course that benefits health within schools and the individuals, whereas Gleason’s article looked at sex education and health related classes within schools. All four of these articles discussed different ways at looking at health in schools, however, it is evident to see some similarities between them.

 

Endnotes:

[1] Mona Gleason, “School Medical Inspection and ‘Healthy’ Children in British Columbia, 1890-1930,” in Krasnick Warsh and Strong-Boag (Eds.), Children’s Health Issues in Historical Perspectives, Waterloo, WLU Press, 2005: 287.

[2] Ibid., 288-289.

[3] Myra Rutherdale, “Children, Health, and Hygiene in Northern Canadian Communities,” in Krasnick Warsh and Strong-Boag (Eds.), Children’s Health Issues in Historical Perspective, Waterloo, WLU Press, 2005: 305.

[4] Ibid., 313.

[5] Catherine Gidney, “From Character to Personality: Changing Visions of Citizenship, 1940s to 1960s,” in Tending the Student Body: Youth, Health, and the Modern University, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015: 168.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Mona Gleason, “‘Knowing Something I Was Not Meant to Know’: Exploring Vulnerability, Sexuality, and Childhood, 1900-1950,” The Canadian Historical Review, 98, (March 2017): 44.

[8] Ibid., 46.

[9] Ibid., 47.

 

Bibliography:

Gidney, Catherine. “From Character to Personality: Changing Visions of Citizenship, 1940s to 1960s.” in Tending the Student Body: Youth, Health, and the Modern University, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015: 164-182.

Gleason, Mona. “‘Knowing Something I Was Not Meant to Know’: Exploring Vulnerability, Sexuality, and Childhood, 1900-1950.” The Canadian Historical Review, 98, (March 2017): 35-59.

Gleason, Mona. “School Medical Inspection and ‘Healthy’ Children in British Columbia, 1890-1930.” in Krasnick Warsh and Strong-Boag (Eds.), Children’s Health Issues in Historical Perspectives, Waterloo, WLU Press, 2005: 287-304.

Rutherdale, Myra. “Children, Health, and Hygiene in Northern Canadian Communities.” in Krasnick Warsh and Strong-Boag (Eds.), Children’s Health Issues in Historical Perspective, Waterloo, WLU Press, 2005: 305-332.

 

Reflection:

I decided to add this reading analysis into my ePortfolio because it not only shows the connection between gender and health, but it greatly shows how influential health experts are on the lives of people. In these articles in this reading analysis, it discussed medical inspectors/experts who knew what was health and how to be healthy, which in some instances was forced upon children in schools. Health was constructed by these inspectors within schools and they looked at how hygiene and cleanliness played an important role in health. Health was looked at by the inspectors as a critical aspect in the lives of children and how this is integrated into schools. This reading analysis mainly focuses on the part of my argument that looks at medical experts and their influence on health, however, in other reading analysis, the other aspect of my argument will be further discussed.