Kevin Myers
Biographic Data
| ID | 3591190 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kevin Myers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kevin |
| FAMILY NAME | Myers |
| SIGNATURE | MYERS K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7853-4721 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Truth and reparative action commission
Reparative futures
The past is present in all future making activities. However, there is more that futuring processes can do to engage with past-present relationships, namely by bringing to the fore frameworks of reparation and redress. This article explores how ideas of reparative action may offer generative resources for Futures Studies. It suggests that in order to create futures characterised by justice it is essential to listen to and engage with ongoing hist…
‘Timeless memories’
This special section has its origins in the 2021 annual meeting of the UK History of Education Society hosted by the DOMUS Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Histories of Education and Childh
Memories of Migration
Based on key concepts of memory studies, this article investigates how immigration is remembered in two different societies: the United Kingdom and Germany. Starting from the assumption that social remembering has the potential to encourage the integration of migrants, we analyze in several case studies how civil society organizations and government actors remember historical immigration processes and how the immigrant past is reflected in popula…
‘Dirt and the child’
In the nineteenth century city child rescuers developed ‘a taxonomy of space’ in which geography determined destiny. The privatised spaces of the middle classes were contrasted with the ‘dirt, disease and delinquency’ of the slums. Yet at the same time as ‘dirt’ was viewed as ‘destructive’ and proof of urban neglect it was also accepted in the form of rural soil to be ‘fertile’ and central to helping sustain life. This paper explores the emergenc…
Working on Wellness
In the United States, worksite wellness programs are more often offered by larger employers. The Massachusetts Working on Wellness (WoW) program is an innovative, statewide capacity-building model designed to increase the number of smaller employers (200 or fewer workers) adopting health promotion initiatives. This article describes the WoW program design and approaches to recruitment, implementation, and evaluation. WoW provides employer trainin…
The science of childhood and the pedagogy of the state
This article examines how, in the decade following India's independence, the psychology of childhood became a locus of experimentation, and an avenue through which approaches to postcolonial development were expressed. Tracing the ideas of educational reformers, psychological researchers and child welfare advocates, we show how a 'science of childhood' in this period emphasised both the inherent potential and the emotional complexity of India's y…
The Paradox of the Alien Citizen? Access, Control and Entitlements of Belgian Refugees in Birmingham during the First World War
Britain’s liberal policy towards refugees has been their proud boast. However, from the 1880s to the 1920s, this developed into a restrictive and selective migration policy. During the First World War, 250,000 Belgian refugees arrived in Britain. Inquiring into the archives of the War Refugees Committee Birmingham and District on traces of these developments, a tension linked to the discussion on the allocation of social benefits could be establi…
Rethinking borders and boundaries for a mobile history of education
National borders and school boundaries are integral components of the history of education. Configured as sites of governance and regulation, as spaces of continuity and order, they also introduced a sedentary bias into much historical research. This article presents an argument for writing migrants, migration, and human mobility into the history of education. It does so by drawing on an eclectic range of work associated with the study of migrati…
Questioning difference
In his 2001 Different: Contemporary Photography and Black Identity Stuart Hall, writing on black arts in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, commented on the emergence of the "black body" as a subject of visibility and identity which challenged the racialised body which for so long had been produced and reproduced by racial discourse. "On the site of the body", he wrote, "racial discourses had long undertaken the work of systematically reducing histor…
The imperial welfare state? Decolonisation, education and professional interventions on immigrant children in Birmingham, 1948–1971
This article approaches debates about how the history of the post-1945 English welfare state might be written. It argues that professionals’ interventions on immigrant children can serve as a prism for understanding the crafting of the modern English welfare state. In this sense the article engages with the narrative concerning the resilience of a post-war British history that sees 1945 as a moment of profound rupture symbolised by the demise of …
The Anatomy of the Case Study
Introduction Chapter 1: What is case study? Chapter 2: The history of case study and its epistemological status Chapter 3: Generalisation, phronesis and the case study Chapter 4: Induction and the case study Chapter 5: A typology for case study Chapter 6: Working through the typology Chapter 7: An example in depth: Contesting Certification Chapter 8: Conclusion: drawing from the anatomy and constructing the study
Moving frontiers of empire
Over the past two decades there has been a growing interest in the exploration of “transnational history”. This work has focused in general on understanding the “movement, ebb and circulation” of i
Cultures of History
A good deal of contemporary public history is concerned with the exploration, and often the promotion, of cultural diversity. Whether the subject is cities, classes or peoples, cultural diversity appears as a key theme, its recognition important not just for reasons of historical accuracy, but also as a method of promoting positive social identities and community cohesion in Britain. As David Lammy, the former Minister for Culture put it when arg…
Marking time
Historical amnesia besets the consensus that Britain faces an unprecedented ‘crisis of childhood’, and of child well-being. Drawing on evidence about changing uses of instruments and measures of well-being over time, this article explores and critiques claims about historical change and trends over time that are central to the imagined crisis of childhood in both diagnostic and therapeutic terms. It argues that diagnostic labels about the state o…
Contesting certification
This article is an attempt to shed some further light on the people and the processes involved in the identification of mental deficiency in children and young people. In order to do this, it turns away from the themes that have been most prominent in the historiography to date: elite and professional ideas, parliamentary and public debates and the formulation of policy. Instead, the paper is concerned with a single instance of diagnosis of imbec…
Normalising childhood
Birmingham Stories
Over the last decade research on the history of ethnic minority migrant communities in Birmingham and the west midlands has grown, with investigations looking at post-war migration and settlement; 'race' thinking and racism; social movements and community activists; faith communities; national identity; issues of surveillance; the local state; public histories and narratives of the city; urban histories and sources; and visual evidence and histor…
The Ambiguities of aid and Agency
This article explores media representations of refugee children in 1930s Britain, and assesses their significance on the reception and settlement of children. Emphasizing the innocence, vulnerability and close national associations between the Basques and the British, it is argued that these media representations conditioned a humanitarian response to the children. As a result, a broad spectrum of religious, political and welfare agencies tempora…
Immigrants and ethnic minorities in the history of education
The experience of immigrants and ethnic minorities in post-war Europe represents a significant silence in the history of education in Europe. Published research in the field on this theme is negligible in quantity, and is largely restricted to brief and narrative descriptions of policy changes that are organised around concepts of assimilation, cultural pluralism or integration. A review of the British case suggests that these kinds of accounts s…
Remembering Refugees
Mental Deficiency
This article explores some issues concerning the development and implementation of mental deficiency as an organising principle of state education policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. More specifically, and using the city of Birmingham as a case study, it explores three themes. First, it provides a critical narrative of policymaking at the local level with the emphasis on governance and the politics of knowledge. Second, it engages w…
Whatever Happened to Asylum in Britain
History, Migration and Childhood
The arrival, in May I937, of 4000 Basque refugee children in Britain serves as an important reminder that the history of childhood consists of diverse identities and experiences.At least where refugees are concerned, the extent and nature of this diversity has been crucially shaped by state policies on the principle of asylum. The specific policy of favouring the arrival of unaccompanied children in inter-war Britain illuminates contemporary cons…
Warm Beer, Cricket and Faith
Evocations of English national identity during the 1930s and 1940s invoked an orderly, cohesive and gentle society where an essential “English decency” was maintained by the moderate Christianity of the people. While this elision of Christianity with national identity was mostly imaginary it was nonetheless influential This paper explores how this idea of Englishness served to marginalise two groups of Spanish and Jewish refugee children in Engla…
The Anatomy of the Case Study
Introduction Chapter 1: What is case study? Chapter 2: The history of case study and its epistemological status Chapter 3: Generalisation, phronesis and the case study Chapter 4: Induction and the case study Chapter 5: A typology for case study Chapter 6: Working through the typology Chapter 7: An example in depth: Contesting Certification Chapter 8: Conclusion: drawing from the anatomy and constructing the study
Normalising childhood
Reparative futures
The past is present in all future making activities. However, there is more that futuring processes can do to engage with past-present relationships, namely by bringing to the fore frameworks of reparation and redress. This article explores how ideas of reparative action may offer generative resources for Futures Studies. It suggests that in order to create futures characterised by justice it is essential to listen to and engage with ongoing hist…
Contesting certification
This article is an attempt to shed some further light on the people and the processes involved in the identification of mental deficiency in children and young people. In order to do this, it turns away from the themes that have been most prominent in the historiography to date: elite and professional ideas, parliamentary and public debates and the formulation of policy. Instead, the paper is concerned with a single instance of diagnosis of imbec…
The Ambiguities of aid and Agency
This article explores media representations of refugee children in 1930s Britain, and assesses their significance on the reception and settlement of children. Emphasizing the innocence, vulnerability and close national associations between the Basques and the British, it is argued that these media representations conditioned a humanitarian response to the children. As a result, a broad spectrum of religious, political and welfare agencies tempora…
The imperial welfare state? Decolonisation, education and professional interventions on immigrant children in Birmingham, 1948–1971
This article approaches debates about how the history of the post-1945 English welfare state might be written. It argues that professionals’ interventions on immigrant children can serve as a prism for understanding the crafting of the modern English welfare state. In this sense the article engages with the narrative concerning the resilience of a post-war British history that sees 1945 as a moment of profound rupture symbolised by the demise of …
Marking time
Historical amnesia besets the consensus that Britain faces an unprecedented ‘crisis of childhood’, and of child well-being. Drawing on evidence about changing uses of instruments and measures of well-being over time, this article explores and critiques claims about historical change and trends over time that are central to the imagined crisis of childhood in both diagnostic and therapeutic terms. It argues that diagnostic labels about the state o…
Immigrants and ethnic minorities in the history of education
The experience of immigrants and ethnic minorities in post-war Europe represents a significant silence in the history of education in Europe. Published research in the field on this theme is negligible in quantity, and is largely restricted to brief and narrative descriptions of policy changes that are organised around concepts of assimilation, cultural pluralism or integration. A review of the British case suggests that these kinds of accounts s…
The science of childhood and the pedagogy of the state
This article examines how, in the decade following India's independence, the psychology of childhood became a locus of experimentation, and an avenue through which approaches to postcolonial development were expressed. Tracing the ideas of educational reformers, psychological researchers and child welfare advocates, we show how a 'science of childhood' in this period emphasised both the inherent potential and the emotional complexity of India's y…
Rethinking borders and boundaries for a mobile history of education
National borders and school boundaries are integral components of the history of education. Configured as sites of governance and regulation, as spaces of continuity and order, they also introduced a sedentary bias into much historical research. This article presents an argument for writing migrants, migration, and human mobility into the history of education. It does so by drawing on an eclectic range of work associated with the study of migrati…
Questioning difference
In his 2001 Different: Contemporary Photography and Black Identity Stuart Hall, writing on black arts in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, commented on the emergence of the "black body" as a subject of visibility and identity which challenged the racialised body which for so long had been produced and reproduced by racial discourse. "On the site of the body", he wrote, "racial discourses had long undertaken the work of systematically reducing histor…
Moving frontiers of empire
Over the past two decades there has been a growing interest in the exploration of “transnational history”. This work has focused in general on understanding the “movement, ebb and circulation” of i
Birmingham Stories
Over the last decade research on the history of ethnic minority migrant communities in Birmingham and the west midlands has grown, with investigations looking at post-war migration and settlement; 'race' thinking and racism; social movements and community activists; faith communities; national identity; issues of surveillance; the local state; public histories and narratives of the city; urban histories and sources; and visual evidence and histor…
Mental Deficiency
This article explores some issues concerning the development and implementation of mental deficiency as an organising principle of state education policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. More specifically, and using the city of Birmingham as a case study, it explores three themes. First, it provides a critical narrative of policymaking at the local level with the emphasis on governance and the politics of knowledge. Second, it engages w…
History, Migration and Childhood
The arrival, in May I937, of 4000 Basque refugee children in Britain serves as an important reminder that the history of childhood consists of diverse identities and experiences.At least where refugees are concerned, the extent and nature of this diversity has been crucially shaped by state policies on the principle of asylum. The specific policy of favouring the arrival of unaccompanied children in inter-war Britain illuminates contemporary cons…
Warm Beer, Cricket and Faith
Evocations of English national identity during the 1930s and 1940s invoked an orderly, cohesive and gentle society where an essential “English decency” was maintained by the moderate Christianity of the people. While this elision of Christianity with national identity was mostly imaginary it was nonetheless influential This paper explores how this idea of Englishness served to marginalise two groups of Spanish and Jewish refugee children in Engla…
Warm Beer, Cricket and Faith
Evocations of English national identity during the 1930s and 1940s invoked an orderly, cohesive and gentle society where an essential “English decency” was maintained by the moderate Christianity of the people. While this elision of Christianity with national identity was mostly imaginary it was nonetheless influential This paper explores how this idea of Englishness served to marginalise two groups of Spanish and Jewish refugee children in Engla…
History, Migration and Childhood
The arrival, in May I937, of 4000 Basque refugee children in Britain serves as an important reminder that the history of childhood consists of diverse identities and experiences.At least where refugees are concerned, the extent and nature of this diversity has been crucially shaped by state policies on the principle of asylum. The specific policy of favouring the arrival of unaccompanied children in inter-war Britain illuminates contemporary cons…
Whatever Happened to Asylum in Britain
Mental Deficiency
This article explores some issues concerning the development and implementation of mental deficiency as an organising principle of state education policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. More specifically, and using the city of Birmingham as a case study, it explores three themes. First, it provides a critical narrative of policymaking at the local level with the emphasis on governance and the politics of knowledge. Second, it engages w…
Remembering Refugees
The Ambiguities of aid and Agency
This article explores media representations of refugee children in 1930s Britain, and assesses their significance on the reception and settlement of children. Emphasizing the innocence, vulnerability and close national associations between the Basques and the British, it is argued that these media representations conditioned a humanitarian response to the children. As a result, a broad spectrum of religious, political and welfare agencies tempora…
Immigrants and ethnic minorities in the history of education
The experience of immigrants and ethnic minorities in post-war Europe represents a significant silence in the history of education in Europe. Published research in the field on this theme is negligible in quantity, and is largely restricted to brief and narrative descriptions of policy changes that are organised around concepts of assimilation, cultural pluralism or integration. A review of the British case suggests that these kinds of accounts s…
Contesting certification
This article is an attempt to shed some further light on the people and the processes involved in the identification of mental deficiency in children and young people. In order to do this, it turns away from the themes that have been most prominent in the historiography to date: elite and professional ideas, parliamentary and public debates and the formulation of policy. Instead, the paper is concerned with a single instance of diagnosis of imbec…
Normalising childhood
Birmingham Stories
Over the last decade research on the history of ethnic minority migrant communities in Birmingham and the west midlands has grown, with investigations looking at post-war migration and settlement; 'race' thinking and racism; social movements and community activists; faith communities; national identity; issues of surveillance; the local state; public histories and narratives of the city; urban histories and sources; and visual evidence and histor…
Cultures of History
A good deal of contemporary public history is concerned with the exploration, and often the promotion, of cultural diversity. Whether the subject is cities, classes or peoples, cultural diversity appears as a key theme, its recognition important not just for reasons of historical accuracy, but also as a method of promoting positive social identities and community cohesion in Britain. As David Lammy, the former Minister for Culture put it when arg…
Marking time
Historical amnesia besets the consensus that Britain faces an unprecedented ‘crisis of childhood’, and of child well-being. Drawing on evidence about changing uses of instruments and measures of well-being over time, this article explores and critiques claims about historical change and trends over time that are central to the imagined crisis of childhood in both diagnostic and therapeutic terms. It argues that diagnostic labels about the state o…
Moving frontiers of empire
Over the past two decades there has been a growing interest in the exploration of “transnational history”. This work has focused in general on understanding the “movement, ebb and circulation” of i
The Anatomy of the Case Study
Introduction Chapter 1: What is case study? Chapter 2: The history of case study and its epistemological status Chapter 3: Generalisation, phronesis and the case study Chapter 4: Induction and the case study Chapter 5: A typology for case study Chapter 6: Working through the typology Chapter 7: An example in depth: Contesting Certification Chapter 8: Conclusion: drawing from the anatomy and constructing the study
The imperial welfare state? Decolonisation, education and professional interventions on immigrant children in Birmingham, 1948–1971
This article approaches debates about how the history of the post-1945 English welfare state might be written. It argues that professionals’ interventions on immigrant children can serve as a prism for understanding the crafting of the modern English welfare state. In this sense the article engages with the narrative concerning the resilience of a post-war British history that sees 1945 as a moment of profound rupture symbolised by the demise of …
Questioning difference
In his 2001 Different: Contemporary Photography and Black Identity Stuart Hall, writing on black arts in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, commented on the emergence of the "black body" as a subject of visibility and identity which challenged the racialised body which for so long had been produced and reproduced by racial discourse. "On the site of the body", he wrote, "racial discourses had long undertaken the work of systematically reducing histor…
The Paradox of the Alien Citizen? Access, Control and Entitlements of Belgian Refugees in Birmingham during the First World War
Britain’s liberal policy towards refugees has been their proud boast. However, from the 1880s to the 1920s, this developed into a restrictive and selective migration policy. During the First World War, 250,000 Belgian refugees arrived in Britain. Inquiring into the archives of the War Refugees Committee Birmingham and District on traces of these developments, a tension linked to the discussion on the allocation of social benefits could be establi…
Rethinking borders and boundaries for a mobile history of education
National borders and school boundaries are integral components of the history of education. Configured as sites of governance and regulation, as spaces of continuity and order, they also introduced a sedentary bias into much historical research. This article presents an argument for writing migrants, migration, and human mobility into the history of education. It does so by drawing on an eclectic range of work associated with the study of migrati…
Working on Wellness
In the United States, worksite wellness programs are more often offered by larger employers. The Massachusetts Working on Wellness (WoW) program is an innovative, statewide capacity-building model designed to increase the number of smaller employers (200 or fewer workers) adopting health promotion initiatives. This article describes the WoW program design and approaches to recruitment, implementation, and evaluation. WoW provides employer trainin…
The science of childhood and the pedagogy of the state
This article examines how, in the decade following India's independence, the psychology of childhood became a locus of experimentation, and an avenue through which approaches to postcolonial development were expressed. Tracing the ideas of educational reformers, psychological researchers and child welfare advocates, we show how a 'science of childhood' in this period emphasised both the inherent potential and the emotional complexity of India's y…
‘Dirt and the child’
In the nineteenth century city child rescuers developed ‘a taxonomy of space’ in which geography determined destiny. The privatised spaces of the middle classes were contrasted with the ‘dirt, disease and delinquency’ of the slums. Yet at the same time as ‘dirt’ was viewed as ‘destructive’ and proof of urban neglect it was also accepted in the form of rural soil to be ‘fertile’ and central to helping sustain life. This paper explores the emergenc…
Memories of Migration
Based on key concepts of memory studies, this article investigates how immigration is remembered in two different societies: the United Kingdom and Germany. Starting from the assumption that social remembering has the potential to encourage the integration of migrants, we analyze in several case studies how civil society organizations and government actors remember historical immigration processes and how the immigrant past is reflected in popula…
‘Timeless memories’
This special section has its origins in the 2021 annual meeting of the UK History of Education Society hosted by the DOMUS Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Histories of Education and Childh
Reparative futures
The past is present in all future making activities. However, there is more that futuring processes can do to engage with past-present relationships, namely by bringing to the fore frameworks of reparation and redress. This article explores how ideas of reparative action may offer generative resources for Futures Studies. It suggests that in order to create futures characterised by justice it is essential to listen to and engage with ongoing hist…
Truth and reparative action commission
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (15 works) · History (13 works) · History (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Gender Studies (6 works)