The origins and evolution of child protection in terms of the history of ideas

Dealing with the methodological challenge of historical expounding, this paper discusses the historical formation of child protection with regard to the history of ideas. The aim is to identify the early intellectual grounds of the idea of child protection. Due to the fact that the genesis and evolution of child protection are shaped by many kinds of moral, social, educational, judicial and political interests as well as varied educational, psychological, sociological and medical theories of child development, it is exceedingly laborious to define its core content. As a political concept, it germinated especially from aware people's societal and ethical awareness of the social distress of children and families in modernising societies. As a construction of the human mind, it concerns essentially values, cognition and political aspirations. The emergence of organised child protection activities can be viewed as a reaction to the social change of each prevailing time shaped by country-specific societal and cultural features, including national moralities and ways of judicial and political thinking. However, there are also many common elements in the midst of diverse traditions, policies and practices of child protection. In the course of time child protection issues have been worked at more and more in international contexts. In the last three to four decades it has been externalised increasingly in terms of international conventions connecting closely with the concept of the rights of the child.