'Girls will be girls' Approved Schools for Girls in England, 1933-1973

This thesis comprises a detailed study of approved schools for girls, which operated in England and Wales between 1933-1973. Through original archival research, it examines the transition of provision for girls and young women “in trouble” from the large scale post-Victorian reformatories to the therapeutic Community Homes for Education and shows the emergence of a “diagnostic shift” in the provision of state care for children in the secure estate. Around half a million children passed through these schools over forty years. Alongside evidence drawn from extant school records, it examines contemporary professional publications, Historic Hansard and papers in the Home Office archives to evidence the influence of professionals on the policy and practice of the approved schools. The combination of these strands of work allows a detailed study of an institution largely absent from the broader historical, sociological, and criminological discourses on mid to late twentieth century youth custody and state welfare. This research reveals a more nuanced understanding of the role approved schools played in the state care of children and young people in need of care, protection, or control during this period. It evidences gendered use of care or protection orders throughout, weighted towards young women, since between sixty and seventy-five percent of girls within the schools overall were the subject of such orders in comparison to less than five percent of boys. It shows that younger girls were routinely committed to the schools for offences under the Education Act, suggesting this legislation was used to police child and family behaviours. It also demonstrates that larceny was the dominant crime for which the remaining girls were committed to the schools. Finally, it demonstrates a marked change from the 1930s approaches to reform as rescue through to the framing of behaviour as a variety of mental health disorders by the 1970s.