Fostering Nation?

Reviews / Votes

"Fostering Nation? is a pioneering contribution to the history of children in care in Canada." - arie Hammond-Callaghan, Mount Allison University, British Journal of Canadian Studies Vol.25 No.1 2012 ``Fostering Nation is an important and passionate book. Veronica Strong-Boag has cast an empathetic and illuminating spotlight on some of the most underprivileged and vulnerable children in Canadian society, focusing her unswerving gaze on harsh treatment and hard hearts, and yet at the same time showing us children who emerge from this darkness with hope intact. She alerts us to the uncomfortable fact that care giving in relatively wealthy capitalist society has limits, that care for children still falls disproportionately on women and that feminist responses to the inequalities that consign many children to the care system are needed to overturn decades of patriarchal structures at the heart of so much family disintegration. Canadian society, she argues, has all too frequently failed in its responses to vulnerable girls and boys. Fostering Nation gives space to all those implicated in the care of children--birth and foster families, social and care workers and the children themselves. This is not a happy story but a story it is important to hear for, in the case of children needing care, there are surely lessons to be learned from the past.'' -- Lynn Abrams, professor of Gender History, University of Glasgow -- 201011 ``One of Canada's most talented historians offers an unflinching view of the children, parents, and communities caught up in the terrible tangle of state-sponsored care since the nineteenth century. As Veronica Strong-Boag narrates the story of what we still euphemistically call "child protection," she reveals the human anguish of fostering, a wide variety of institutional and family care arrangements that have carried the nation's impossible burdens of systematic poverty, disadvantage, and disability. Attentive to the shifting landscape of social policy, the particular dilemmas of Canada's first peoples, and the voices of young people themselves, this book locates moments of resilient humanity in a story overflowing with tragedies and failures. A must-read for anyone who cares about child welfare and social justice in the future as well as the past.'' -- Ellen Herman, Department of History, University of Oregon ``Ce livre constitue un apport de taille A la connaissance de l'histoire de l'enfance canadienne en ce qu'il prend rA (c)solument parti pour une histoire sociale de l'enfance, qu'il offre une analyse nuancA (c)e de sa situation et qu'il se veut inclusif, portant une grande attention aux communautA (c)s noires et autochtones et puisant ses exemples partout au Canada, y compris au QuA (c)bec. Sans nA (c)gliger les dA (c)bats sociaux qui ont entourA (c) la prise en charage des enfants marginalisA (c)s, il cherche A plonger au coeur mA?me de la dynamique qui entretient cette marginalitA (c), dessinant un portrait souvent sombre, mais malheureusement trA?s juste de leur condition et de la place que leur a rA (c)servA (c)e la sociA (c)tA (c) canadienne depuis le 19e siA?cle.'' -- Denyse Baillargeon, UniversitA (c) de MontrA (c)al -- The Canadian Historical Review ``With Fostering Nation? Veronica Strong-Boag, one of Canada's foremost historians, makes an important contribution to the growing historiography that attempts to decenter the "mainstream" Canadian family.... Strong-Boag offers a broad, but groundbreaking, historical perspective on child protection policies and programs that illuminates the social forces shaping the management of Canada's foster children over time. In so doing, she carefully supports her argument that "policies and practices, for all their frequent good will, have rarely been equipped to address the root of much distress" (p. 201).... Strong-Boag's work is a pioneering effort that brings much to the embryonic history of extrafamilial care of children, offering a nuanced discussion of the experiences of those involved in fostering, in all its forms. Fundamentally, Fostering Nation? reveals the profound and lasting impact of social inequalities, while nonetheless pointing to the hope inborn in current indigenous, disability rights, and feminist "condemnations of traditional policies and practices" (p. 206).'' -- Whitney Wood, Wilfrid Laurier University -- H-Canada, H-Net Reviews, October 2012