Language and Communication in Histories of Children and Young People Conference 2025

A conference sponsored by the Centre for Language and Heritage, the Hub for History, the LifeCourse and the Professions, in the Institute for Lifecourse Development, and the Life-Cycles seminar (School of Advanced Study, University of London)

- Explore how children used language across history - voice, play, protest and power - in mono/multilingual worlds. Hear their stories anew -

This conference will focus on the development and use of language(s) by children and young people in historical, local and global contexts, with reference to questions of children’s voice, literacy, playfulness, culture, technologies, and protest. It will explore the collision of children’s own productions with adult expectations, the intersection between language use and equality/inequality, and the ways language has been used to exert control as well as to foster self-expression. By focusing on communication, language use and production within multilingual and monolingual environments, it will provide a new lens through which to access “the voice of the child and young person” .

Through analysis of discourses from differing societal, cultural and international contexts and academic sub-disciplines, the varying mechanisms used to control, label and denigrate as well as idealise and sentimentalise the young in different age cohorts will be examined. The conference will also demonstrate how the silencing of certain experiences and social groups obscures injustice and oppression. Intergenerational forms of communication will link the conference theme to the history of the life-cycle.

Date: Monday 7 July 2025, 9am - 6pm

Location: Lecture Theatre QA080, Queen Anne Building, University of Greenwich, London.

Book your place here

Conference Programme

TimeSession Detail
09:00 - 09:15Arrival - Tea and Coffee
09:15 - 09:30Welcome to Greenwich
Dr Mary Clare Martin, University of Greenwich
09:30 -  10:20
Language Attrition and Language Learning
  • Searching for Language Attrition in Displaced Children in Eighteenth Century French Atlantic Ports. Tiephaine Thomason, University of Cambridge
  • Language pedagogy and minority student's identity development in Greek community schools in the UK. Angeliki Voskou, University of Greenwich
  • Abstracts and Biographies
10:20 - 10:45Break
10:45 - 12:00
Residential Institutions, Caring, Emotions and Young People's Voice
  • Accessing the voice of young people in care throughout history. Claudia Soares, Newcastle University
  • The happy, miserable and repentant self of Gustave J. Belgian juvenile offenders and narratives of escape, 1890-1950. Laura Nys, Ghent University
  • 'Fallen', 'been bad' and 'gone astray': Language for describing young women in institutional care in the late nineteenth century. Sally Dowling, University of Bristol
  • Abstracts and Biographies
12:00 -  12:50
Deaf Speech, Oralism and the Written Word
  • Listening to Miracles: Dynamics and displaying deaf speech in 20th Century Chinese society. Shu Wan, University at Buffalo
  • Communication and Community in School Magazines at Burwood Park School for the Deaf, 1955-1996. Jane Hamlett, Florence Pinard-Nelson and May Brooker, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • Abstracts and Biographies
12:50- 13:45Lunch Break
13:45 -  15:25
Actions, Non-Verbal and Verbal Communication in Education
  • 'Irregular communication with the boys', absconding and arson. Girls' methods of being heard in nineteenth century educational institutions. Catherine Freeman, Independent
  • Finding pupil voices in the magazines of Maidstone, Southend, Woking and Chichester girls' and boys' grammar schools, 1900-1939. Pamela Mansell, Royal Holloway, University of London
  • 'Fortunate Girls': Youth, memory and girlhoods of the female-centred Empire in the Schoolgirls' Tour  of Australia and New Zealand. Megan Buocchi, London School of Economics
  • 'Our children those few poor lambs in ye wilderness': Children and Christianity in the Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-c.1720. Noah Petts, London School of Economics
  • Abstracts and Biographies
15:25 - 15:45Afternoon Break
15:45 -  17:25
Religion, Discourses and Voices of the Young
  • The language of silence: the case of Jairus's daughter in the gospel of Mark. Janine Luttick, Australian  Catholic University
  • 'They only interview the chiefs!': Child choristers' accounts of voice and voicelessness in English cathedral music. Benjamin Liberatore, Columbia University
  • From 'Huachos' to Children: An analysis of the social representations of Chilean childhood in its main legislative developments, 1912-2021. Sarai Jaramillo Egaña, PCU Chile
  • Reframing Youth Justice: Child-centred language and its impact on youth justice. Maria Arche, Elaine Williams and Ella Simpson, University of Greenwich
  • Abstracts and Biographies
17:30Conference Close