Educational Research - the Ethics and Aesthetics of Statistics

44 J.J.H. Dekker
(see Section 4.4). A second multiplier effect on the reported prevalence of child
maltreatment seems to be the impact of internationally accepted children’s rights
by prescribing criteria for good parenthood and for child protection (see Section
4.5). A third multiplier effect seems to consist of the preference of policy-makers
for clear figures on this topic so as to develop educational policies, in this case child
protection policies. This preference is, according to David Labaree in Chapter 2,
this volume, related to the aesthetic appeal of things being neat, clean and orderly.
The state, policy-makers, educational professionals and educational researchers all
seem to share this desire for “clean” statistics (see Section 4.6). It will be concluded
that the combination of the three multiplier effects mentioned above contributed
enormously to the increase of the reported prevalence of child maltreatment in the
Western world. Diverging statistical outcomes also caused a lot of confusion for
policy-makers (see Section 4.7).
4.2 Diminution of the Prevalence of Maltreatment of Children?
Maltreatment of children is not a new issue in the historiography of the history of
childhood and education. According to scholars such as Loyd Demause, who built
his historical analysis on a linear development of the history of education and childhood,
we are moving out of a dark age as regards the maltreatment of children.
Until recently, such maltreatment was normal daily practice. Many studies, often
inspired by Philippe Ariès’ Centuries of Childhood from 1960, and written by historians
such as Edward Shorter, Lawrence Stone, Simon Schama, Loyd Demause,
and Lea Dasberg, defend the idea that the child as animal educandum was a new
phenomenon in history. It was to be found only among the elite from the end of
the middle ages onwards. The majority of people had to wait until the end of the
18th century before they were able to really love and educate their children. Even
then maltreatment of children was seen as part of a normal education. However, in
reaction to this linear historiography of childhood and education, a series of studies
emphasising structure and continuity by historians such as Linda Pollock, Alan
Macfarlane, Stephen Ozment, Harrie Peeters, Shulamith Shahar, Emmanuel Le Roy
Ladurie, Jacques Gélis and the art historian Jan Baptist Bedaux was published.
In these studies the continuity of the idea of childhood, of affectionate relations
between parents and their children was stressed. This interpretation of the history of
childhood has resulted in the conviction that the history of education and childhood
should not be looked at in terms of linear development. This level of conviction
is based on many examples of good parenting in early modern Europe (Ariès,
1960; Dekker & Lechner, 1999, pp. 37–49; Dekker, 2006, pp. 21–23; Dekker &
Groenendijk, 1991, pp. 317–335).
Although maltreatment of children was either, according to the evolutionists, a
normal aspect of education until recently or, according to the structuralists, a deviation
from widely accepted educational norms, it was not recognised as a major
educational issue until well into the 19th century (Stearns, 2006, pp. 4, 47). Then,
with the rise of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty in Children in 1874 in