Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Language of Childen's Rights, the Formation of the Welfare State, and the Democratic Experience of Poor Families in Quebec, 1940-55

1997; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 78; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3138/chr.78.3.409

1710-1093

Dominique Marshall,

Social Policies and Family

In the mid-twentieth century, the poorest Quebec families, who couldn’t provide their children with an education and welfare at minimal levels set by the state, contributed to the development of the first universal social policies. When interpreted using the action and language philosophy, the vestiges of meetings with civil servants about family allowances in 1945 and compulsory education in 1943 show that by sometimes supporting and sometimes resisting, the least affluent fathers, mothers, and children markedly altered the fate of new institutions. The increase in the number of exchanges between these families and state employees encouraged access of both women and girls to the public domain, new forms of financial credit facilitating consumption, and the persistence, in political speeches, of a certain human rights rhetoric. Their actions, however, did not go so far as to prevent the development of more insidious ways of marginalizing the poor, notably the strengthening of incentives for them to conform to the homogeneity of a growing majority. Abstract: Au milieu du vingtieme siecle, les familles les plus pauvres du Quebec, celles qui n’arrivaient pas a offrir a leurs enfants les niveaux minimaux d’education et de bien-etre fixes par l’Etat, ont contribue a la formation des premieres politiques sociales universelles. Lues a l’aide de la philosophie de l’action et du langage, les traces de leurs rencontres avec les fonctionnaites des allocations familiales de 1945 et de l’obligation scolaire de 1943 montrent que, tantot par leur appui, tantot par leurs reticences, les peres, meres et enfants les moins bien nantis ont profondement inflechi le destin d’institutions nouvelles. La multiplication des echanges entre ces familles et les employes de l’Etat a encourage a la fois l’acces des filles et des femmes au domaine public, l’avenement de nouvelles formes de credit facilitant la consommation et la persistance, dans les discours politiques, d’une certaine rhetorique des droits de l’homme. Leurs actions n’ont pas pour autant empeche la formation de formes plus insidieuses de marginalisation des pauvres, notamment le renforcement des incitations a se conformer aux comportements homogenes d’une majorite grandissante.