Looking back through our archive to pull out coverage related to the Royal family over the decades was a fascinating exercise. As our special feature on page 6 highlights, The Nursery Worldmagazine (as it was known) had been going for just one year when Queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926.
In its first few decades, high society and the Royal family featured regularly in the magazine’s pages, which at that time were widely read by nannies and their wealthy, upper-class families.
Nursery World’s coverage over the decades is certainly testimony to just how much attitudes to class, women, families, childcare, early education and diversity have changed – and continue to do so.
While there has undoubtedly been seismic change for the better, this month’s ‘All about’ feature made me reflect on how much further there is still to go. Penned by author and special educational needs and disability expert Kerry Murphy, the subject is ‘ableism’ – and how this can be an unconscious attitude in practice, which views difference through a lens of deficit. Kerry says that as a sector, we are primed to believe that early child development falls within the binary categories of ‘normal’ and ‘special’. In her feature, she suggests ways we can address this, particularly when it comes to areas such as play and children’s communication. I find it disturbing to think that a child could begin to mask or hide aspects of themselves that are not accepted. If you find this feature interesting, you may want to catch Kerry speaking at our conference in London on 9 November. Details are on our website.
Looking at other coverage in this issue – including a project where children learnt about refugees and human rights (page 28) and a behaviour piece on attention seeking (page 37) – all of it is a very far cry from the coverage of 1926. Thankfully we no longer adhere to the view that children should be seen and not heard.
