The ‘Right to an Upbringing’—Contrasting Early German and English Child Welfare Legislation for a Case Study in Comparative Social Work History

Abstract

Abstract National child welfare systems are often unalike in their orientation, and can be understood comparatively. Influenced by the principles of historical institutionalism, this article contrasts early German and English child welfare legislation. The first national German system was based on a statute rarely discussed in English-language social work histories: the Reichsgesetz für Jugendwohlfahrt (National Youth Welfare Act). This legislation came into force in 1924, systematically uniting comprehensive services related to childhood. The law is examined in the context of its contemporaneous cultural, political and academic discourses, and contrasted with English developments. The intentions of the legislation-drafters, as well as ideas specific to German-language discourses such as Erziehung (child-raising) and Verwahrlosung (presenting the effects of abuse/neglect) are investigated to cautiously explain divergence from the English child welfare system that institutionalised later. The article concludes by suggesting that the differing classifications of German and English practices in modern child welfare typologies (a family service versus child protection orientation, respectively) echo differences already evident in the two systems’ early and mid-twentieth-century legislation. The 1920s conceptual broadening of German child welfare to encompass prevention, universal support and social pedagogic approaches is still visible today, and shapes modern understandings of social work in that country.