Shannon Ross `Perceptions of Childhood, Institutional Child Sexual Abuse and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse'

This thesis examines the ways in which Western society since the seventeenth century have understood, treated and perceived children, and subsequently how these historical perceptions shaped the way children in twentieth century Australia were treated in institutional settings, specifically how they were targeted for sexual abuse, as well as how they were handled and treated by others following their ordeal. I argue that childhood is understood in different ways depending on factors such as race, class, gender and location, and this subsequently impacted they ways in which children were treated as victims of sexual abuse. This presentation focusses specifically on what childhood has meant in society over the last few centuries, and how key historical events such as the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, in addition to Australian colonisation and the rise of standardised Western education shaped perceptions of children and childhood, with specific relation to how these developments influenced perceptions of childhood in twentieth-century Australia. This sets the scene to dive into instances of institutional child sexual abuse as out lined in the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.