Students, Service and Sacrifice: Wartime Education, Adolescent Experiences and Understandings of the First World War

Vernon, Keith orcid iconORCID: 0000-0002-4673-1402 and Wilkinson, Oliver (2020) Students, Service and Sacrifice: Wartime Education, Adolescent Experiences and Understandings of the First World War. In: Histories, Memories and Representations of Being Young in the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-49938-9

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Official URL: https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030499389

Abstract

In this study of young students at the Harris Institute technical college during the First World War, Vernon & Wilkinson offer an evaluation of the aims, methodology and outcomes of a centenary community engagement project undertaken by volunteers. Their findings reveal new opportunities for young people during the war, with important short and long term legacies. The largely positive life-stories revealed challenge conventional service/sacrifice discourses based on the war dead and suggest alternative understandings. An assessment of the volunteers’ interpretation of their findings, however, in turn challenges the impact of centenary commemorative activities on the popular memory of the First World War.


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