Changelings: transformative perceptions of San José's street children, 1965-1981

Between 1965 and 1981, Costa Ricans changed their perceptions of which characteristics they thought defined appropriate urban childhoods. By 1981, the model of a modern, urban Costa Rican child was that of a child who attended school, did not work on the streets, and played in specifically designated places. Children who did not fit this mold began, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, to be viewed as dangerous to society and as evidencing social pathology. Whereas children who worked on the streets during the 1960s were considered part of the urban landscape, and their childhoods, though difficult, were not perceived as deviant, these same children, two decades later, were viewed as marginal and problematic. To trace this change, this article focuses on the changing perceptions about children on the streets that writers for and public contributors to La Nación, one of the preeminent Costa Rican newspapers, show during the sixteen-year period under analysis.

[Street social education: historical, political and pedagogical bases]

This work is about street social education as a pedagogical system that started in Latin America in the late 1970s, as the street population formed mostly by children and adolescents called for attention. The first street social educators were 'pastoral' agents working at the praça da Sé a place with large numbers of street children in São Paulo. Based on the Liberation Theology and on the pedagogies developed by Paulo Freire, Celestine Freinet, Anton Makarenko, and Emília Ferreiro, the street educators developed a conceptual field and participated in the promulgation of the 1988 Federal Constitution, particularly by writing and introducing the 'Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente' (the 'Child and Adolescent Statute'). Street social education is currently latent and suffering the consequences of program discontinuity caused by successive changes of government. It is, therefore important to know the conceptual proposals.

[A modern Kaspar Hauser]

OBJECTIVE AND METHODS

The case of a mentally disturbed young man is described, whose identity could not be revealed over more than four months. It is compared to Kaspar Hauser, similarities and differences are highlighted.

RESULTS

The "Kaspar Hauser of Stuttgart" is retrospectively revealed as a young man with experiences of severe deprivation. The missing case history and independent history were an obstacle in the treatment, albeit not fundamental, advantages being reached with a relation-oriented approach.

CONCLUSIONS

Informations obtained after clarification of the identity of the young man suggest a multiplication of unfavourable circumstances, leading to sub-optimal treatment and finally the "Kaspar-Hauser-Situation". Contributing were his belonging to the less integrated group of migrants in Germany, as well as severe deprivation in the family and a generally sub-optimal treatment of mentally disturbed young patients.