During the very year of the 20th century, Ellen Key wrote the book The Century of the Child. The book presented a vision of a better society and expressed the hope that the 20 th century would be the century of the child. And childhood did indeed acquire new meanings in the decades to come. The overall aim of this paper is to outline fundamental changes in the role of children in Swedish society and the meaning of childhood. The paper points at the close relationship between the development of the welfare state and its different new professional groups and intitutions and the development new notions of childhood. The paper points at the contradictions inherent in modern notions of childhood. It also points at the how the ambitions to form childhood and realize ideals through welfare measures of different kinds created a different kind of childhood than was intended. The romantic childhood was replaced by a planned and rational childhood.
History; Childhood; Education