This accompanies Jennifer Crane’s Historical Journal article Gifted Children, Youth Culture, and Popular Individualism in 1970s and 1980s Britain

“I feel I can offer nothing of great importance to the world around me.  I have no power, no money, no influence and little experience.  I have, however, a mind, and this I feel I can offer to the world.”[1]

This testimony was written by a thirteen-year-old boy who attended a Saturday Club in Moberly, London, organized by the National Association for Gifted Children in the 1970s.  Because he was labelled as ‘gifted’, this young boy had access to a new space of youth culture.  Reflecting on this, he felt that this own potential ‘may . . .be great’ and he felt obliged to ‘offer’ his mind to ‘the world’.  Yet, at the same time, he was worried that his ability to save this world may be limited by his lack of power, money, influence, and experience.

At present, big histories of the welfare state, education system, and childhood in modern Britain rarely talk about children labelled as ‘intellectually gifted’, because this category was not central in the post-war welfare settlement nor in daily classroom life in decades on.  Yet, my recent article in The Historical Journal shows the significance and spread of small, voluntary spaces – like the Moberly Club – where young people labelled ‘gifted’ could socialize and learn together in the 1970s and 1980s.  In these groups, which were organised across the UK, parents and volunteers helped young people to engage with extra-curricula activities around rural life, carpentry, classical and imperial history, and scientific and technological innovation.

Looking at these highly distinct spaces provides new insights in to our thinking about youth culture, popular individualism, and daily life in 1970s and 1980s Britain.  The article shows the variety of youth cultures in this period – distinct youth cultures evolved far beyond ones associated with the counter-cultural or permissive societies.  The article contributes, instead, to new writings about ‘popular individualism’ in this period, showing how large scale political movements around ‘the individual’ reshaped cultural and social life.  In this case, the gifted young were invited to, and often did, see themselves as a distinct and individual new social group – who, because of their intellect, would want to socialize together, and potentially also act as ‘future leaders’.  Most significantly, the article demonstrates that we must include the perspective of the young in our accounts of social change – through children’s letters, poetry, and writings it shows that the gifted young did have power and influence in the 1970s and 1980s; in these spaces for ‘the gifted’ but also in reshaping daily practice in schools and family lives.

Read the full open access article

[1] Bodleian Library, Per 264505 e. 4, National Association for Gifted Children, Journal of the Gifted Child, Autumn 1979, ‘Saturday Club’, p. 50.