Feeling confident: a history of self-feeling in twentieth-century England

Partridge, Emma (2026) Feeling confident: a history of self-feeling in twentieth-century England. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis explores the history of self-feeling in twentieth-century England. It argues that self-referential emotions such as self-esteem, self-confidence, and inferiority-feeling underpinned new conceptualisations of childhood in this period. Ideas about how individuals feel – or ought to feel – about themselves influenced new understandings of children, positioned adults as emotional guardians, and spurred interventions designed to manage the self-concept of young people in England. This research challenges existing scholarship of self-feeling that positions self-esteem as a distinctively late twentieth-century American phenomenon linked to neoliberalism. It demonstrates that concern with self-feeling emerged much earlier in English culture as a contested mediator between individual development and social cohesion. Through examination of childrearing advice, education policy, grassroots initiatives, and child-led activism from the interwar period to the late 1980s, the thesis reveals how self-feeling operated not as a straightforward tool of individualisation but as a persistent and multifaceted source of anxious debate. Cultural concern with self-feeling reflected broader tensions about emotional vulnerability, educational purpose, and national progress. This thesis traces some of the processes through which psychological expertise became common sense, focusing on childhood as the primary site on which self-feeling was understood, negotiated, and applied. While adults were tasked with managing the self-feelings of children, children themselves emerged as complex negotiators who actively participated in constructing and transforming the emotional frameworks designed to regulate their development. By shedding light on these dynamics, this research offers a new lens for interpreting childhood emotion in modern England.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Supported by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council [Grant Number AH/R012717/1] and the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities.
• Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology; D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D204 Modern History
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities
• Funder's Name: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Supervisor's Name: Abrams, Professor Lynn and Brown, Professor Callum
• Date of Award: 2026
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2026-85798
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 09 Mar 2026 15:08
• Last Modified: 09 Mar 2026 15:11
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85798
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85798