Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. State of the Experiment: Experts, Parents and the Reformatory; 2. The Nature of the Beast: The Content of Instiutionalized Childhood; 3. Experimental Childhoods: Pain and the Reformatory; 4. Gendering the Reformatory; 5. Masters and Servants: School, Home and the Aristocratic Childhood; 6. The Politics of Deracination; Conlusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index

'Colonial Childhoods' is about the politics of childhood in India between the 1860s and the 1930s. It examines not only the redefinition of the 'child' in the cultural and intellectual climate of colonialism, but also the uses of the child, the parent and the family in colonizing and nationalizing projects. It investigates also the complications of transporting metropolitan discourses of childhood, adulthood and expertise across the lines of race. Focused on reformatories and laws for juvenile delinquents, and boarding schools for aristocratic children, it illuminates a vital area of conflict and accommodation in a colonial society.