Although children and young people have been engaging in informal play since the dawn of human history it wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that an organised approach was adopted for the provision of wholesome recreation through the emergence of youth institutes, clubs and groups run by volunteers across the UK and beyond.  What started out as an evangelical movement with militaristic overtones soon diversified and proliferated with a discernable shift towards a concern for the general well-being and physical condition of the young during a period of moral panic about juvenile delinquency and national efficiency.  Drill, team sports, community work, camping, first aid and many other activities besides were promoted for the purpose of building character, teaching skills and encouraging personal growth, self-sufficiency and team spiritedness. 
 
Now, as then, the extra-curricular dimension of education is championed across the social and political spectrum as a means of harnessing the power and potential of youth for the creation of a more engaged and cohesive society.  As enthusiasm for sporting, cultural and other voluntary activities reaches fever pitch in the build up to the Olympics, this special one day History of Education Society conference, held in conjunction with the Voluntary Action History Society and British Society of Sports History, seeks to explore the history of the movement by offering a forum for postgraduates and early career researchers working in the field to present their research on the intersection of youth, recreation and/or voluntary action.  We invite papers on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to the history of:
 
Youth groups, clubs and societies
Physical education
Youth and community work
Youth and voluntary action
Extra-curricular activities
Youth sport, gender and identity
Youth, Empire and athleticism
 
The three postgraduate panels will be interspersed with keynote addresses to be delivered by Dr Mary-Clare Martin and Dr Mark Freeman, who will each speak of their research on the history of voluntary youth associations.  These papers, along with those presented in the postgraduate sessions, will provide the basis for a round table discussion led by the two keynote speakers in the concluding session.
 
Proposals of up to 300 words (and any informal queries) should be sent to Sarah Winfield at sjw91@cam.ac.uk by 1 February 2011.