Gender and Discipline in the Finnish Reformatories of the 1920s

By focusing on the everyday disciplinary practices in the early-20^th-century Finnish reformatories this article analyzes the gendered nature of residential child protection. It discusses some preliminary findings of two research projects. The institutional examples represent two different types of institutions for young people deemed as “delinquent” or “wayward”: a state-run reformatory for girls and a municipal reformatory for boys. What kinds of gender specific implementations of control existed and what kinds of gendered identities were constructed through the disciplinary practices? This article argues that in the reformatory context care and discipline are not necessarily opposite elements. Rather, they may be perceived as two sides of the same coin. Furthermore, disciplinary practices should not be discussed as separate acts of power. Rather, they have formed an integral part of residential reeducation and their cultural meaning can be understood only in relation to this wider context.