Dr. Patrick Ryan

Department Chair/Professor

Phone: 519-433-3491
Email: pryan2@uwo.ca

Patrick J. Ryan is a past-President of the Society for the History of Children and Youth and an expert in the history, laws, policies, and discourses of childhood and youth. He has published 2 single-authored books, 12 single-authored peer-reviewed articles, 15 other article-lengthened writings, 14 commentaries, and 26 reviews or short entries. In addition, Dr. Ryan has commissioned and edited over 250 multi-media features or book reviews for online academic periodicals.

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy, Department of History, Case Western Reserve University 1998. 
  Ph.D. diss: “Shaping Modern Youth: Social Policies and Growing Up Working-Class in Industrial America, 1890-1945,” (CWRU, May 1998).   Advisor, Michael Grossberg.  DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20935.00160
• Master of Arts, American History, Case Western Reserve University 1994.
• Bachelor of Arts, History Major, University of Minnesota 1991. 

Teaching

Dr. Ryan has taught over 20 different courses at KUC, most recently CYS 2212F/G Childhood and the Law, CYS 2210F/G Childhood and Social Policy, CYS 3313F/G Research Methodologies using Discourse Analysis, CYS 3314F/G Research Methodologies in Governmentality Studies, CYS 3361F/G and History 3261F/G The History of Childhood in Canada, History 3851F/G Capitalism and the Law.

Research

History of childhood and youth, law, policy, governmentality studies, and discourse analysis.

• Editorial Board, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 2024-present.
• Editorial Board, Child and Youth Studies Dialogues, 2016-present.
• Editorial Board, University of Georgia Press - Children, Youth, and War Series, 2015-present.
• Editorial Board, Palgrave Macmillan Press - History of Childhood Series, 2014-present.

Current Projects:

• Childhood, Youth, and the Governmental State in America. Under contract with Palgrave MacMillan.
• Youth and the Law in Canada - Rights to Participation and Provision. Proposal to LexisNexis Canada under review.

Selected Publications

View a complete listing of Dr. Ryan's publications.

Books

Childhood and the Law in Canada: the family/state relationship (LexisNexis Canada, 2024).

Master-Servant Childhood: a history of the idea of childhood in medieval English culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Articles and Interviews

"Continuity and Change in the History of Eugenics" an interview with Digital Childhoods (January 21, 2025).

"Eugenic Continuities: Youth, Sex, Disability, and the Rise of Liberal Eugenics in the Late Twentieth Century," Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth vol. 17 no. 1 (2024): 104-126.

Hedi Viterbo with Patrick Ryan, "Interview with Patrick Joseph Ryan about his book, Childhood and the Law in Canada – The Family/State Relationship" on The Childhood, Law, and Policy Network, Queen Mary University of London, UK (December 24, 2024).

"Conferencing Survey Report - November 2021," in SHCY Commentaries, Ep 31, www.shcy.org (December, 2021).

"'Kontrolle durch - heroische Frauen': Kindheit, Disziplin und der Armustsdiskurs - The 'government of heroic women': childhood, discipline, and the discourse of poverty," in Bildungsgeschichte – International Journal for the Historiography of Education vol. 7, no. 2 (2017): 173-190.

"Childhood as Discourse," in Childhood Studies edited by Heather Montgomery Oxford Bibliographies On-line (Oxford University Press, 2016).

"Violence & Power - Part 2," including an interview with Ben Parsons for Childhood: History & Critique episode 15, June 22, 2015.

"Violence & Power - Part 1," including an interview with Peter Kelly for Childhood: History & Critique episode 14, June 8, 2015.

"'Young Rebels Flee Psychology': individual intelligence, race, and foster children in Cleveland, Ohio between the world wars,"  Paedagogica Historica vol. 47, no. 6 (October 2011): 767-783.

"Discursive Tensions on the Landscape of Modern Childhood," Educare Vetenskapliga Skrifter (2011: 2): 11-37.

"How New is the 'New' Social Studies of Childhood? The Myth of a Paradigm Shift," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 38, no. 4 (Spring, 2008): 553-576.