I am fortunate in being able to deploy my research interests in teaching, notably in the fields of nineteenth-century French history and the History of Childhood. In the first year most of my time is devoted to the two Learning History modules, designed to help students make the transition from school or college to university. In the second and third years, I convene modules focusing on the revolutionary period in French history, from 1789 to 1871, and the 'Belle Epoque' of 1880 to 1914. I also run a Special Subject on the history of childhood and children in nineteenth-century Britain. I run a module for the MA programme on childhood and children in modern Britain. Dissertation here have included studies of young women alpinists, representations of black soldiers in the British army and children in the workhouse.
Past Research
My most important contributions to historical research so far come in the study of childhood. When I began in the late 
1970s historians still largely ignored the area. Since then it has taken off in various countries, in line with the general trend to investigate groups marginalized by traditional historiography such as women, the unemployed and immigrants. My first project in this field was a study of child labour, apprenticeship and education in nineteenth-century France (1988).
I consolidated my position in the field with a book on the history of childhood in Europe and North America from the medieval to the modern period (2001). Here I considered ideas on childhood down the ages, examined children through their various stages of life, and looked at their work, health and education. This work has been translated into a number of foreign languages.
I have also recently completed a monograph, Growing Up in Modern France (2007), based on letters, diaries and above all autobiographical material. In this I analyse topics such as the social constructions of childhood and adolescence in modern France, the phases of growing up, relations with parents and peers, schooling and sexuality.
Besides childhood, I have pursued researches into the economic, social, cultural and political life 
of the French town of Troyes during the nineteenth century. In the late 1980s and 1990s I extended and up-dated earlier researches, with many archive visits to the town and to Paris. Since then I have spent time constructing a database of households in the town, and started to publish my findings in learned journals. Expertise gathered on this project has led to various general surveys of French and European economic and social history in influential series.