Retribution and Rebellion: Children’s Meaning Making of Justice Through Storytelling

Abstract

Contemporary social theory and the United Nations (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child have forged current interest in the concept of children’s citizenship. However, what citizenship is and can be for young children is surrounded by much debate and ambiguity. This article discusses explorations of possibilities of children’s citizenship from a study of the author’s practice of social justice storytelling as pedagogy with a class of children aged five to 6 years of age. The study sought findings to what active citizenship is possible for young children; and who young children might be as active citizens, from children’s responses to performed social justice stories. Aesthetic encounters with story provoked affective responses. Retribution and rebellion, though paradoxical to metanarratives of young children and citizenship, were two significant themes amidst these responses. The significant nature of these themes is explored and explained through identification of possible narrative influence and identification of children’s initiated actions and comments as life stories of citizenship practice.