Active Social Agents Research Articles

Inquiring Children’s Security within the Framework of Human Security: A Theoretical Assessment

ABSTRACT While there is consensus on the individual as the primary referent object within the human security debate the question of which individuals? remains inadequately addressed. In this paper children are the primary referents and beneficiaries of security, arguing children’s human security possesses distinct characteristics that differentiate the nonviolent, preventable threats they face from those encountered by adults. Addressing these threats requires an integrated approach that combines theoretical exploration with practical policy implementation. The current academic discourse on human security, while extensive, must prioritize children’s specific needs by acknowledging them as key referents of security and essential subjects in both theory and practice. This involves recognizing children as active social and political agents, and addressing the unique dimensions of their vulnerability through comprehensive, targeted strategies. Achieving meaningful progress in safeguarding children’s security demands concerted efforts from all sectors, including researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and political leaders. Effective policy and practice require a collaborative approach that emphasizes the prevention and early identification of risks. Enhanced academic attention and robust discussions on children’s security are vital in shaping policies that reflect the urgency of these issues and drive effective interventions on a global scale. Keywords: children’s security, children’s rights, child well-being, human security, critical security. JEL Classification Codes: J13, H56, I31, K33, K38

Muutuvad arusaamad lastest ja laste uuenduslik energia

Understanding the child and childhood depends on the content attached to these concepts. Different images have prevailed in different times and they reflect in modern understandings of children. Drawing on Philippe Ariès’ seminal work, Centuries of Childhood, the paper offers a glimpse of images of children through time. History has portrayed the vulnerable, fragile child who needs protection and the immature child who needs to be educated and disciplined. Both images are represented in adults’ and children’s perceptions of today’s children. These perceptions in turn influence the way adults treat children. For example, a parent who sees the child as vulnerable and fragile may be overprotective and limit the child’s autonomous behaviour; another parent may not be able to negotiate with the child and may be easily punitive in situations where the child makes mistakes. According to children, they do not misbehave deliberately, but because they are immature and lack knowledge and experience. Understandably, they also agree with the image of a vulnerable child – in some situations they need to feel safe and protected. With the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly in 1989 and its ratification by state governments, the image of the socially competent child began to develop vigorously. The current article focuses on the competent image of the child, according to which a child is an active social agent and socially competent according to age to evaluate his or her lived life. The paper recalls keynotes of Ivar Frønes and Asher Ben-Arieh at international children’s well-being conference which was held in Tartu in 2019. According to them, while an adult thinks about life lived today, and thinking about tomorrow is the quest to “think out of the box”, a child has to live life forward each day, i.e., find solutions here and now, harnessing their innovative energy; for example, when confronted with new situations that require new solutions, or when interpreting and reproducing knowledge individually and collectively, shaping the world in which they live and, last but not least, bringing about change around them, e.g., contributing to the parent’s growth into parenthood. The challenge of modern childhood is to understand social processes in a forward-looking way, focusing not on future adulthood but on the here-and-now of childhood. Children use their innovative energy in everyday interactions and play, which is an important part of their lives. In a broad sense, play is action, it is practice of living, including the development of new skills and self-socialisation. There is plenty of innovative energy in children in their free play. In conclusion, it has to be said that, as society develops more rapidly, innovative energy and thinking are increasingly becoming a challenge for adults too. The article is based on the introductory presentation of the winter conference of folklorists, “Playing and Playfulness in Folklore”, held in Kuremaa Castle on 2–3 March 2023.

Deconstructing and Reinforcing Gender Norms and Cultural Taboos in Myanmar’s Spring Revolution

On 1 February 2021, claiming that the results of the prior November's election were fraudulent, the military staged a coup d'etat. They planned to hold power until a new election was held. This ended a pseudo-democracy under the quasi-civilian government. The coup provoked a nationwide protest also demanding for a modern state which values the information technology knowledge of Generation Z, sees them as active social agents, with new revolutionary ideas, and fosters greater freedom of thought. Traditional groups as well as human rights defenders contested gender norms and stereotypes. In this study of the 2021 revolution, numerous changes in gender attitudes are documented. These include attitudes regarding cultural taboos about women's bodies; dominant masculine ideas about marginalized gender groups; and finally, women's political participation. Many urban youth protesters have been fighting against misogynist ideas and actively acknowledge women's roles in the political and social movements. Yet, in the power struggle between oppressors and oppressed, human dignity and moral principles have been caught in a bind, as women from both groups have been strategically targeted for personal attacks. Although this trend was not as apparent in previous anti-coup protests, this article argues that, despite some flaws, the revolution could be a driving force in changing gender perceptions in general. As such, this study observes how the 2021 revolution both deconstructed and reinforced traditional gender stereotypes and beliefs. With the aim of examining the driving forces and drawbacks of gender attitudes changes, this investigation attempts to understand the gender equality movements, arising with the coup in 2021 and their impact on the landscape of women's participation in politics.

Female Presence in Maritime Settings–Trade and Warfare

Traditionally, the maritime networks controlling long-distance trade in metals and other commodities during the European Bronze Age have been understood as expressions of male elite power and dominance. This orthodox model forms a biased and excluding stance of social practice, and makes redundant attempts to discuss critically alternative models of gender-based power-relations in long-distance trade and communication. This study intends to revaluate the notion of androcentric, unilateral patriarchal power relations in maritime trade and warfare, ultimately suggesting an alternative heterarchical model, emphasising the co-existence of heterogeneous power-relations that include women as active social agents and movers of change. The geographical area referred to in particular is Scandinavia but the Mediterranean area is also included. The analysis focuses essentially on graves of the so-called ship setting type. Both men and women are represented in their materials, signalling power and control in the maritime sphere. So far, the female presence has not been discussed in terms of power and control, only in terms of representation. Finding burials of women in these monumental graves in the maritime landscape supports the ground-breaking proposal that, during the Bronze Age, women were also participants in maritime activities.

Stand by lives: depoliticizing families of political prisoners in post-revolution Egypt

Since 2017, Committee for Justice has been working on monitoring and verifying human rights violations inside Egyptian prisons and places of detention under its project «Detention Watch». Based on findings of in-depth interviews with 10 relatives of political prisoners during March and September 2022, this article presents the cases of families who are active and inactive social and economic agents representing different groups of the Egyptian population. It focuses on the impact of human rights violations on depoliticizing relatives of political prisoners –wives, parents, and children– and how this affected their efforts to over the economic hardship, as well as their attitudes regarding migration, protesting, and political reconciliation with the regime. In doing so, the article mires to explore the personal, economic, social, and political results of repression and how these have led to increased depoliticization among individuals who are affected indirectly by human rights violations.
 Received: 20 May 2022 Accepted: 16 November 2022

Transformation through learning: Education about, for, and as sustainability

The United Nations foregrounds education as a means to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). In this conceptual paper, we argue education must offer learning that is transformative to better prepare learners to respond to the current global challenges. We argue that the dominant educational approaches fall short of realizing learners' potential for transformation toward sustainability. Focusing on the region of Southeast Asia we draw on educator experiences working with and at the Green School (Indonesia) and United World College (Singapore) to map some of their educational successes and identify some of the key processes and conditions that have contributed to those successes. The potential that exists in the context of independent international schools maybe a relevant factor in their success. We see the lessons that can be learned from these examples as useful in other school contexts. We draw on three sequential pedagogical development phases of learning in engaging with sustainability: namely, Learning about Sustainability, Learning for Sustainability (LfS), and Learning as Sustainability. We argue that the third transformative learning phase, Learning as Sustainability (which also incorporates processes of learning about and for sustainability) offers the best fertile ground for engaging learners as active social change agents within and outside of the learning environment. We see these learning phases as all interconnected, dynamic, and fluid rather than a formulaic progression. This paper contributes to advancing schools toward a perspective on education that reflects an ecological approach toward sustainability and support educators to better integrate education as sustainability in their learning activities. It is worth mentioning that changes in the school that reflect an ecological approach does not guarantee that the experience of the learner will result in transformative Learning as Sustainability. Instead, it is our contention that attaining a clear understanding of these learning processes empowers educators to facilitate an environment by identifying and incorporating the necessary conditions required to inspire deep ecological transformation, thus increasing the potential to arrive at Learning as Sustainability.

Black identity formation and the civil rights in Brasil

This paper aims to establish an association between black racial identity formation and the struggle to guarantee civil rights in Brazil. The consolidation of racial identity is a determining factor for the subject to become an active social agent, able to enjoy all their rights as a citizen. The introduction contextualizes matters involving identity formation in the colonial e imperial periods. Next, we examine the construction and consolidation of black identity from the legal abolition of slavery until the contemporary advances in the conquest of rights in Brazil. Finally, we observe that the consolidation of racial identity is directly linked to the organization and strengthening of Black Brazilian movement.

'Pushing back': People newly diagnosed with dementia and their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions in England.

Background and ObjectivesResearch into people with dementia's experiences of the Covid‐19 pandemic has tended to focus on vulnerabilities and negative outcomes, with the risk of reproducing a discourse in which people with dementia are positioned as passive. Informed by concepts positioning people with dementia as ‘active social agents’, we aimed to identify the pandemic‐related challenges faced by people recently diagnosed with dementia and examine the ways in which they actively coped with, and adapted to, these challenges.Research Design and MethodsIn‐depth interviews with 21 people recently diagnosed with dementia, recruited through an existing national cohort. Data was analysed thematically using Framework.FindingsKey challenges included reduced social contact, loneliness and loss of social routines; difficulties accessing and trusting health services; dementia‐unfriendly practices; and disparate experiences of being able to ‘get out’ into the physical neighbourhood. People with dementia responded to challenges by maintaining and extending their social networks and making the most of ‘nodding acquaintances’; learning new skills, for communication and hobbies; supporting others, engaging in reciprocal exchange and valuing connection with peers; seeking help and advocacy and challenging and resisting dementia‐unfriendly practices; maintaining and adapting habitual spatial practices and being determined to ‘get ou t’; and employing similar emotional coping strategies for the pandemic and dementia.ConclusionsSupport for people with dementia, especially during public health crises when carers and services are under pressure, should involve utilising existing capacities, appropriately supporting the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, ‘safety‐netting’ through the availability of a named professional, advocacy and support and use of ‘check‐in calls’ and creating supportive social and environmental circumstances for people with dementia to sustain their own well‐being.

Young children as theory makers and co-creators of cultural practices: challenging the authenticity of Santa

ABSTRACT This paper argues that when young children are given an opportunity for their voice to be heard, they are competent communicators and social agents who can co-create cultural practices as theory makers. The paper draws on video recorded data from a small study that focussed on how young children (3–5 years) participated in an end-of-year cultural celebration in an early childhood education setting in Australia. The children organized a party, invited Santa Claus to visit, and setup a special place where they could hold conversations with Santa. Video recorded data of the conversations initiated by the children with Santa Claus were transcribed and analysed using the fine-grained interactional tools of ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis. Analyses identified children’s competence as active social agents who challenged Santa’s authenticity through checking his appearance, knowledge testing and, suggesting he was not the ‘real Santa’. This evidence of children’s capacity to authenticate cultural experiences demonstrates that incorporating children’s voice in the co-creation of culture fosters children’s opportunities to make and interrogate theory.

Rethinking textbooks as active social agents in interpretivist research

AbstractTextbooks are artifacts. They are made, used, interpreted, and understood in a wide range of ways. In this sense, regardless of its theoretical assumptions, textbook analysis is an evolving and pioneering task as textbooks bring about manifold knowledge, relationships, and emotions. When exploring the texts, images, and functions in and beyond the textbooks, researchers would recognize textbooks as interactive subjects in the social world rather than simply as content carriers. Although content analysis has long been employed as a methodology for textbook analysis, there are multiple pathways to investigate textbooks. The paper pays specific attention to interpretivist methodologies that may allow researchers to see the textbooks' interactive performance and impacts on others and researchers themselves. First, the paper reviews and pieces together previously established approaches and orientations of textbook studies. Second, the paper attempts to build a broad framework for analysing textbooks based mainly on Prior's and Cooren's arguments about reconceptualizing documents and texts, respectively. Third, the paper explores the implications of the analysis mentioned earlier and examines two interpretivist research methodologies, including symbolic interactionism and autoethnography, to open up the possibilities of rethinking textbooks as active social agents in human life instead of repositories of information and ideologies.

Feminist Ideologies of the Self-Respect Movement – A Historical Study

Women are an essential component of the human society. However, women do not get their respect and rights in the ages due to the deeply institutionalized patriarchal values. There were many feminist movements emerged globally to address these differences where they articulated different strategies for women liberation such as equal education, employment, civil rights, valuing women’s bodies and their rights in the society. In this context, the foundation of the self-respect movement in India was became a crucial movement to address the social inequality in the society. The movement was started in 1925 by Thanthai Periyar E.V. Ramasami. The movement completely believed women as an active social agent and trusted that the freedom of women would lead to a revolution in the society. The movement became a platform for women to articulate their views. The movement proposed some of the significant strategies for women liberation and empowerment, which was pioneer to the many women’s movements in the world. On this background, this particular paper is trying to study the feminist ideologies that were proposed by the Self-Respect Movement.

When pain never goes away: Understanding the lived experiences of children with chronic pain and their parents in Portugal

AbstractThis study intends to provide insights into the lives of children who suffer from chronic pain and of their parents. A qualitative, multi‐modal approach was employed, using the draw, write and tell technique with seven children, and semi‐structured interviews with parents. By illustrating that children are active social agents in the management of chronic pain (even when they are understood by parents as vulnerable), the findings support recent sociological work in the field of childhood health. Indeed, the findings show that children with a chronic condition can take autonomous decisions in relation to disease management even when supervised by parents.

Mythic content as a rhetoric in government-aided school textbooks of Nepal

This paper offers a critical and political reading of the excerpts of myths included in government-sponsored school-level language textbooks of Nepal, and looks at how the content is more prone to instilling particular values than to teaching skills of language competence. Drawing on insights and postulations from Critical Discourse Analysis in general, and dispositive analysis in particular, it examines values embedded in the excerpts as a discursive site for the practice of knowledge-making and power. Given that textbooks are a cultural production at large, and therefore textual, the paper explores how the reproduction of mythical content has given rise to the pedagogy that serves the teleological purpose of producing the desired type of possible citizenry by keeping the essentialities of modern education such as critical engagement, linguistic and cognitive skills, the questioning attitude and critical thinking at the disposal. The paper concludes that the particular way of designation of the content is likely to halt the basic aim of producing the learners as active and critical social agents for the broader social transformation, and calls for a revisit to mitigate the gap between the professed objectives and their materialization in language textbooks and make the learning content more goal-oriented.

Emancipation or simulation? The pedagogy of ignorance and action research in PETE

ABSTRACT Background Education is increasingly a bureaucratized, standardized and regulated service in which everything is decided by the ‘experts’. There is an abandonment of the concept of education centred on the subject, social progress and collective transformation. Thus, education in general and teacher-training in particular, need innovative approaches that question the role of schools with regard to the social reproduction and neoliberalism. Critical pedagogies must develop practical propositions for transformation beyond theoretical criticism. In this sense, one of these possibilities is the philosophy of emancipation, which demands that students participate in their own education to recognize themselves as active social agents in the process of transformation and as authors in the construction of their own world. Purpose This study is an outline and an evaluation of an experience that was based on the main objective of emancipating the students of a Master’s degree in Physical Education in Secondary Education Teaching in order to carry out their own Action Research (AR) projects. Methods The study was carried out through the planning of three cycles of AR, and a teaching role closely associated to the pedagogy of ignorance. Data from the study was collected through reflective journals from the teachers (n = 2) and the participating students (n = 90). Added to this were two discussion groups, developed for the purpose of giving the students a more active voice. Findings The results show, on the one hand, how the combination of the pedagogy of ignorance and the cycles of AR required students to act with autonomy and responsibility; however, although they valued this precept in the end, they asked for more intervention by teachers. Their overriding feeling of needing to ‘be taught’ made the study, unexpectedly, resemble a simulation. On the other hand, the methodology demanded that the authors of the study to not only maintain distance and not intervene but also to continually reconsider their role and authority in the classroom. Conclusions Based on this study, the conclusions are that the course was designed too extensively planning fewer cycles might have resolved the sensation of the emotional distance that was perceived by the students. Reflection on the dynamics of the course also bred a feeling that the objectives of the study could have been shared with the students sooner to have obtained more accurate results. Despite these complications, it was a process of intense reflection and pedagogical learning, and a valuable experience on many levels.

Building Healthy and Sustainable Communities for Youth

Healthy communities are based on social justice and mutual respect. Healthy communities for youth promote values such as fairness, equal treatment, accountability, opportunity, participation, and opportunities to make choices. This paper is based on definitions and activities from the U.S. President's Council on Sustainable Development (1993-1999). School librarians serve communities when they develop venues ensuring the development of social values and personal life skills for youth. Workable suggestions, including reading programs, for a variety of school situations are provided. Case reports are offered illustrating how school librarians can develop life skills for youth as active community social agents.

Japanese women singer-songwriters of the 1970s: female agency, musical impact and social change

AbstractWith the debuts of highly popular artists such as Matsutōya Yumi, Nakajima Miyuki and Takeuchi Mariya, Japanese popular music of the 1970s saw a rise of young female singer-songwriters. Not only were they notably successful commercially but they were also respected as creative artists. This recognition and valuation of female professional creativity was extraordinary from a gender point of view. Furthermore, their position as active social agents defied the social expectations for women in Japan at that time. In this respect, they can be conceptualised as a musical embodiment of the movements pursuing female emancipation in the 1970s. While the musical significance of these female singer-songwriters has been recognised in previous studies, the gender point of view has remained largely unaddressed. By drawing from theories about female musicians and canon formation, this article re-assesses the social significance of Japanese female singer-songwriters of the 1970s.

‘The very best generation of teachers ever’: teachers in post-2010 ministerial speeches

ABSTRACT This article explores how teachers were discursively positioned in England following the formation of the Coalition government in 2010, using a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of 363 speeches produced by government ministers. Findings show that young teachers were privileged in post-2010 government discourse, constructed as valued and active social agents. Experienced teachers, however, were constructed as passive and deficient, albeit useful for training new teachers. The findings indicate the deployment of a biopolitical apparatus which sought to hierarchically distinguish between different groups of teachers in order to facilitate system reform.

Adult paleopathology as an indicator of childhood social roles: A case study of Perthes disease in a native Ohio female

AbstractRecently, the study of children has played an important role in the development of bioarchaeology. Particularly, researchers have long been concerned with the timing of growth and development and with childhood morbidity and mortality. These studies have helped to drive the field of bioarchaeology forward by elucidating the effects of culture on biological variation, including health, fertility, and, ultimately, human evolution. Building on this progress, recent works have called for further theoretical and methodological development in bioarchaeological studies of children, specifically developments that further the understanding of the social roles of children as simultaneously active and vulnerable social agents across temporal and cultural space. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the utility of adult paleopathology in the identification of culturally meaningful stages of childhood social development and the entanglement of vulnerability and agency. To meet this aim, we will present a case study of a late‐prehistoric Erie woman who likely suffered from Legg‐Calvé‐Perthes disease of the hip. We argue that the timing and aetiology of Perthes disease are consistent with the practice of agricultural activities by about age seven, and possibly, with a shift in social responsibilities at this time.

Active environments: Relational ontologies of landscape at the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize

A holistic and relational approach to landscape amplifies understandings of the complexities of human–environment relationships. This article examines ecological and social aspects of landscape at the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize, in the context of relational ontologies. The city of Aventura is enmeshed with microenvironments known as pocket bajos, and I argue that pocket bajos defy categorization as natural or cultural. By exploring their spatial context, material content, and associated activities that create cosmological connections, I demonstrate that the pocket bajos were active social agents in the construction of the city and the maintenance of community. The relations that people living at Aventura established with pocket bajos highlight the interconnectedness of humans with the environment, and this approach avoids projecting current-day Western categories of nature and culture onto the past.

Chinese L2 users as active social agents: Sentence final particles variation and identities

Abstract This study investigated the sociolinguistic pragmatic performance of eight advanced Chinese learners from a variationist sociolinguistic perspective, focusing on the variable appearance versus absence of Mandarin sentence final particles (SFPs) in non-interrogative sentences. These learners participated in a Chinese TV talk show and have become popular on social media platforms. The speech data from the talk show (400 tokens) and online data from Chinese social media platform Weibo (400 tokens) were collected and analyzed. These Chinese L2 users productively demonstrated variation in their use of SFPs in non-interrogative sentences, in that they added SFPs to a sentence in around 20% of variable contexts. Rbrul (logistic regression) analyses revealed that the variable presence of SFPs was conditioned by their duration of time spent in China and gender-related personalities. Follow-up case analyses explored how they made use of SFPs in different situations and how they were received by other participants. The study found that these Chinese L2 users became active social agents who made decisions to shift styles in different contexts or to strengthen their identities. The results are discussed within a broader context of identity, language socialization, and L2 social agency. This study also attempts to offer pedagogical implications for the acquisition of Chinese SFPs.