Children's Agency Research Articles

Representations of schooling and childhood during the COVID‐19 pandemic in England

AbstractDuring the COVID‐19 pandemic, questions abounded about how best to support children during the ‘new normal’ where homes, often instead of schools, were identified as the usual sites of learning. Educational research has explored the impact of COVID‐19 on schools, education and learning, and childhood studies research has shown the impact on children's rights and paid attention to how constructs of childhood have shaped government responses. In this paper, we bring these fields together through exploring constructions of childhood alongside those of schooling. We systematically analyse the representations of schooling and childhood in 72 BBC news articles published on 1 June—the day that primary schools started to reopen in England. Our findings show that the dominant ‘frames’ of reporting centred around risk and fear. COVID‐19 risks exist to health and safety, to children's education and to childhood more generally. The news media portrayed schooling as synonymous with learning, children as passive and childhood as a time of both happiness and ‘loss’. We argue that these normative discourses exploit children as symbols of hope, conceal alternative ways of thinking about learning and are restrictive and unreflective of children's agency and real‐life experiences. In the aftermath of the pandemic, academics and policymakers need to continue to debate and explore the nature of learning and children's perspectives on school in order to critically examine the current system of schooling.

The Voices of Minor Children of Parents With a Mental Illness or Addiction: A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis

ABSTRACTThis qualitative evidence synthesis aims to show how the agency and voices of minor children of parents with a mental illness (COPMI) or with an addiction (COPA) are represented in existing qualitative research. A thematic analysis was conducted to analyse the parts of the articles reporting on the voices of COPMI/COPA themselves (e.g., through interviews with them). Special attention was given to how the authors of the different articles represented children's agency and amplified their voices. The four themes found were secrecy and privacy, lack of information, fear and worry and informal care. Thus, these are the topics most commonly discussed by COPMI and COPA themselves. They both spoke of themselves as victims and as agents, and these two were strongly intertwined in their descriptions of their experiences and situations. The most important recommendation for policy, practice and research based on these results is that it is important to listen to what minor COPMI/COPA have to say about their own situation and see them not only as a victim of this situation but also as an agent.

"I'm always fighting the Coronavirus because it's dangerous to my family": Children's agency, resilience, and role in the family during COVID-19 in Israel.

This study explores the experiences of Israeli children (N = 50) aged 3-6 years from middle to high socioeconomic status on the COVID-19 pandemic from their own perspectives. Following a qualitative-phenomenological paradigm and utilizing a semistructured interview format designed to involve children through a card game, this research seeks to unearth the nuanced dynamics of parent-child communication against the backdrop of Israel's distinctive sociopolitical context, characterized by "deep securitization" and some of the strictest COVID-19 restrictions enforced globally. Based on the interviews conducted with children, four main themes emerged: (1) how children were exposed to information; (2) types of information children were exposed to; (3) active mediation versus restrictive mediation; and (4) militant discourse and desire to fight. Incorporating multisystem theory (Masten & Narayan, 2012) to explore the interplay of risk and protective factors, the study situates these within Israel's unique sociopolitical context which engendered expressions of resilience and agency among young children. By highlighting the interrelationships between national security measures and family life, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex factors that affected young children's experiences during the pandemic, highlighting the workings of the transformation of adversity into resilience within contextually specific settings during times of crises. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's perspectives of learning through play in the majority world: Findings from Bangladesh, Colombia and Uganda

AbstractAs efforts to use learning through play (LtP) expand globally, it is important to explore how children's perspectives impact the efficacy and experience of this pedagogical approach. LtP has been conceptualized as a spectrum from free play to guided play to teacher‐directed play. This spectrum describes different ways in which play happens—with varying levels of adult support—and acknowledges that children's agency is characterized by choice and the ability to direct, participate in, and/or initiate play. Previous research has primarily focused on adult perceptions of LtP for preschool children in high‐resource contexts. We present the perspectives on LtP of children (3–12 years) in Bangladesh, Colombia and Uganda. We photographed learning activities in community centres and schools that incorporated play‐based practices. In group discussions, we used these photographs to elicit children's perspectives on the difference between play and learning in the classroom, the factors that influence their construction of play and learning, and the role that teachers play in these activities. Conceptualizations across the three research sites and ages were similar: Children associated learning with play if the activity was fun and social; distinctions between play and learning were defined by content, modality, materials and location; and teachers were seen as involved in play under limited conditions. We discuss the implications of our findings for the implementation of LtP in majority‐world contexts. By moving teachers from a primarily teacher‐directed approach to more guided‐play approaches, we are not only asking teachers to give up some control but are also asking children to think about adults in fundamentally different ways. This research highlights that we may need to couple professional development for teachers with approaches that support children to change their perceptions of agency and choice in the classroom.

Interactional space for agency: Discussing photography with preschoolers

According to the latest research in both arts education and childhood studies, young children's agency is relational, entangled and negotiated. However, in early childhood visual arts education, modernist practices emphasising the independent and self-expressive child–agent are still recognisable. In this article, early childhood artistic activities are seen as a shared venue for interaction, social exchange and joint meaning-making, thereby providing a specific forum for displaying agency. Informed by conversation analysis, we explore discussions between 14 preschoolers and a researcher on contemporary art and children's self-authored photographs in a workshop in an early childhood education and care centre. By examining our discussions as turn-by-turn procedures, we identify children's displays of agency. The findings illustrate children's agency as a multifaceted and complex interactional phenomenon based on verbal and non-verbal communication and demonstrating both imaginative, progressively oriented talk and modes of resistance. While a shared playful stance appeared as a suitable means to approach art/creative photographs, it simultaneously became an essential interactional resource for inviting and promoting children's agency. Collaborative play with photographs provided an interactional space in which the fixed child/children–adult binary could be questioned and different types of agency were available for both children and the adult.

Sustainability, play and children´s agency: a comparative study of the Swedish and Turkish preschool curricula

ABSTRACT In this study, we compared how sustainability, children’s agency, and play are addressed in preschool curricula in Sweden and Turkey. Content analysis was used to analyse, interpret, and compare the content. The findings indicated that sustainability is explicitly integrated into the Swedish curriculum but only partly mentioned in the Turkish curriculum. Play is a core part of children’s learning in Sweden, whereas, in Turkey, play is mainly referred to as a method. The Swedish preschool curriculum emphasises democracy as a central aspect, which reflects the dedication to fostering children's agency and their comprehension of rights and participation. The Turkish curriculum, meanwhile – while acknowledging democratic principles, child rights, and participation – does not provide a comprehensive framework for promoting children’s agency. Our qualitative study contributes to knowledge about policies that may lead to practices concerning preschool education in Sweden and Turkey that focus on sustainability, children’s agency, and play.

Being family via WeChat: Children's interpretation of long‐distance family relationships

AbstractThis study explores how left‐behind children in rural China maintain long‐distance family relationships through WeChat, highlighting the significant role of social media during family separation. It underscores the importance of considering children's voices in understanding family relationships in the digital age. Drawing on online workshops and interviews with 41 participants, the research examines how Chinese left‐behind children use WeChat to facilitate parental engagement and manage their emotions. It also investigates the challenges children face in online communication and their perspectives on grandparental involvement. This article argues that children's agency is situated within structural conditions shaped by a confluence of factors, including technological affordances, unique familial contexts, and socio‐economic inequalities. This situatedness fosters creativity, compromises, and adaptations in ‘being family’ at a distance.

Assembling kindergarteners’ agency during classroom free play time

ABSTRACT Countless studies have documented that free play is an ideal space for children to exercise agency and become independent individuals. However, the narrative of free play within Canadian schools remains problematic. Drawing from relational lenses (Oswell, 2013), we adopted the construct of entanglement (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) to explore how children's agency manifested during kindergarten free play time. A qualitative research design utilizing action research methodology (Stringer, 2014) was used to invite kindergarten teachers and education stakeholders to participate in the study. Participants came together in eight focus groups where the teacher-researchers shared evidence about how play happened in their classrooms. Thematic analysis (Babbie, 2010) revealed that kindergarteners' agency was entangled in free play scenarios where children felt safe; further, daily encounters with free play time became a significant assembled piece for children's agency capacity to unfold. The study also indicated that teachers' perceptions, the allocation of time, and the design of classroom spaces permitted children to enact their expressions of agency. The study suggests that renegotiating the discourse of free play as a relational space for kindergarteners' agency capacity to be practiced could shift the ways free play is defined within Canadian kindergarten classrooms and school policies.

Make new friends, leave my friends: A dialogical investigation into transition experiences and agency in children from UK Armed Forces families

AbstractThis article provides new perspectives on the transitions of children from military families. It examines the experiences and agency of a group of UK primary‐school Service children who were undergoing far‐reaching transitions while participating in an arts‐based research project. Transitions are conceived here not as events, such as school moves, but as processes of changing, the dialogical interplay between ever‐changing socio‐cultural and physical environments and the psychological work individuals undertake in response to change. This reconceptualisation of transitions shifts attention away from children's resilience, or lack thereof, and towards unique, nuanced understandings of their subjective experiences and priorities. Presenting multimodal pieces created by three children as they explored the question, ‘What's it like to be a Service child in this school?’, I describe their diverse and agentic responses to their changing circumstances, as they sought to mitigate anticipated and past losses and perceived disadvantage and to use their transitions as positive opportunities for self‐development. Although punctuated by observable moments of change, this transition work happened over an indefinite timescale, highlighting a need for long‐term support informed by understandings of children's agency and priorities. Such support and insight may be achieved through developing spaces for multimodal dialogue with Service children.

Children's agency within digital play and learning: Exploring the impact of shared play experiences on parent–child negotiations

Children's agency within digital play and learning: Exploring the impact of shared play experiences on parent–child negotiations

The Cultivation of Transnational Cultural Capital in Childhood: Experiences of Chinese Global Multiple Migrants

ABSTRACTThis study shows how class advantage is transferred to the next generation through parental strategies that cultivate their children's transnational cultural capital from an early age. It combines the concepts of cultural capital and concerted cultivation and adopts a novel methodology, examining parental aspirations (PAs) and strategies from the perspective of the children. The data are derived from the life stories of Chinese global multiple migrants. The article shows that the cultivation of transnational cultural capital amongst elite and middle‐class families in China is linked to traditional, neoliberal and non‐materialistic PAs. It reveals how parental capital is related to their aspirations and shapes their use of six cultivation strategies. It also discusses the contradictions, dilemmas and disagreements relating to concerted cultivation; examines children's agency and places the findings within global and national contexts. The results provide insights into culturally specific class mechanisms of intergenerational reproduction of privilege in an era of globalization.

Breaking boundaries: children activist as epistemic agents within contours of epistemic marginalisation

The article delves into the realm of child environmental activism, portraying it as a concerted response aimed at challenging the prevailing social and political status quo, which systematically underestimates the role of children in decision-making within political and social spheres. It highlights the paramount importance of the epistemological framework that encompasses children's experiences, emphasising how their exclusion from political and social discourse leads to epistemic marginalisation. This exclusion not only prevents children from assuming the role of epistemic agents but also deprives them of agency and perpetuates existing inequalities. From a philosophical perspective, the article proposes a thorough analysis of children's epistemic agency, introducing the concept of 'epistemic capability'. It argues that, despite their social marginalisation, knowledgeable children can equip themselves with epistemic resources to interpret their reality and effect change. Furthermore, it posits that environmental activism plays a crucial role as an epistemic resource for children, facilitating the expression of their ideas, challenging dominant narratives, and addressing environmental and social issues head-on. The article emphasises the transformative potential of activism as an epistemic resource, enabling substantive participation and empowering children to navigate and transcend such marginalised circumstances. In conclusion, it highlights how child environmental activism not only challenges the status quo but also provides children with crucial tools for their development as epistemic and social agents, promoting significant change in power dynamics and in the fight for social and environmental justice.

Growing up in the ‘Ghetto’: children's ambiguous attachment in racialised communities in Denmark

ABSTRACT This article examines the community attachments of children living in stigmatised non-profit housing estates in Denmark. Drawing on childhood studies’ emphasis on children's agency, the analysis explores how children shape their place attachments within urban landscapes. Methods include ethnographic fieldwork in two neighbourhoods, walk-along interviews and photo-elicitation. The findings reveal how architectural, material, and symbolic aspects of a neighbourhood may afford children's pluri-ethnic social relations and attachment practices to a local community, based on acts of care in everyday interactions. While these practices are common, the analysis also explores how the territorial stigma racialises children's social spaces and catalyses differentiations, both internally and beyond their neighbourhood. Thus, the study deepens our understanding of children's ambiguous perceptions of and reactions to growing up in stigmatised communities.

«Распаковка» агентности в школьном проекте: перспективы участвующего подхода

School has become more project-oriented. There is tremendous potential for student agency here. Children's agency can be revealed through a participatory approach to childhood sociology. The analysis model is based on the principles of participatory methodology and interpretive reproduction by Corsaro. Three groups of variables are identified: the subjectivity of the child, the balance of power between the child and the adult, and the joint creativity of the participants. The empirical basis of the study is the “Green School” case, implemented online with the participation of five schoolchildren and one teacher from the Khabarovsk Territory. Observation, interviews, focus groups, and text analysis were used for the monographic analysis of the “case”. In a space of “equal participation”, where students and a teacher are co-participants and co-researchers, children’s agency can be disclosed. Children maximally expresses themselves through free choice, gaining personal experience in the process of making decisions. Responsibility arises not as an “obligation”, but as a motivation for learning: “how can we do it to make it better”. The results of this work can be used by educators in organizing project-based research activities for students, utilizing sociological methods adapted to the study of children.

Fathers' Relationships with Their Disabled Children: A Literature Review

Fathers' relationships with their disabled children is a neglected topic in the academic literature. This article is the first review of studies in the field, comprising a comprehensive overview of research published since 1980. Forty-five studies met the inclusion criteria. Although fathers emphasise positive aspects of their relationships, existing research foregrounds more negative aspects. These studies tend to identify five themes that signal positive father-child relationships. These themes are: an evolving relationship; caregiving practices; relational aspects of caregiving; recognising and supporting their children's agency; and (inter)connectedness. While fathers' relationships with their disabled children is an under-researched topic, the existing literature on the topic focuses on the negative impact of having a disabled child. Understanding the complexity and rewarding aspects of fathers' engagement warrants further research.

Digital education through guided pretend play

BackgroundThe importance of play for children and its potential for learning are widely recognized. However, it is contested whether teachers should guide play, particularly pretend play, and how guided pretend play supports children's agency and learning. In this study, pretend play is employed in (unplugged) digital education and the teacher's guidance and children's involvement are examined to answer the following questions: what roles do teachers take on during guided pretend play and how do they enable children's learning about digitalization and digital transformation? AimsThis qualitative study examines how teachers guide pretend play in ways that support learning, focusing on the topic of digitalization and digital transformation. SampleFifteen teachers took part in the study and implemented the pretend play suggestions in their kindergartens with children aged from four to six years. MethodThe pretend play was filmed. The video data were structured and sequences of teachers joining in the pretend play and guiding from within were selected. These sequences were analysed in-depth using multimodal interaction analysis. ResultsThe results indicate that teachers guide pretend play from within by taking on different roles (play leader or co-player). Teachers model within pretend play, for example, by assigning tasks or thinking aloud, and provide scaffolding, encouraging children's learning about digitalization and digital transformation. ConclusionThrough co-playing and leading, teachers support a prolonged and in-depth joint focus, as well as the agency of the children. Such guided play is termed “sustained shared playing” and has great potential for learning.

Pedagogical framework for cultivating children's data agency and creative abilities in the age of AI

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) topics into K–12 school curricula is a relatively new but crucial challenge faced by education systems worldwide. Attempts to address this challenge are hindered by a serious lack of curriculum materials and tools to aid teachers in teaching AI. This article introduces the theoretical foundations and design principles for implementing co-design projects in AI education, empirically tested in 12 Finnish classrooms. The article describes a project where 4th- and 7th-graders (N = 213) explored the basics of AI by creating their own AI-driven applications. Additionally, a framework for distributed scaffolding is presented, aiming to foster children's agency, understanding, creativity, and ethical awareness in the age of AI.

The Agency of Children and Animals in the Prevention of Catastrophe: Judith 4:8-15 and Jonah 3:6-10

In recent feminist research, women and children are not seen collectively as one marginalized group, but children and animals have been given their own research focus and categories. Judith 8:1 states an impressive list of forebears of Judith that defines her character and role, but scholars say nothing about the fact that she prefers to terminate this lineage by not having children or offspring, no legacy. In Judith, children are absent in the victory section, their crying out to YHWH during the period of mourning is not recognised and forgotten. Children and animals form a vulnerable group, especially in biblical narratives. In Judith 4:8- 15 and Jonah 3:6-9 at the time of a national disaster, a period of communal mourning is called by the leaders. Children and animals are given the agency to petition YHWH to intervene and not allow the crises to happen. This agency of children and animals contradicts their vulnerability as they are not involved in decision-making concerning their participation in events and overall well-being. In this paper, the agency of children and animals in Judith 4:8- 15 and Jonah 3:6-10 is critically assessed to determine if they are given a real agency to petition YHWH or if their vulnerability is exploited for communal purposes and interests. Although Judith’s role inspires feminists to focus on her independence and perseverance in saving Israel, as well as to undermine motherhood as an essential woman attribute, what has the story to say about the future and agency of children and animals, the most vulnerable in society?

Children's agencies navigating sexism and LGBTI+ phobia in Santiago de Chile's primary school

AbstractThrough their talk, actions and interactions, children actively shape and develop notions of gender and sexuality. This research delves into the realm of children's agency to explore the ways children act and react to instances of sexism and LGBTI+ phobia. Within the context of a Gender Equity Education Program in a Chilean primary school, this study employs participatory‐action research, integrating participatory methods and participant observation, acknowledging the significance of children's agencies in knowledge construction. Analytically, a feminist post‐structuralist lens is applied to examine children's experiences, unveiling distinct categories of agencies, namely ‘reproducers’ and ‘challengers’ of the dominant discourse.

Exploring researchers’ perspectives and experiences of digital childhoods research in schools

This paper explores issues surrounding children's participation in research relating to digital childhoods, with an emphasis on the process of obtaining ethics approvals and other necessary approvals from Australian education authorities (e.g. Departments of Education), along with associated issues and tensions. It will report on the patterns apparent in existing literature in terms of how much research is being undertaken in independent, government, or Catholic schools, as well as researchers’ experiences working across Australian states and territories. In addition to presenting experiential data, the paper will raise tension points and provocations relating to the challenges faced by researchers and the implications of these for conducting research with children, as well as for children's rights, agency, and voice.