Children's Agency Research Articles

Critical literacy: an approach to child rights education in Uganda and Canada

AbstractFor children to know how to fully participate in and most effectively lead the world they will inherit, they must learn how to critically engage with it and be knowledgeable about foundational rights and instruments that support such engagement. Together, critical literacy, which encourages the examination and interrogation of the underlying assumptions of dominant narratives and ‘legitimate’ knowledge, and children's rights education, which involves children in learning how to express their ideas and fully participate in society (as appropriate to their age and ability), offer a powerful approach—theoretical and pedagogical—to engage children in active engagement of the world, especially with respect to the promotion of social justice. However, the layers of complexity and risks associated with deep consideration of challenging topics require expert guidance and compassionate role modelling from teachers of young children. Our paper considers the intersections between critical literacy and global child rights with reference to a study conducted with young school children in Canada and Uganda to discuss how teachers can support meaningful learning experiences in the classroom that can promote children's agency and social justice commitments.

Children subjected to family violence: A retrospective study of experiences of trauma-focused treatment.

Exposure to adverse childhood experiences is a risk factor for the development of serious psychiatric and somatic illness. Although trauma-focused therapy is effective in reducing symptoms, not all children benefit from it. To improve treatment efficacy, the children's perspective on what they perceive as helpful versus hindering is necessary. This study aimed, retrospectively, to explore how children exposed to family violence experienced treatment at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Seventeen children and youths were interviewed 4-5years after treatment. The thematic analysis resulted in five themes: confusion, the need to feel heard, fear of consequences, feelings of pain, and identifying oneself as an agent. The results emphasize the importance of the therapeutic relationship, and that trust, genuine interest, and reciprocity are necessary for the child to engage in treatment. However, neither the child's own agency nor external obstacles such as continuous exposure to abuse should be underestimated in terms of the child's engagement.

Exploring an Ethic of Care as a Way to Enhance Agency in Early Childhood

Exploring an Ethic of Care as a Way to Enhance Agency in Early Childhood

Communication during children's X-ray procedures and children's experiences of the procedure: A scoping review

IntroductionCommunication is a central part of radiological procedures and influences children's experiences. Previous research concentrates on communication and experiences during complex radiological procedures such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Less is known about the communication that occurs with children undergoing procedures, such as non-urgent X-ray procedures, or the impact communication has on a child's experience. ObjectivesThis scoping review examined evidence relating to the communication which occurs between children, parents and radiographers during children's X-ray procedures and how children experience undergoing X-ray procedures. Key findingsThe comprehensive search identified eight papers. Evidence shows that radiographers dominate communication during X-ray procedures, with their communication in many cases being instructional, closed and limiting the opportunities for children to be involved. Evidence indicates that radiographers have a role in facilitating children in actively engaging in communication during their procedure. The papers that sought children's first-hand experiences highlight children's mainly positive experiences of having an X-ray, and the importance of informing children about their X-ray before and during the procedure. ConclusionsThe scarcity of literature highlights a need for research exploring communication during children's radiological procedures and children's first-hand experiences of undergoing these procedures. Findings highlight a need for an approach that recognises the importance of dyadic (radiographer and child), and triadic (radiographer, parent and child) communication opportunities during an X-ray procedure. Implications for practiceThis review highlights a need for an inclusive and participatory approach to communication that recognises children's voice and agency in X-ray procedures.

The voices of children on movement behaviours: implications for promoting international guidelines to support obesity-prevention efforts

BackgroundAs a key factor for the prevention of childhood obesity, WHO recommends a specific balance of movement behaviours (ie, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep) across the 24-h day for children younger than 5 years. Substantial evidence underpins our understanding of the benefits for healthy growth and development; however, little is known about young children's experiences and perceptions, and whether context-specific factors that might influence movement behaviours differ across the globe. MethodsAcknowledging children's agency as knowledgeable informants on matters affecting their lives, children aged 3–5 years from communities and preschools in urban and rural Australia, Chile, China, India, Morocco, and South Africa, were interviewed. Discussions were based on a socioecological framework of the multifactorial, complex influences on young children's movement behaviours. Prompts were adapted to ensure relevance across diverse study sites. Ethics approval and guardian consent were obtained, and the Framework Method used for analysis. Findings156 children (101 [65%] from urban areas, 55 [45%] from rural areas; 73 [47%] female, 83 [53%] male) shared their experiences, perceptions, and preferences related to movement behaviours and the barriers and enablers of outdoor play. Physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and to a lesser degree screen time occurred predominantly through play. Barriers to outdoor play included weather, air quality, and safety concerns. Sleep routines varied considerably and were influenced by room or bed sharing. Screen use was ubiquitous, presenting a challenge to meeting recommendations. The effect of daily structure, degree of autonomy, and interactions were consistent themes, and differences in how these factors influenced movement behaviours across study sites were evident. InterpretationThe findings highlight that although movement behaviour guidelines are universal, contextual realities need to be considered in how socialisation and promotion of the guidelines are enacted. How young children's sociocultural and physical environments are constructed and influenced can foster or disrupt healthy movement behaviours, which might have implications for childhood obesity. FundingBeijing High Level Talents Cultivation Project for Public Health Academic Leader; Beijing Medical Research Institute (Public service development and reform pilot project); British Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences; KEM Hospital Research Centre; Ministry of Education and Universidad de La Frontera (Innovation in Higher Education Program); and National Health and Medical Research Council (Investigator Grant Leadership Fellow, Level 2).

Dragged kicking and screaming: Agency and violence for children entering secure accommodation

AbstractChildren entering secure accommodation, also known as ‘secure care’, are prevented from exercising free choice over most aspects of everyday life. This paper focuses on the relationship between agency and violence during transference to and early time in secure accommodation. Sharing interview extracts from 11 young people with experience of secure care as children, we explore how the routine processes of ‘suppressing’ children's agency supports the emergence of violence. We argue that the manner of transfer to secure accommodation creates a violent encounter that forces children's emotion and agency to redirect and intensify onto the self and others as further violence.

Textbooks, students and teachers talk around gender: A new materialist approach to children's agency

Theoretically anchored in Butlerian and Baradian approaches to gender performativity, this study scrutinized Athenian elementary pupils' understanding of gender-normative discourses in textbook illustrations and their teachers' capacity to identify such discourses. The findings revealed that educators were unaware of the prevalence of gendered discourses in textbooks and did not make substantive efforts to diminish their harmful effects on pupils’ perceptions of gender. Children, however, are agentic subjects who negotiate gender discourses idiosyncratically. This study argues that introducing non-sexist curricula is not sufficient for combating sexism in education; textbook revisions need to be accompanied by in-service gender-training courses for educators.

Children's perezhivaniya and agency during the COVID-19 pandemic: Narrative research from China

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the lives of children across the world. To understand these changes, this study explores how 14 Chinese children aged 6 to 12years old experienced and reacted to the pandemic since its first outbreak in 2020. Applying Vygotsky's conceptualizations of perezhivanie and agency, the author interprets the children's narrative accounts of their thinking and actions during the pandemic. According to the three-dimensional narrative analyses conducted, perezhivaniya commonalities among the participating children include limited physical movement, scarcity of peer interaction, compulsory online learning, reconstruction of family relationships, and noticeable self-growth. Further, the participating children manifested their agency as resisting, exploring, self-control, committing, and envisioning. Different perezhivaniya lead children to manifest different types of agency-a process wherein mediational means play pivotal roles. This study contributes to theoretical discussions of the dialectical relation between perezhivanie and human agency. Moreover, it has practical implications for how adults can support the emergence of children's agency through means of mediation in perezhivaniya.

Respecting relational agency in the context of vulnerability: What can research ethics learn from the social sciences?

Despite advances in theory, often driven by feminist ethicists, research ethics struggles in practice to adequately account for and respond to the agency and autonomy of people considered vulnerable in the research context. We argue that shifts within feminist research ethics scholarship to better characterise and respond to autonomy and agency can be bolstered by further grounding in discourses from the social sciences, in work that confirms the complex nature of human agency in contexts of structural and other sources of vulnerability. We discuss some of the core concepts and critiques emerging from the literature on women and children's agency in under-resourced settings, highlighting calls to move from individualistic to relational models of agency, and to recognise the ambiguous, value-laden, and heterogeneous nature of the concept. We then draw out what these conceptual shifts might mean for research ethics obligations and guidance, illustrating our analysis using a case vignette based on research ethics work conducted in South Africa. We conclude that if research practices are to be supportive of agency, it will be crucial to scrutinise the moral judgements which underpin accounts of agency, derive more situated definitions of and responses to agency, and enable people and participants to influence these based on their own experiences and self-perceptions.

The post-2010 jurisprudence on children's rights under the Kenyan Constitution

The Constitution of Kenya, 2010 provides for a comprehensive Bill of Rights that seeks to ensure the protection of rights with an emphasis on 'marginalised' and 'vulnerable' persons. A dedicated clause and other specific provisions in the Bill of Rights detail the rights for children. Since 2010 the Kenyan judiciary has adopted a progressive stance by interpreting these provisions in ways that affirm children's autonomy and agency while recognising the reality of children's vulnerability and their need for protection. The expansive provisions of the Constitution have also enabled Kenyan courts to more readily embrace systematic remedial measures, such as judicial recommendations for the reform of the applicable legal framework and implementation of new policies to give effect to rights.

Parents' planning, children's agency and heritage language education: Re-storying the language experiences of three Chinese immigrant families in Australia.

This study delves into the heritage language experiences of Australian-born Chinese immigrant children under the framework of family language policy. Storytelling as a narrative inquiry method is used to reveal the lived experiences of the protagonists in relation to heritage language and culture. The three family stories involved for case studies reveal different levels of parent agency in Chinese immigrant families regarding their children's home language use and heritage language education. It is noted that the level of child agency corresponds with the level of their parent agency. Where parents strongly advocate and practice heritage language maintenance, stronger agency is observed in their children to continue the use and learning of their heritage language. In addition, maintaining harmony while parents are implementing family language policies and providing children with formal instruction in heritage language are conducive to heritage language development, particularly in terms of its literacy.

Smoking, swearing and strong muscles: Becoming boys in the primary school

In the context of gender and sexual violence in South Africa, there are growing efforts in the country to engage with and transform harmful patterns of masculinity. Whilst efforts to promote gender equitable versions of masculinity are ongoing and highlight the role of male culpability, questions about the experiences of younger boys are rarely the focus of attention. Given the value of problematising masculinity in boyhood, this article focuses on the ways in which 8–9-year-old boys construct their masculinity in a low-income South African primary school. Adopting a feminist poststructural lens to understanding children's agency, the article shows how a group of Indian and black boys established masculine status through the identification with adult male smoking practices, verbal abuse and swearing, and the idealisation of strong muscles. These strategies and practices were performed in relation to the understanding the boys had of status, bodily strength, heterosexual domination and the disparagement of femininity. Taken together, smoking, swearing and muscularity were mobilised to produce a competitive and stylised performance of young masculinity and demonstrates the pressures that boys face to uphold hegemonic and dominant masculinities. Through paying close attention to the specific manifestation of gendered practices and performances of young boys in the primary school, the findings foreground the need for educative practices to problematise and address harmful masculine practices at an early stage.

Childhood, Youth and Religious Minorities in Early Modern Europe ed. by Tali Berner and Lucy Underwood

Reviewed by: Childhood, Youth and Religious Minorities in Early Modern Europe ed. by Tali Berner and Lucy Underwood Loretta Dolan Childhood, Youth and Religious Minorities in Early Modern Europe. Edited by Tali Berner and Lucy Underwood. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. xiii + 362 pp. Cloth $149.99, paper $149.99, e-book $109.00. This volume assembles eleven chapters that examine religious division and conflict as experienced by children and young people in early modern Europe. The extensive chronological coverage of the book starts in the 1420s and continues to 1800. This length of time is deemed necessary by the editors, who suggest that such an expanse is useful for highlighting continuity and change across the centuries. The eleven chapters are divided into three sections, although recurring themes of religious conflict are evident throughout the book. The first section focuses on how beliefs about childhood affected the religious ceremonies and rights of children as well as the lived religious experiences of children within minority communities. Tali Berner identifies the roles of children in important Jewish religious rituals, such as Passover preparations. Tali argues that these rituals were reserved specifically for children and highlight the place of religious education in the home. Anna French considers baptism in post-Reformation England. Key to French's discussion is the intersection of Protestant and Puritan beliefs on babies, childhood, and women regarding the act of baptism. A particular concern of the "Godly" puritans was the practice of emergency baptism by women, usually midwives. "Morally slippery" women were permitted by the Church of England to "deliver salvation to dying infants" (95). Children's agency can also be seen in this section, particularly in Naomi Pullin's discussion of the early Quaker household. Despite physical and mental persecution, children continued with meetings during their parents' imprisonment. Agency can also be seen to a lesser degree in Mary Clare Martin's chapter on children's denominational identity in the long eighteenth century. [End Page 162] Religious plurality is key here, with many children exposed to a number of religions throughout their childhood. The plight of persecuted families and their reaction to such persecution is discussed in the second section. As Lucy Underwood argues in her chapter, persecution shapes religious identity. In addition, the persecution can be observed in families through the recollections of earlier generations, as well as "unofficial persecution" by name calling (239). Both Susan Broomhall and Fiona McCall examine family separation, Broomhall through religious affinity and McCall through political loyalty in clerical families. Both authors emphasize the fragmentation of nuclear families and the challenge to paternal authority that occurred through children living without parents or in households other than their own. The final section considers how religious conflict and conversion directly impacted children's upbringing. Joel Harrington points out that in interfaith marriages, it was not uncommon for the boys to be baptized in the religion of their father and girls in the religion of their mother. Baptisms could be "amicable ecumenical moments" with godparents from different faiths (265). Conflict arose when children were placed with family or friends due to the death of parents and brought up in the religion of that household. This is a phenomenon discussed by Jesse Sadler, although her subjects appear to willingly adopt their new religion, unlike Harrington's, who were forced to accept religious conversion. Ahuva Liberles notes that forced conversion had grave consequences for inheritance rights. Converted Jewish children denied their inheritance would never return to the Jewish faith. Not all conversions were forced, as highlighted by Bernard Capp, but adolescents moving away from their childhood religion did lead to a challenge of parental authority. One of the strengths of this book is the variety of the sources used, which allows for a greater insight into how the religious upheaval of early modern Europe affected children across different religions. Berner, for example, examines a series of images intended for Yiddish books of customs known as Minhagim, which clearly demonstrate the importance of children in religious ceremonies. Additionally, letters such as those used by Broomhall convey not only the emotional cost of forced separation for religious minorities, but also the practical considerations of child-rearing. What could be more...

The Right to Resist: Childhood Agency in Julian Kulski's World War II Diary

The World War II diary of Julian Kulski, first published in 1979 and reissued in 2014 as The Color of Courage: A Boy at War: The World War II Diary of Julian Kulski, is one of few English-language primary accounts of the German occupation of Warsaw. Kulski's record merits investigation both as a historical record and as a literary and cultural document that gives voice to the children and teenagers who participated in the Polish resistance. This article considers the ways in which Kulski's agency converges with and diverges from that of the adults around him as he participates in and even leads individual and communal acts of resistance to the German occupation of Poland. Kulski's account helps illuminate a larger understanding of child soldiers as well as the revolutionary potential of children's engagement in the political process, even—or perhaps especially—under the extreme circumstances that Kulski faced.

Play and learn: Children's agency through the COVID‐19 pandemic in Mozambique

AbstractSocial distancing, one of the measures adopted in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic, profoundly impacted on the lives of children. The consequences were, however, not homogenous. By focusing on the daily practices of 41 Mozambican children aged 3–10, we consider how differences in socioeconomic backgrounds led children to respond to the social restrictions in ways that made sense to them. Inspired by Abebe (2019), we identify how the interruptions of daily routines enabled specific instances of agency on children's part. These, we argue, produce new forms of continuity.

Growing Up with Smartphones

Abstract Early migration scholarship on the transnational family has tended to portray stay-behind children as passive recipients of care and helpless victims of transnational migration. Despite the increasing sophistication of the literature highlighting children's active roles, empirical studies on transnational families focusing on understanding children's changing agency through time are still limited. We aim to fill this lacuna by offering a longitudinal perspective on children's changing agency in using communication technologies. Focusing on the “transition to adulthood” experiences of Filipino and Indonesian stay-behind children (from 9–11 years old to 17–19 years old), we examine how their agentic behavior and practices change in using information and communication technologies to negotiate power and autonomy within the transnational family. We show how the changes in the children's specific life course and the shifting digital divide that accompany these transitions shape the possibilities and limits to children's empowerment and agency in enacting family transnationally.

Discourse genres and children agency in everyday family science engagement

Accumulating evidence underscores the imperative role of family discourse in supporting children's engagement with science and, in turn, children's science learning. However, little research explores children's roles and agency in everyday family discourse in various unstructured settings. This study explores discourse genres , which are routine ways of using language for particular purposes. I examined what discourse genres one family employed to engage with science and how these genres supported or hindered the children's agentic engagement. By analyzing audio recordings obtained over a year of self-ethnography and employing linguistics ethnography methods, I characterized seven discourse genres: (1) scientific exploration; (2) classroom; (3) ask-the-expert; (4) wildlife viewing; (5) guided reading; (6) sports broadcasting; and (7) magic trick. The analysis demonstrates how the enactment of genres allowed family members to recruit resources from science and other domains to support science engagement for themselves and others. The findings illustrate how children exercised epistemic agency by introducing certain genres, taking agentic roles within genres (navigating the inquiry process, regulating the focus of conversation, creating shared object of attention), and undermining genres parents introduce. The study suggests more attention should be paid to genres in everyday family science discourse and children's roles and agency in them.

Agency through medicalization: Ghanaian children navigating illness, medicine and adult resistance

Medicalization in the Global North assumes that bottom-up medicalization is driven by increasing consumer power, risk avoidance among professionals, or emancipation. Building on ethnographic work of the first author, this article aimed to explore the existence and conditions of a different and novel mechanism and found children manifesting agency through self-medicalization. We look at how Ghanaian children pragmatically deal with everyday health concerns and argue children are agents of medicalization and medicalization enables agency in children.Through interpretive and collaborative content analysis of structured ethnographic observations of 105 children from different class backgrounds (between June 2016 and December 2017) we found children in Northern Ghana framed situations of feeling ill in markedly biomedical terms and persisted in biomedical treatment even with opposition from adults. We observed that children intentionally navigated opposition from adults, mobilized support through networks, exploited power differences between adults, and organized treatment among themselves if necessary. While girls had an even harder time to muster recognition from adults, we also discovered children from a lower socioeconomic background, with more experience on the street had more leeway in navigating lack of support.So far, children's agency in health and illness has only been discussed in instances where children had already received a professional diagnosis. In our case where children had not yet received a professional diagnosis, we find that agency is enabled through bodily awareness, experience, interactions with peers, family, and the media; all working as tools for children to self-diagnose and to deal with illness in a postcolonial setting.

Promotion of Communication Access, Choice, and Agency for Autistic Students.

Families and professionals often consider augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) a "last resort" for persons with communication challenges; however, speaking autistic adults have reported that they would have benefited from access to AAC as children. This tutorial discusses the history of this "last resort" practice and its perpetuation within the medical model of disability. The tutorial focuses on communication access, choice, and agency for autistic students. We provide a brief overview of the AAC community and their preferred terminology, review the history of traditional approaches to research on AAC and autism, and then examine the relationship between disability models and ableism to views of spoken language as a priority of intervention. Studies on this topic are rare, and resisting ableism requires acknowledging and honoring disabled people's experiences and expertise. Therefore, we promote autistic expertise within the framework of evidence-based practice and discuss the experiences of autistic people and spoken language. Finally, we consider the role of the speech-language pathologist (SLP) in assessment and offer autistic-based strategies and recommendations for communication support. Speaking autistic students who could benefit from AAC may not have access to AAC due to the prioritization of spoken language and lack of awareness of the benefit of AAC. We recommend that SLPs and school-based professionals support and facilitate access, communicative choice, and agency by implementing multimodal communication strategies to include AAC use for autistic students regardless of their spoken language status. Promoting all types of communication and ensuring opportunities for communication across multiple modalities are paramount to a child's agency and self-determination, as is normalization of AAC.

33.2 Training Clinical Staff in Genuine CBT and Using Competency-Based Supervision and Measurement-Based Care to Improve Client Outcomes

With the goal to improve client outcomes by providing them with high-quality, adherent, and flexible CBT, a large children's mental health agency implemented systematic training, a competency-based supervision model, and measurement-based care. We will describe how this agency redeveloped their service delivery system using the highest, evidence-based standards.