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The recognition and distribution of children's agency in the UK
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Wyness, Michael G. (2018) The recognition and distribution of children's agency in the UK. In: Dintner, S. and Schneider, R., (eds.) Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Childhood in Contemporary Britain. Studies in Childhood : 1700 to the present . New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 250-271. ISBN 9781138232105
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Official URL: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/993948958
Abstract
In recent years children’s participation has become a dominant theme within childhood studies and child related policy and practice. It challenges hitherto conventional ideas of the dependent and incompetent child bringing into sharp focus developmental assumptions of children’s ‘ages and stages’. Conceptually participation emerges from and is closely associated with children’s agency which focuses on children’s capacities and their formative influence within their environments (Oswell, 2013).The idea of children’s participation brings a practical and political dimension to the idea of agency. However, as participation has become an orthodoxy within the field, so there has been critical examination of the nature, range and authenticity of various forms of children’s participation (Wyness, 2013; Valentine, 2011). In doing so, within the research and to a lesser extent the policy and practice realms, participation has become more contested in both theoretical and empirical terms.
In this paper I examine a range of meanings and forms of participation that characterises the field of children’s participation. I will outline some of the disputes within the field. Despite a lack of consensus as to the meaning of children’s participation, I will argue that policy makers and practitioners nationally and globally have settled on a narrow institutionalised mode of children’s participation, a set of normative ideas and practices, what I call the dominant narrative, that is, a normative way of thinking about children’s participation. I will discuss this in the first part of the paper focusing on the institutional, discursive and developmental aspects of participation. In the second part of the paper I examine critical responses to this dominant institutional narrative. Drawing mainly on the work of scholars from within child studies I discuss a number of critical themes and claims in terms of a critical narrative. In the third part of the paper I tease out some of the implications of these critical claims through an emergent narrative, a more up-to-date review of research within the field. These trends or narratives are not mutually exclusive as the emergent narrative accommodates many of the institutional forms found within the dominant narrative. In essence, more recent work within the field of children’s participation is much broader and multi-dimensional incorporating institutional and more embedded forms. In the final part of the chapter I reflect on conceptual developments within children’s participation and draw on the work of Archard’s (2015) reworking of Rawls concept/conception framework in providing a framework for examining children’s participation.
Item Type: | Book Item | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Education Studies (2013- ) | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Children, Children -- Political aspects, Children -- Government policy | ||||
Series Name: | Studies in Childhood : 1700 to the present | ||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||
Place of Publication: | New York, NY | ||||
ISBN: | 9781138232105 | ||||
Book Title: | Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Childhood in Contemporary Britain | ||||
Editor: | Dintner, S. and Schneider, R. | ||||
Official Date: | November 2018 | ||||
Dates: |
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Number of Pages: | 21 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 250-271 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||
Copyright Holders: | Wyness | ||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 9 May 2018 | ||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 17 June 2019 | ||||
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