The aim of this paper is to investigate children's views and experiences of democracy and pupil participation in relation to everyday school life, and to let their voices be heard on these issues. The data for this paper was derived from two ethnographic research projects conducted in three elementary schools in Sweden. In the classes investigated at two of the three schools, the adults are those who make decisions about school and classroom rules. Pupils are seldom given any opportunity to create, modify or repeal formal rules through open negotiations. In contrast, at the third school, children's influence and their ability to have a say are an important explicit goal for the teachers. Nevertheless, as well as in the two other schools, even in this school with the declared goal of working with democracy in this way, we found obstacles and limitations that counteracted school democracy: (a) discontinuity, (b) the long-term interaction pattern of teacher power and pupil subordination in the school organisation, which in turned encouraged and educated compliance with authority rather than deliberative democratic participation, (c) naive trust in teachers, (d) the school process of suppressing children's voices, and (e) unfair inconsistencies constructed by teachers .

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This article investigates the question of making choices at Swedish LTCs. The theoretical framework draws on symbolic interactionism and the concept of inhabited institutions analysing teachers' meaning-making and interactions between teachers and pupils at the LTCs. Because of changing policies, a tension between new demands and an LTC tradition of activities being voluntary has emerged. When teachers try to make sense of the tension between demands and tradition, choice becomes an important issue and teachers try to balance pupils' free choices with teacher-led activities. The results show that pupils are often given the opportunity to choose, but even though teachers value pupils' possibilities to choose, pupils' choices are limited rather than free. When the teachers try to make sense, of pupils' choices they oriented towards both traditions and values (choice is important), and towards new demands (choice should be visible). Choices are thus highlighted and made measurable in specific ways in LTC practice.

This study aims to answer the question of how pupils' participation is acted within the context of Swedish leisure time centres (LTCs) through the analysis of ethnographic material from five different LTCs. The analysis took a grounded theory approach, and the results show that pupils' participation in LTCs can be seen as an ongoing negotiation and that participation is something that needs to be worked with in everyday interactions. We identify three important processes for doing participation in LTCsparticipation by negotiating, participation by initiating, and participation by choosing. Different aspects of formal and informal ways of doing participation are also of importance, and while pupils can have a greater influence in informal negotiations, this requires certain negotiating skills that not all children possess. ARTICLE HISTORY

The aim of the article is to explore how pedagogues in Swedish leisure-time centres interpret and make sense of what may be meant by children's participation. We also focus on ambivalences and competing interpretations of participation and how pedagogues argue for or against divergent interpretations. The material consists of 18 digitally recorded reflection meetings in 6 leisure-time centres. The analyses reveal three interpretative patterns, or in other words, interpretative repertoires of participation, these being 1) formal democracy, 2) making individual choices and 3) responsibility. Ambivalences and competing interpretations concern, in the first place, the interpretation of participation as individual choice versus adult governance and compulsory activities. The arguments used refer to cultural values such as the value of countryside experiences, children's developmental needs, professional commitment and children's best interests. The severity of the clashing ideas is obvious as no working consensus is achieved.