Children’s Agency: Opportunities and Constraints

Abstract

Children's agency accords with the principles emphasised by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations in Convention on the rights of the child. UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Geneva. Retrieved from, https ://www.ohchr .org/EN/Profe ssion alInt erest /Pages /CRC.aspx, 1989). This study focuses on children's opportunities for agency in first grade of a Finnish primary school. The research explored how children's agency was evident in photographs taken by 16 children on their school experiences and discussions with the researcher about the photographs. A phenomenological approach was used in the analyses to identify four themes in the data: the social order of school; teacher's pedagogical tools; break times; and learning new skills. In the school context, the children's agency seemed to require continuous balancing between the children's freedom and adults' power and authority. Pedagogically, the results imply that the adults who work with children can listen closely to children's voices in order to strengthen opportunities in classrooms and to support children's sense of personal agency. The study challenges teachers to consider how classroom practices may divide or categorise some children and how these practice may reduce children's participation, contribution and agency.

Place, Peers, and Play: Children’s Belonging in a Preprimary School Setting

“…Previous research has also suggested that adult educators play a dual role in creating the conditions for children's actions in institutional settings by affording the opportunities for action while maintaining the institutional order (Puroila et al 2012b;Sirkko et al 2019). Although the educators remained quite invisible in the storyline discussed here, they undoubtedly influence children's Fig.…”

“…This is another reminder of the cultural and institutional practices that frame children's placebelonging, restricting their scope to build their own places. As previous research also noted, the rhythm of children's play in the preprimary school setting must adapt to the rhythm of everyday routines and practices (Juutinen & Viljamaa, 2016;Sirkko et al 2019).…”

An ecosystem perspective of practice and professional development in early childhood education and care (ECEC)

“…Houen et al 2016;James and James 2012;Mentha, Church, and Page 2015). Yet as Sirkko, Kyrönlampi, and Puroila (2019) point out, 'children's agency cannot be explored as an inner feature of individual children because ideas about children's agency are tightly connected to moral and political ideas about what kinds of agency are appropriate for children in specific cultural contexts. ' Houen et al (2016) suggest that teachers create spaces for children's agency.…”

“Migrant Children Are Not the Problem. The Problem Is the Need to Make the Administration Happy.” The Perceptions of Professionals’ on Participation and Acculturation in Education Contexts

“…Accordingly, there is an 'almost infinite list of definitions' (van Deth 2003: 170)" (Bettmer 2008: 213). In educational and childhood-related research contexts, definitions of children's participation usually refer to the UnCRC (e.g., Church & Bateman 2019) and/or are linked to concepts of (children's) agency (Baraldi 2014;Baraldi & Iervese 2014;Houen et al 2016;Prout 2000;James 2011;Sirkko et al 2019). The agency concept is based on findings from the field of childhood studies and recognizes children as "social actors" (Prout & James1990: 8).…”