Elizabeth Eckford's Appearance at Little Rock: The Possibility of Children's Political Agency

Nakata, Sana

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9256.2007.00306.x

Cited by 26 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This is different from the notion of students' individual agency in the classroom context (Reeve, 2003) or agency in engaged reading of adult readers (Ivey & Johnston, 2003). There are various types of agency that books can portray and propagate, for example scholars have studied political agency (e.g., Nakata, 2008), local and global agency (e.g., Gutierez, 2013) and the power relationships that are constructed by specific backgrounds and cultures of writers in the books they produce (e.g., JanMohamed, 1985;Brooks, 2006). Literary and children's literature scholars have conceptualised readers' agency in relation to authors' choices of specific themes, events and story characters, and have examined how children's books transmit sociocultural values about key demographic variables such as gender (e.g., Peterson & Lack, 1990), racial diversity (e.g., Tolson, 1998) and disability (e.g., Ayala, 1999).…”

Section: Agency In Children's Book Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s agency and reading with story-apps: considerations of design, behavioural and social dimensions

Kucirkova

2018

Qualitative Research in Psychology

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A comprehensive understanding of children's motivation to read e-books requires a multifaceted and contextualized conceptualization of children's agency. In this study, agency was operationalized as a set of behaviour indicators of children's control (behavioural agency), adults' perceptions of reader identities afforded by the content and format of books (social agency), and specific multimedia and interactive features that afford personalisation (agentic design). In a comparative qualitative case study, seven preschool children and their mothers were observed reading four story-based interactive e-books (story-apps). Multi-method analysis that combined design evaluation with observational and interview data, revealed that behavioural agency was demonstrated in the children's frequent, prolonged and repetitive physical engagement with the story-apps. Social agency became foregrounded in relation to constitutive reader identities. Agentic design was related to children's sense of autonomy. The findings have implications for how we theorize, operationalize and apply the concept of agency in children's e-books and reading for pleasure.

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Section: Agency In Children's Book Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s agency and reading with story-apps: considerations of design, behavioural and social dimensions

Kucirkova

2018

Qualitative Research in Psychology

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“…that children are viewed as future beings is also present in the planning documents, and although this is probably intended as an attempt to visualize children's needs, it makes it difficult to focus on their current ones (Simpson 1997). moreover, there is a view that children should be sheltered from the politics of urban life and prepared for public life in the private sphere or in the hands of adults (Arendt 1959;nakata 2008;Kallio and Häkli 2013), which is a view that fails to recognize children as citizens with rights and agency in the public sphere (Jans 2004;Skelton 2010). thus, children's role in urban life is restricted to a marginalized position both in terms of physical and material access to the environment, but also in terms of social inclusion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Childhood in a neoliberal utopia: planning rhetoric and parental conceptions in contemporary stockholm

Cele

2015

Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography

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cele, S. (2015): 'childhood in a neoliberal utopia: planning rhetoric and parental conceptions in contemporary Stockholm', Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 97 (3): 233-247.ABStrAct. this article addresses how neoliberalism as a utopian ideal of the urban affects the practices of planners and parents, drawing on Stockholm, Sweden, as an example and foregrounding how these adult conceptions of the city are manifested, both socially and physically, and shape children's geographies. through an analysis of planning documents and interviews with planners and parents, this study shows how Stockholm's planning is clearly conditioned by neoliberal beliefs, but rather than being linked with political sympathies, neoliberalism is expressed as a contemporary urbanism. this specific urbanism is not compatible with children's independent mobility and easy access to nature and play spaces, but demands, as expressed by planners and parents, certain "sacrifices" in order to be achieved. the study shows that age is an organizing norm in terms of spatial justice in the city and that ideological beliefs about the urban development affect how this (in)justice is organized. the planning documents reflect utopian neoliberal ideas about a specific urban identity, and when private actors are given more influence over what is being built and which spaces are developed, there is a deliberate transition from welfare-planning values and the belief that children and adults have equal rights to urban neighbourhoods. this is expressed as a necessary transformation to a more urban and globally competitive city but given the extent to which welfare values are taken for granted in Sweden it is unlikely that the effect this transition will have on social and spatial justice in the city is recognized.

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“…Moreover, scholarship focusing on the unjust and abusive standings that children are given in geopolitical conflicts and ambiguous local situations has made way to acknowledging children's political agencies as child soldiers, racial activists, and actors engaged in political struggles (e.g. Brocklehurst, 2006;Nakata, 2008;Habashi, 2008;Kallio, 2008;Hyndman, 2010).…”

Section: Relating Children and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance Hannah Arendt (1959), one of the few political theorists to have commented on the matter explicitly, has argued that politics and children should not be brought together but, rather, kept apart as far as possible (see also Nakata, 2008;Kallio, 2009). Arendt formulated her thoughts some fifty years ago but they still capture surprisingly well the current mainstream thinking about children in relation to politics.…”

Section: Tracing Childhoods In Political Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Are There Politics in Childhood?

2011

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Abstract:This paper sets out to explore children's worlds as potential fields of political action. Children are approached as competent political agents whose mundane lives are permeated by politics in which they have their own positions and roles. The paper discusses how children can be found to act politically in their everyday lives and, to some extent, also practice their own political geographies. The main objective is to propose a theoretical basis for recognizing the political aspects of children's agency and studying political geographies embedded in children's lived worlds.Keywords: children, politics, politicization, the political, political geography, childhood studies Are there politics in childhood?In the past twenty years interest towards children and young people's geographies has grown steadily in cultural studies and social sciences. Spaces and sites such as the home, the school, urban neighborhoods and virtual communities have been explored as significant contexts of children's everyday agency with and alongside other people. As part of this scholarship also power relations embedded in children's lived worlds have been acknowledged. Dynamics and power struggles maintained and produced by the children themselves, the imbalances and hierarchies concerning child-adult relations, and the society's pressures bearing upon childhood have been explored in various contexts (e.g. Morris-Roberts, 2004;Gallacher, 2005;Forsberg & Strandell, 2007;Gallagher, 2008;Thomas, 2009).However, the political geographies consequential in children's everyday lives are rarely positioned at the centre of these explorations. Children's worlds are typically approached as social and cultural environments, but not as political arenas -i.e. spaces where the presence of human relations is organized by power (Brown 2002:.569). Even studies that explicitly focus on power or empowerment tend to overlook the political dynamisms that direct and transform the power relations embedded in children's lived worlds. The scholarship foregrounding children's involvement or participation in political processes usually deals with issues readily known as belonging to the sphere of 'the political', be that civic activism, urban planning or policy making in schools. Hence, what politics means in each case is not derived from children's experiences and lived worlds but determined on the basis of policies and politics pertinent to adult communities and societies. This sustains the perception of children's mundane lives as not determined by webs of power relations forming around matters of importance to children themselves. Yet, if we accept that children are active members of their communities and societies (beings), and not merely objects of top-down socialization processes (becomings), we should reverse our thinking concerning children's political lives (see Arneil, 2002;Skelton, 2007;Kallio & Häkli, 2010).In this paper we propose that power relations acknowledged and constituted by children themselves form the basis of their political lives. T...

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Elizabeth Eckford's Appearance at Little Rock: The Possibility of Children's Political Agency

Cited by 26 publications

References 8 publications

Children’s agency and reading with story-apps: considerations of design, behavioural and social dimensions

Children’s agency and reading with story-apps: considerations of design, behavioural and social dimensions

Childhood in a neoliberal utopia: planning rhetoric and parental conceptions in contemporary stockholm

Are There Politics in Childhood?

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