Children's agency

Resumen En este artículo se busca argumentar y demostrar la importancia que el trabajo con niños tiene para las ciencias sociales, pues sus conocimientos, experiencias y representaciones del mundo constituyen una valiosa fuente de conocimiento sociocultural. Asimismo, que el trabajo de investigación participativa con niños nos ofrece la posibilidad de ampliar y perfeccionar nuestro conocimiento sobre el diálogo cultural y sobre la génesis y la dinámica de los procesos socioculturales. Aquí se expone la utilidad y la importancia de explorar las representaciones sociales que los niños son capaces de aprehender y transmitir aun a sus cortas edades como una fuente verdaderamente valiosa para el desarrollo de las ciencias sociales. Aproximarnos a dichas representaciones a través del arte, el juego y otras formas alternativas de representación ampliarán y enriquecerán el campo de diálogo, reflexión y desarrollo de todas las disciplinas sociales.

In this paper the author argues about the value that working with children has for the social sciences, for their understanding, experiences and social representations about the world constitute a very important source of sociocultural knowledge. In conducting new kinds of social research with the active participation of children, social sciences will open for themselves the possibility to enlarge and heighten their comprehension about cultural dialogue, as well as the genesis and the dynamics of sociocultural processes. Here, we expose the convenience and the importance of exploring the social representations that children are capable to apprehend and communicate even at their short ages as a really valuable source for the improvement of social sciences in general. Approaching to those representations by the means of art, game and other alternative ways of representation will undoubtedly enrich the field of dialogue, reflection and development of every social discipline.

This paper argues that current child and childhood research is problematical in as much as there is a discrepancy between theory and research practice. Although in theory, children are conceptualised as active agents in the social world, the type of research that children are typically involved in implies that children are competent, knowledgeable and affective only in terms of their own lives, their own spaces, their own childhoods. The implications of this discrepancy are discussed. The paper concludes that although research that contributes to a greater understanding of childhood experiences is important, it is equally important to involve children in research that goes beyond 'childhood'.

Πανταζίδης, Σ. (2021). Παιδικές συνελεύσεις στην εκπαίδευση για μια βασισμένη στα κοινά διακυβέρνηση. Στο Θάνος Θ. & Ζάγκος Γ., Κοινωνία-Πολιτική και Εκπαίδευση. Κοινωνιολογία της Εκπαίδευσης και Εκπαιδευτική πολιτική, Ερευνητικές τομές. Αθήνα: Πεδίο

H παρούσα έρευνα επικεντρώθηκε σε τρεις διαφορετικές δομές που αξιοποιούν το εργαλείο των παιδικών συνελεύσεων και απώτερος σκοπός ήταν να γεφυρωθούν με τη διακυβέρνηση βασισμένη στα κοινά. Δηλαδή, οι παιδικές συνελεύσεις γίνονται η ιδανική αφορμή για τη συμμετοχή των παιδιών στην ομότιμη διακυβέρνηση (peer
governance) της σχολικής κοινότητας. Σκοπός ήταν να εξερευνηθούν οι προοπτικές, οι δυνατότητες και οι οπτικές των επιλεγμένων δομών στα ζητήματα που σχετίζονται με τις συνελεύσεις. Για τον λόγο αυτόν, πραγματοποιήθηκε θεματική ανάλυση σε δύο εγχειρίδια συνελεύσεων, το πρώτο αφορούσε την Πρωτοβουλία για το Άρθρο 12 και το δεύτερο το Ελληνικό Κέντρο Σοσιοκρατίας, αλλά και στο υλικό που είχε συλλεχθεί από μία εθνογραφική μελέτη σε ένα αυτο-οργανωμένο παιδαγωγικό εγχείρημα, το Μικρό Δέντρο. Η ανάλυση επικεντρώθηκε σε καθεμία δομή ξεχωριστά, καθώς και στις επιδιώξεις που αφορούν τα παιδιά και την παιδική ηλικία, τον/την εκπαιδευτικό και την εκπαίδευση. Στα αποτελέσματα φανερώθηκε ότι, παρόλο που εντοπίζονται διαφοροποιήσεις στις τρεις δομές όσον αφορά τη διεξαγωγή τους και τον απώτερο σκοπό της χρήσης τους, αποκαλύφθηκαν πολλές ομοιότητες. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, γίνεται
επανανοηματοδότηση της εκπαίδευσης μέσα από τις έννοιες της βιωσιμότητας, της δικαιοσύνης, της συνεργασίας και της φροντίδας. Επιπλέον, τα παιδιά αντιμετωπίζονται ως άτομα με ευθύνες και ο ρόλος του εκπαιδευτικού παρουσιάζεται πιο ισότιμος με αυτόν των παιδιών.

As we confront a plethora of increasing environmental challenges, the arts can play a valuable role in engaging young people and their families in the reimagination of urban spaces and the co-creation of a thriving future. This paper explores how ecological arts projects not only have the potential to involve children in developing a greater understanding and appreciation of nature, but also the ability to celebrate young people’s capacity to directly contribute to their environments. Using an example from my own creative practice, I examine how a Scottish eco-theatre project (Uprooted, Eco Drama, Glasgow 2015) engaged children in urban food growing through storytelling, gardening and stage design. Uprooted was developed as part of The Living Stage project, a global initiative that combines stage design, permaculture and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable and edible performance spaces. Part theatre, part garden and part food growing demonstration, The Living Stage considers ecological principles and environmental impact as opportunities rather than constraints. As each living stage evolves out of a direct response to the localities of site, ecology and community, no project is ever the same. The stage design for Uprooted involved creating a travelling garden with and for children that could brighten up Glasgow’s concrete playgrounds and public spaces; fusing live performance with living plants. The project employed four Glasgow primary schools in co-designing, growing and building a sustainable portable stage, allowing them to be active contributors rather than passive recipients of the work. Uprooted highlighted the benefits of contributive, community and place-based pedagogies in advancing children’s agency in environmental prosperity.

Uprooted film link: https://vimeo.com/142504560

Citation:

Beer, Tanja. (2017). "The Boy and the Sunflower: the role of Theatre in communicating ecological processes through the creation of living stages." Building Sustainability with the Arts: Proceedings of the 2nd National EcoArts Australis Conference. Edited by David Curtis. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

This paper focuses on playfulness as expressed in the urban public space. Children’s play is often considered either as sacred or superfluous for the adults to engage with while the city doesn’t seem able to support playful behaviour across ages. I approach playfulness by examining the role of space and more specifically that of the playground in both adults’ and children’s everyday life. The playground space is framed as a socio-spatial entity bearing heterotopic characteristics expressed and realized through play; a domain continually transformed as children and adults inhabit it. This paper approaches playground as a blurred space adjacent to,  rather than on the margins of, adult-centred public realm, the main question being: How do playgrounds inform playfulness in the public realm? To what extent does a playground -purposely child-centred- communicate with the surrounding public space and what is the role of play -perceived as a vehicle towards intergenerational relations- in this interaction? n order to ultimately examine the expressions of playfulness in the public realm I will explore how the adopted methodology reflects the study’s theoretical framework, while reflecting on how researcher’s own playfulness allows her to immerge into heterotopia and study playful behaviour. By drawing connecting lines between the concept of heterotopia - understood through play’s alternate orderings - and ethnography, I will examine the ways ethnographic fieldwork (in progress in two playgrounds in the city of Athens during a period of socio-economic crisis) engages with the complexity of playfulness in urban space.

Water education and conservation programs have grown exponentially in Australian primary and secondary schools and, although early childhood services have been slower to respond to the challenges of sustainability, they are catching up fast. One early program targeted at preschools was the Water Aware Centre Program in northern New South Wales developed by the local water supply authority. This paper reports on a qualitative study of children’s and teachers’ experiences of the program in three preschools. The aim of the study was to identify program attributes and pedagogies that supported learning and action taking for water conservation and to investigate if/ how children’s and teachers’ practices were influenced by the program. Data were collected through interview with the program designer, conversations with child participants of the program, and a qualitative survey with early childhood staff. A 3-step thematic analysis process was conducted on the children’s and teachers’ data. The findings of the study revealed that children and teachers expanded their ideas about water conservation and that they increased their water conservation practices following engagement in the program. In particular, the children were found to influence the water conservation practices of the adults around them, resulting in changed practices within the preschool and at home.

The paper examines the relation between three concepts: a child's will, children's agency and child labour. Addressing the current debate about children's agency, this paper shows how these concepts were developed in Byzantine society in order to advance a religious agenda that encouraged the child to run away from home in favour of a new life in a monastery. Children were attributed with a will of their own and acted upon it before they reached the age of puberty. This perspective took the child out of the private sphere by attributing agency to it. The paper addresses the current debate about children's agency revealing the conceptualization of this term as motivated by an economic agenda in which the need to profit from the child's labour plays an important role.

This study aimed to understand the barriers hindering participation in decision making in school for Children with Impairments (CWI) in Ilala and Temeke districts of Dares Salaam City in Tanzania. The study was conducted in two public schools which are Jangwani Secondary School and the Salvation Army School. The study looked at how CWI were involved in making decisions on administrative issues as well as learning, and the barriers limiting their participation. A sample of 12 students, 8 teachers, and 2 Government Officials was selected. Data were sourced by use of interviews and group activities, and descriptive analysis techniques were used to analyze the collected data. The findings revealed that CWI were imposed by various barriers hindering their participation in decision making, including decisions being made at the ministerial level such as curriculum issues, choice of textbooks. CWI and Children with no Impairments (CWNI) were thought to be capable of participating in making decisions, however they were also perceived as immature persons thus unable to be involved in decision making with regards to the schools’ administration issues such as deciding on the schools’ disciplinary measures as well as making decisions regarding learning, including curriculum issues, assessment and choice of text books. Additionally, it was revealed that there was lack of guidelines/policies to guide the participation of children in schools.

Keywords: Participation, decision making, disability, children with physical disabilities, participation in decision making in school

In social work practice, understanding the agency of a migrant child (or their capacity to form and act on their own decisions) is essential to understanding his/her situation, motivations, and options. This, in turn, is essential to assessing whether the child has been victimized in any way that requires redress or further protection; identifying risk behaviors that require intervention; and/or identifying the supports and resources the child needs to move forward. This dissertation leverages a grounded theory mixed-method approach to further understanding of migrant children’s agency in action and explore related themes of vulnerability.

The cultures and state systems that migrant children move through, may determine their capacity for agency as surely as any internal processes. In order for a social work practitioner to assess a migrant child client’s situation and collaborate with that client on solutions, the practitioner must have an understanding of the client’s capacity to effect these changes. That is, the practitioner must understand both the complex context of the environments that the migrant child lives between, as well as the child’s agency within that context. To date, however, the discipline lacks a contextualized operational definition of agency in application to migrant child populations.

This study’s conceptual framework is based on a definition of agency in migrant youth proposed by the author and based on Social Work’s Person-in-Environment perspective. The sample population is drawn from the Children's Rights, Immigration Policy & National Security: Mexican & Central American Unaccompanied Migrant Children project’s research on recently repatriated Mexican migrant youth residing in detention facilities in three Northern Mexico border towns. Data collected include quantitative surveys (N = 204) of recently repatriated Mexican migrant youth and qualitative interviews with a subset of the surveyed population (n = 32). Descriptive statistics of survey data reveal the obscured vulnerability of Mexican migrant children (MMC). The author draws on grounded theory analysis techniques to construct a theory of MMC’s exaggerated agency, how it emerges and the mechanisms by which it obscures the population’s vulnerability. Implications for social work practice and policy are identified and discussed.

Polazeći od recentnih  istraživanja djece i mladih kao aktivnih subjekata i društvenih aktera, članak se usredotočuje na srodna shvaćanja djece u okviru produkcije i recepcije bajki u hrvatskom kontekstu, a u razdoblju između Prvog i Drugog svjetskog rata. Nekoliko tada popularnih petparačkih nizova kojima su dominirale bajke, ali i tadašnja polemika o primjerenosti bajki djeci, kao i tijekom 1930-ih aktivan multimedijski projekt (radio, kazalište, novine) Dječje carstvo, u članku se analiziraju iz perspektive predodžbi  o djeci kao o autonomnim i aktivnim subjektima, pri čemu se posebna pozornost posvećuje klasnim i rodnim određenjima artikulacije tih predodžbi, kao i njihovim hibridnim obilježjima.

This article explores the cultural, youthful, and embodied acts of subject-making of South Asian immigrant teens growing up in a post 9/11 New York City, wherein they experience Islamophobia in their neighborhoods and schools. I argue that these acts of subject-making, situated in particular sociopolitical contexts, and made evident in multiple in-between sites of an after-school center, street corners, and online forums, can be read as performative politics of youth, and offer insights into the political agency of young people.

Political discord is as old as politics. However, disagreement between people with different political perspectives has become entrenched, and often rancorous, in our era. Many choose only to listen to viewpoints similar to their own and opportunities for conversation across political differences are shrinking. Research indicates that people are (increasingly?) choosing a self-selection of news that affirms, instead of challenges, their beliefs (Epstein & Graham, 2007; Mutz, 2006); the result is an echo chamber instead of shared beliefs (McGuinn & Suppovitz, 2015). Much of the media industry has sought to amplify discord because of the increase in ratings that it can bring (Mutz, 2015). Scholars of the Trump presidency argue that the current administration has utilized strategies that intentionally increase dissonance between groups rather than seeking compromise and accommodation (Martin, 2017). When considering the importance of civic preparedness—a key outcome that student-centered approaches aim to achieve—its important to recognize that learning to dialogue across difference is a rising challenge for our younger generation. Citizens who have not developed the skillsets and dispositions to engage in democratic discussions and productive deliberations will be ill-prepared to sustain or even protect our democratic institutions. The civic capacity to talk and listen amid diverse perspectives also affects career readiness, since the workplace is often one of the few places where people speak across political differences (Mutz & Mondak, 2006). In our recent article in Educational Leadership [[link]], we discuss the term dialogue as a way to engage in collaborative and generative consideration of how we want to live together. To counter today's divisive and discordant trends, schools can teach young people the specific skills they need to engage in critical dialogue, both to learn from people with different beliefs and to ensure that all students' voices (their stories, opinions, or feelings) are heard. With guidance from adults, dialogue can enable young people to talk productively about issues related to living together in pluralistic society. What should adults prioritize when they work with youth to develop these crucial civic skills? We suggest the following, particularly when learning to discuss contentious issues: CURIOSITY—Ask questions about others' opinions. While learning how to engage in dialogue is a key component of engagement in civic life due to the way it helps us express and consider a range of viewpoints, it is important to recognize that facilitating a rich dialogue can be a difficult pedagogical process. Unlike monologues, dialogues cannot be controlled to arrive at a pre-chosen conclusion. However, dialogues support many intellectual virtues, chief among them the propensity for curiosity. Approaching others with curiosity helps them to elaborate on their feelings and stances and it opens the possibility of richer, more complex elaborations of beliefs so that we can see multiple ways of understanding issues. Staying curious about other's ideas is a great way to stay engaged in conversations across difference, the kind that lead to collaborations rather than disputes. LOOK BENEATH—Ask what people believe and value. To get underneath partisan rhetoric and canned talking points, we need to understand what is driving the perspective, and rarely can we get there unless we ask. Research, as well as our own classroom practice, points to the value of

Following the lead of recent scholarship enhancing the importance of studying children’s experiences on the basis of children’s sources, this paper seeks to tackle the issue of children’s agency in the case of Spanish refugee children in France in 1939. The source used in this article is the journal Niños españoles. Periódico semanal para los niños españoles refugiados, a weekly publication made of texts written by and for Spanish refugee children in France. The disruptions generated by war and exile forced many of them, whether they were on their own or in a group, to fend for themselves in order to get food, cross the border, and find help—and it is those moments of autonomy and self-responsibility about which they liked to write about the most in Niños españoles. The journal Niños Españoles performed at least three social functions for them: creating a community of Spanish refugee children in France, expressing political opinions and loyalties, and testifying to the realities of war and Francoist repression in Spain. Beyond this specific case, this article warns against taking for granted that the best characterization for children’s experiences of war and exile is always that of ‘victim’ and ‘trauma’, and instead, encourages scholars to examine if, how and when children were able to adapt to their situation and act on it.

Esta tesis explora una variedad de prácticas educativas (afectivas, multimodales, lingüísticas) en familias con bebés. El objetivo principal es analizar la variedad de rutinas del día a día de las bebés en la sociedad española contemporánea. Para ello, se llevó a cabo una etnografía longitudinal que permite analizar estas rutinas en el contexto familiar, y ligarlas a debates teóricos en torno al desarrollo infantil y a las características y contradicciones de la parentalidad actual. Los datos provienen del trabajo de campo con cuatro familias españolas con bebés durante los dos primeros años de su vida en el área metropolitana de Madrid. El trabajo de campo etnográfico consistió en grabaciones de video mensuales de interacciones cotidianas (resultando en más de 100 horas de vídeo), observación participante en el hogar y otros espacios familiares, así como entrevistas y conversaciones informales con las adultas en estas cuatro familias. Esta metodología ha permitido acercarse a lo que hacen las cuatro bebés participantes de una forma constructivista y contextual. La investigación explora los patrones a través de los cuales las bebés y sus cuidadoras organizan sus actividades familiares cotidianas. Estos patrones se vertebran en tres ámbitos: (1) la variedad de prácticas y ecologías afectivas a través de las cuales las bebés y sus familias expresan emociones, (2) el hábitat lingüístico familiar, y (3) la familia como comunidad de práctica que se construye en el día y que incorpora a todas sus miembras y que muestra cómo se construye la identidad en torno a varios ejes (e. g. la organización del tiempo familiar, los proyectos parentales en torno a la alimentación o la lactancia materna). Estos tres ámbitos muestran la cotidianeidad de las familias y permite dar cuenta de cómo las bebés participan en las diferentes rutinas. Estos procesos muestran que las bebés son miembras competentes de su familia y a cómo se organizan los cuidados en el contexto familiar. Con ello, esta tesis da protagonismo a las bebés, al cuidado de la infancia y a las prácticas y relaciones con las personas adultas.

The current study examines bilingual children as language policy agents in the interplay between official language policy and education policy at three Swedish-medium preschools in Finland. For this purpose we monitored nine Finnish-Swedish bilingual children aged 3 to 5 years for 18 months. The preschools were located in three different parts of Finland, in milieux with varying degrees of language dominance. The children were video recorded during their normal daytime routines in early childhood education and care. Three types of communicative situations were analyzed: an educator-led small group activity, free play with friends, and an activity in which one child was playing alone. Representative dialogs were selected to illustrate the children’s agency in constructing and enacting bilingual and/or monolingual language policies. Our analysis shows, firstly, that official national language policies can be enacted in different ways depending on the wider practice structures of the site; and, secondly, that each bilingual child has a unique agency and an active role in the construction of not only the monolingual policy but also a bilingual policy within the frames of early childhood education and care.

In the recent past, a number of concerns have been raised, by educators and researchers alike, about the nature of the provision of child-initiated play in English reception classrooms, owing to the pressure from present and successive governments on educators to prepare young children for statutory schooling. These concerns provide the background to this research and the broad external context in which it is situated. Emerging from these broad concerns, this study examines how five young children navigated a classroom’s rules during their self-initiated play, over the course of the 2012-13 school year. In employing a broadly ethnographic methodology, the main research methods used to appreciate the minutiae of the children’s experiences and endeavours were participant observation and informal discussions; these were supplemented with child-led tours, interviews, and both participant children’s and their peers’ observations and interpretations. The research shows how the children deployed a range of ‘tactics’ to realise their play interests, which were based on their understandings of how each of the educators enforced classroom rules, and where they were located during each instance. It also shows the ways in which the children actively applied several classroom rules, and encouraged their peers to act in accordance with these. The research highlights that whilst it was the case that some of these rules ‘constrained’ the children’s play, it was owing to the various ‘conditions’ (relative freedom, choice and autonomy; and extended free play sessions) of the teacher’s play provision that they were also able to follow and realise their needs, interests and overall motivations. Concerns are raised about how the various assessment-related developments that have taken place since the fieldwork was conducted may be – in the present times – impacting on teachers’ play provisions, and accordingly opportunities for children to exercise agency in their play.

The Mosaic approach has been used as a form of participatory research for over two decades. It has been popular with researchers in the early childhood education and disability sectors because it encourages the participants to utilise a large range of communication tools, rather than relying on verbal and written data. Promoters of the Mosaic approach generally place great importance on capturing children’s voices in response to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF 2015), and the need to address the inequities of the child participant/researcher and the adult researcher. Furthermore, the findings should be passed on to those adults who make decisions that affect the children, thereby increasing children’s agency. While these are imperative components of the Mosaic approach, the authors argue that there are times when adults’ voices, such as parents, carers, practitioners and educators, can add to the richness and meaning of Mosaic data that the children have originally captured but are not understood by other adults, potentially adding weight to children’s voices when advocating to those who make decisions that affect children’s lives. Reflecting on the original framework for listening to children’s voices by Clark and Moss [2011. Listening to Children: The Mosaic Approach. London: National Children's Bureau], we adapted the model to suit a particular research context and project. Reflecting on and expanding the framework may be of interest to researchers and practitioners who work with the Mosaic Approach and who gather and promote marginalised voices.

Πανταζίδης Σ. (2021). Προς μία Ομότιμη Διακυβέρνηση των κοινών: Παιδικές Συνελεύσεις και Ισότιμος Διάλογος. MusEd, 4(1), 65-77.

Σκοπός της εργασίας αυτής είναι η εξέταση των παιδικών συνελεύσεων (children’s assemblies) και του ισότιμου
διαλόγου (egalitarian dialogue) ως εργαλείων ενίσχυσης της εμπρόθετης δράσης των παιδιών. Ο
προσανατολισμός αφορά τη συμμετοχή των παιδιών στην ομότιμη διακυβέρνηση (peer governance) της
σχολικής κοινότητας. Η βασική θέση της εργασίας είναι ότι τα παιδιά αποτελούν ενεργά δρώντα κοινωνικά
υποκείμενα του παρόντος και είναι ικανά να συμμετέχουν σε αποφάσεις του σχολείου. Ακολουθώντας τη
λογική των κοινών, το ενδιαφέρον επικεντρώνεται στην εγκαθίδρυση ενός πλαισίου στο οποίο άυλα αγαθά,
όπως η μόρφωση και η εκπαίδευση, γίνονται η αφορμή ώστε οι εμπλεκόμενοι/-ες και δη τα παιδιά να
συνδιαχειριστούν, να αυτό-οργανωθούν και να λειτουργήσουν ως κοινωνοί (commoners). Γι’ αυτό, εξετάζονται
μορφές διαλόγου και συνελεύσεων, οι οποίες είναι βασικές στην προάσπιση του δικαιώματος του παιδιού να
ακουστεί και να είναι ενεργό στις διαδικασίες της εκπαίδευσης και της μάθησης, αναπτύσσοντας την
υποκειμενικότητά του. Στα αποτελέσματα φανερώνονται οι προϋποθέσεις, δηλαδή, τα κρίσιμα στοιχεία των δύο
επιλεγμένων εργαλείων για να συνδεθούν με το δημοκρατικό ιδεώδες και εν γένει, με την ιδέα των κοινών. Τα
στοιχεία αυτά είναι η αίσθηση της ενότητας, οι πιο ισότιμες σχέσεις εκπαιδευτικού και παιδιών, η ανάπτυξη
της επικοινωνιακής δεξιότητας, η κοσμοαντίληψη και η λογική πίσω από τη χρήση των εργαλείων. Τέλος,
προτείνεται η οπτική του παιδιού ως κοινωνού (commoner) αντί του παιδιού-επιχειρηματία, προβάλλοντας την
ανάγκη για μια γενικότερη αλλαγή ηθικής και λογικής στη βάση ενός πιο ανοιχτού μοντέλου σχολικής ζωής

Children negotiate their lives through the narratives to which they are exposed in digital, print and oral form. The Rose’s Story app project drew on a philosophy that positions children as social agents. We used the social and contextual elements underlying children’s experiences with technology to develop a digital app for young children from the Australian military community by leveraging family narratives to portray children’s agency. Data to develop the app was taken from a 2017 study involving 2- to 5-year-old children from 11 Australian Defence Force families. Findings from the Rose’s Story app project can be applied practically to impact the well-being of children from military families, their parents, educators, and the broader community by increasing understanding and empathy. This article outlines effective ways to utilize a productive medium for children’s voices to be heard, as well as identifies potential barriers.

In this commentary, I intend to draw an outline on the possibilities of today’s childhood activism, which has improved through online communication. In this age of uncertainty, due to the various reasons from unexpected viruses to ecological issues, it is only possible to struggle against emerging crisis with brand new ideas via extraordinary perspectives by mostly new generations of the world.

Child and young adult characters in popular British children’s fiction often develop their own agency in interaction with an animal protagonist or sidekick with whom they team up against a corrupt, materialist adult world. Both child and animal are united by the crushing experience that their voices tend to be ignored by adult humans.This chapter approaches representations of children’s and young adults’ agency from an ecocritical point of view, arguing that such representations of agency draw on a Romantic image of the child as in unison with nature. Many popular children’s stories construct children’s agency as emanating from a friction in a stark nature/culture divide which the child protagonists alone are able to transgress. Drawing power and self-confidence from transgressing such boundaries, the child characters discover and develop their own capacities of agency in interconnection with animals. In consequence, they discover forms of agency inaccessible to adults that might even potentially disrupt hegemonic structures. The animals’ functions in these stories are diverse: some are passive recipients of direly-needed human help, others serve as catalysts only, remaining unaffected by the agency they trigger in the child. Other develop their own agency, child and animal standing united against an ‘unnatural’ adult realm. Other stories again construct ‘animality’ in the child, using animal transformation as trigger to unleash the child’s power of agency. All these stories construct their representations of children from intersecting the human with the non-human, the natural with the cultural, and the self with the other, presenting as most central to the formation of children’s and young adults’ agency the undefined interim spaces at which these dualist categories reach their limits.

In accordance with Art. 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child (UNCRC), we conducted a consultation process with 113 children between 4 and 7 years of age from five different schools in Italy. We asked children to imagine their ideal school in guided conversations, drawings, and drawing descriptions. Their responses were organised into three thematic areas: (a) school quality, (b) purposes of early childhood education, and (c) activities to include in the school curriculum. Consistent with literature on participatory research, this 6-months consultation process demonstrates that even young children’s views can be useful to policy-making. Particular attention is given to the methodology.