Kid Power, Inequalities and Intergenerational Relations

Kid Power, Inequalities and Intergenerational Relations

Kid Power, Inequalities and Intergenerational Relations

Clara Rübner Jørgensen

Michael Wyness

Anthem Press

An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company

www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2021

by ANTHEM PRESS

75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK

or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK

and

244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

Copyright © Clara Rübner Jørgensen and Michael Wyness 2021

The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,

no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means

(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),

without the prior written permission of both the copyright

owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021936768

ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-770-2 (Hbk)

ISBN-10: 1-78527-770-7 (Hbk)

Cover image: Di PiXXart/Shutterstock.com

This title is also available as an e-book.

For the three generations in our lives: our children, our parents, Beth and Erez

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Section 1: The ‘Problem’ of Kid Power

1.Power and Children

2.Global Rights and Kid Power

3.Child-Centredness, Schooling and Kid Power

4.The Loss of Adult Power?

Section 2: Reconstructing Kid Power

5.Family, Generation and Mediation

6.The Internet, Social Media and Kid Power

7.Children’s Community Action

8.The Power of Children’s Participation and Involvement in Research

Conclusion: A Model for Kid Power – Implications and Thinking Forward

Postscript: Covid-19

References

Index

Acknowledgements

We want to acknowledge the help and guidance from Megan Greiving and Jayashree at Anthem Press and the copy editor of the book. We also thank Loraine Blaxter, Kaare Rübner Jørgensen and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive commentary on earlier drafts. Much of this book was written under ‘one-dimensional power conditions’ – Covid-19 and the various lockdowns formed the backdrop to our analysis. We write about this in our conclusion, but we would like to thank our respective families during this period for their love, support and diversion: Beth, Alec and Henry for Wyness, and Erez, Naomi and Maya for Jørgensen.

INTRODUCTION

The past 30 years have seen significant changes in the ways children are conceptualised within research, policy and practice. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (UNICEF 1989) established children as individual holders of rights to survival and development, protection and participation. Particularly, participation rights have become associated with children’s rights to have a voice and power over decisions of relevance to them (Montgomery, 2010). An increasing number of countries have incorporated children’s rights into policies and practice, some by integrating children’s participation rights into national constitutions, others by building them into child-specific legislations (European Commission, 2015), for example, education or welfare services (Heimer et al., 2018; Križ and Skivenes, 2017). Schools and other childhood settings and organisations often make reference to the rights of children to have a say over matters of importance to them, although this is interpreted across countries in significantly different ways. Within research, it is also generally acknowledged that children’s experiences need to be included and studied in their own right (Christensen and James, 2008a; Kellett et al., 2004; O’Kane, 2008; Prout, 2005; Wyness, 2015) and that children must be considered as research subjects rather than as objects of research (Horgan, 2017; Kellett, 2005).

There is now a well-established body of literature on children’s rights and agency (James, 2011; Oswell, 2013; Smith, 2007) which incorporates the idea that children have global entitlements and makes research-based assumptions about children’s capacities and contributions. Within this literature, the rights of children to have a voice, exercise agency and participate in matters of importance to them is often associated, and at times conflated, with the idea that children have more power. Common sense and public commentary on childhood also tends to assume that children’s power derives from the increase in legal and political arrangements that give children an opportunity to make a difference in their own lives and in the lives of those around them. This linkage between rights, agency, participation and power presents the basis for one model of what we in this book refer to as kid power.

The concept of ‘power’ is widely acknowledged as the capacity of an actor to get other actors to do something which they would not otherwise have done (Dahl, 1968; Weber, 1978). In the context of childhood, this capacity is mostly attributed to adults who, given their power, are able to control and shape the actions of children. However, kid power has also increasingly become a feature of a Northern conception of childhood where children’s right to participate, combined with the idea that they have ‘agency’, has led to a multitude of claims with regards to their increased level of power. This is often associated with a decreased level of adult power, assuming a zero-sum conflictual notion of power and a dichotomous division between children and adults. For example, among those who advocate for children’s participation in research, there is a tendency to focus on how unequal adult–child power relations shape the research encounter and how adults may ‘hand over’ power to children in the research process (Holland et al., 2010). Typologies of children’s participation in research, such as Hart’s (1997) adaptation of Arnstein’s (1969) ‘ladder of citizen participation’, similarly tend to represent a simplified view of child versus adult power which marginalises relationships between them and assumes a zero-sum conception of power in adult–child interactions (Birch et al., 2017; Hinton, 2008).

Zero-sum and binary conceptions of power also seem to prevail in arguments against the promotion of children’s rights and participation. For example, Howe and Covell (2005) discuss an election being organised by UNICEF Canada for school children in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the CRC, where the children were asked to debate and vote on the importance of children’s rights in different areas of their lives. This initiative drew strong opposition from a number of organisations, who argued, among other things, that teaching children about their rights would undermine family and parental authority. However, as commented by Howe and Covell (2005: 4),

the election was remarkable in the irony of the results. Many had expected that the students would become overly demanding and defiant and would give priority to their own personal freedoms. Contrary to these expectations, however, the results, announced by UNICEF, showed that the right held to be most important to children and youth was the right to grow up in a family.

Consumption is another example of an area where children’s increasing ‘power’ over their parents has been interpreted in a predominantly zero-sum manner. Here the negative and derogatory concept of ‘pester power’ has been used to describe children’s ‘attempts to exert influence over parental purchases in a repetitive and sometimes confrontational way’ (Nicholls and Cullen, 2004: 77). Although there are also more positive ways of looking at child–parent purchase relations (Lawlor and Prothero, 2011), these examples illustrate a common perception of kid power as binary and conflictual, assuming that children and adults have fundamentally different agendas and that intergenerational encounters are shaped by negotiations or struggles over whose agenda should prevail.

In this book we wish to propose a different, wider and less binary framework for understanding kid power. Our framework is based on three main propositions. The first proposition is that kid power should be understood not only as zero-sum, with children gaining power at the expense of adults, but also as positive-sum (Haugaard, 2017), with children and adults jointly emerging as potentially more powerful. This interpretation involves a more consensual understanding of power in intergenerational relations, a fuller acknowledgement of interdependency and commonalities between adults and children (Percy-Smith, 2010) and a broader focus on dialogue and collaboration as ‘arenas’ for power, alongside potential conflicts.

The second proposition is that differences of power are not only intergenerational but also fundamentally intragenerational. To understand kid power, we thus need to incorporate and analyse the diverse responses of different kinds of adults (parents, teachers, policymakers, etc.) to children’s actions and pay close attention to power inequalities between children within and across countries. Shier (2019) has discussed the diverse responses of adults to ‘protagonismo’ – children’s ‘autonomous’ participation and organisation:

On the one hand, adult supporters may be involved in facilitating, building capacity, mobilizing, and resourcing actions that children themselves organize and direct. On the other hand, adults also have power to control access to spaces and resources and can use this to manage and constrain children’s mobilization and thus limit their autonomous actions’ […] sometimes adults in authority approve and praise it [protagonismo], recognizing it as a positive expression of active citizenship by students and reporting positive outcomes. On many occasions, however, for example, when students organize marches, protests, sit-ins, and other kinds of political actions, it is seen as cause for concern, a challenge to legitimate adult authority, and disruption of established power relations (Shier, 2019: 5).

This description bears many resemblances to the way different groups of adults have responded to other examples of children’s activism, for example, the recent climate school strikes (Fridays for the Future) organised by children and young people across the world to protest against climate inaction. It illustrates the observation made by Taft (2015: 460) that ‘in the context of children and adults’ unequal social and political power, pursuing the ideals of collaboration, dialogue, and partnership is a highly complex and difficult endeavor’. Children may participate in a multitude of activities without adult help, support or awareness of their activities (Shier, 2019). However, as we will discuss throughout the book, they also often rely on adults to help them instigate and implement changes, or work with them to manage challenging situations. This further supports our first proposition – the need to examine kid power from a positive-sum perspective. It also emphasises the importance of exploring the position of different groups of children as mediators between their families and the surrounding society.

Finally, the third proposition presented in the book is that kid power is multidimensional and needs to be analysed as such. Discussions about the presumed increased levels of kid power, both among those who frame it as a ‘positive’ and those who see it as more ‘negative’, tend to predominantly focus on children participating in or making decisions, and exercising their power by ‘having a voice’. Drawing on theories of power, this element, however, only represents one dimension or ‘face’ of power (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962; Lukes, 2005) and may obscure more covert dimensions of power. The emphasis on discursive manifestations of power furthermore limits understandings of other more material and practical aspects of kid power. A focus on overt decision-making and voice may thus both give the wrong impression about the ‘real’ level of kid power and look for it in the ‘wrong’ places. For example, in the United Kingdom, a common area for exploring children’s power in schools has been their involvement in school councils. However, school councils are not always effective as a forum for children making decisions about their school, as the space they provide is highly structured by existing power relationships between children and their teachers (Percy-Smith, 2010). To understand the different dimensions of children’s power, it is thus necessary to look beyond such structured opportunities for participation and explore other less obvious areas where children may have a greater chance of influencing the actions of others – or, alternatively, to look for spaces where children exercise their power with adults.

This book discusses these three propositions through an analysis of kid power within different areas of children’s lives. The book draws on two key theoretical approaches to power: Lukes’s (2005) radical view of power and Foucault’s (1980, 1982, 1991) analyses of mechanisms of power and knowledges of truth. Lukes emphasises the importance of looking beyond patterns of decision-making and agenda-setting in areas of conflict and draws on Foucault to analyse the mechanisms that make actors avoid conflict in the first place. Both Lukes and Foucault furthermore propose the idea that the social knowledge of actors reproduces social structures and relations of domination (Haugaard, 2012). This is, as we will see, highly relevant in relation to kid power. Dominant narratives on the capacities of children and responsibilities of adults form a particular knowledge of truth and represent an important mechanism of power which potentially reproduces child–adult relations of domination. However, as both Lukes and Foucault also recognize, people always resist, negotiate and challenge power relations, and examples of this will become evident in our empirical chapters.

With a few exceptions (Devine, 2002, 2003; Gallagher, 2008a), the literature on children’s rights, agency and participation seldom includes explicit reference to power theories and thus pays relatively little attention to the complexities of what power is and how it operates in generational terms (Hill et al., 2004). Children also play a relatively minor role within theories of power, where most analysis has centred on power differences between different groups of adults (e.g. men and women), communities or citizens in relation to the state. However, an analysis of power through the lens of childhood enables important and additional insights to emerge, for example, around the complexities of shifting and culturally diverse notions of protection and responsibility, and their interrelation with children’s capacity to act and change the actions of others.

In her discussion of gender and power, Davis (1991) has outlined two main options for analysis: one which assumes that social relations can best be understood through gender and thus takes gender as its starting point in its attempt to generate a feminist theory of gender and power, and another which considers power as the key concept to understand social experience and raises a feminist critique of existing power theories. While Davis chooses the second option, our analysis offers a combination of the two in generational terms. Our starting point is a critical examination of the diverse ways in which children participate in activities of relevance to their lives, interact with the adults around them and can be understood to exert power in ways described in the theoretical framework adopted for our analysis. However, in the process of identifying patterns and processes of power, we also touch upon a number of areas in which an explicit focus on childhood may offer new and additional insights to power theories. For example, the dominant idea that children are vulnerable brings to the fore some important questions about how much power children can and should have in a world where they are also, at least to some extent, in need of protection. In many contexts, adult authority over children is considered legitimate, and this may in itself be interpreted as an important instrument of power. However, the particular relation between power, protection and authority may play out differently in different time periods and world regions (Wells, 2009). Different actors may, furthermore, have varying views on the extent and scope of adults’ legitimate power over children, supporting our assertion that kid power needs to be explored intergenerationally, intragenerationally and multidimensionally.

Analysing power in this way points to the fact that the level of power of an individual or a group is not static but subject to constant negotiation. This is particularly evident among children, as their capacity for exercising power inevitably changes with age. Most people would agree that children should be given gradually more power as they grow older. However, societies differ significantly in their conceptions of appropriate ages and stages for different activities, for example, when children should begin to have responsibilities in their home, when they can responsibly be left alone at home and when they can be made legally responsible for criminal actions. These are debated locally and internationally and negotiated with different effects on the levels of power of children within given age groups, societies and communities.

In this book, we adopt the common acceptance of childhood as a category covering children from birth to 18 – often referred to as the ‘straight 18’ position (Rosen, 2007). We recognize that this broad definition includes a wide variety of children with different capabilities, allowances and responsibilities, and that this makes it difficult to discuss kid power in general terms. The terminology used to describe children from 0 to 18 varies and is significantly context-dependent. It includes terms such as ‘children’, ‘young people’, ‘(pre-)adolescents’, ‘teenagers’, ‘students’, ‘pupils’ and ‘kids’, which have varying relevance within, for example, school, family or legal contexts. Throughout the book, we have as far as possible attempted to be specific about the particular age groups described and use the terms adopted by the authors we refer to or simply the general term ‘children’. However, in the framing of our main thesis, we have chosen to use the word ‘kid’ and the term ‘kid power’ to signify a more informal and inclusive approach to children of all ages and contexts.

Age is only one line across which power operates. As increasingly acknowledged by childhood researchers, attention also needs to be paid to other characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity and social class and how they intersect in children’s lives across different societies in the Global North and South¹ (Cook et al., 2018; Hanson et al., 2018; Spyrou et al., 2018). Much of the literature on children’s lives, particularly among UK sociologists, centres on class as a main differentiating factor, and consequently class forms a key dimension in our analysis of kid power. However, class as a concept does not have equal relevance in all countries. It combines a variety of factors, including wealth, social and cultural capital, and these may not always translate neatly across societies or be transferable, for example, in the case of migration. Class and wealth, furthermore, intersect in important ways with other characteristics, such as race/ethnicity and gender to consolidate or limit power. We have attempted to include considerations of such intersections in our analysis to illustrate diversity within child populations in relation to power. However, the book is also written in a time where standard sociological categories, such as gender, are increasingly contested and negotiated. It is beyond the scope of the book to fully address such complexities, but we acknowledge the importance of considering a range of constellations in relation to power and hope that the book will invite further discussion and debate around some of these.

By discussing children’s lives in different contexts and regions of the world, the book draws attention to some of the many dimensions of power in children’s lives and attempts to problematize common conceptions of kid power. Traditionally, childhood studies as a discipline has predominantly focused on children in the Global North. Children’s rights and relationships with adults are also often seen within the context of Northern childhoods. Our analysis is not able to include a detailed account of all possible complexities of kid power as it plays out across the world. Some chapters will have an overweight of literature from the United Kingdom, where we are both based, and Europe in general. However, we have tried wherever possible to also include insights and literature from the Global South and hope that we, through this, begin to frame a more inclusive conceptualisation of kid power.

Why This Book?

When discussing this book with her then 9-year-old daughter, Jørgensen was told, ‘No child is ever going to read it. Can we stop talking about that boring book?’ While this view (hopefully) would not be shared by all children, it raises two important questions: first, whether a book on kid power, which takes power theory as its starting point, is in itself an adult-centric project with little relevance to children and thus contradicts the idea that research should be done with children rather than on children, and second, related to this, whether childhood studies should pay particular attention to power, or rather focus on children’s own concepts and interests.

The many notions and understandings of power put forward in social theory not only present an analytical problem but may also challenge the usefulness of the concept in general. As Lukes (2005: 12) puts it,

in the face of unending disagreements about how to define it and study it, do we need the concept of power at all and, if we do, what [do] we need it for – what role [does] it play[s] in our lives?

He goes on to answer this question himself by saying,

I argue that these disagreements matter because how much power you see in the social world and where you locate it depends on how you conceive of it, and these disagreements are in part moral and political, and inescapably so.

With this book we similarly argue that it is important to analyse and discuss power in the context of childhood. First of all, a critical analysis of power may help challenge and filter out some of the many claims about kid power made without much theoretical or indeed empirical basis. Drawing on power theory to analyse empirical studies of children’s lives helps us challenge dominant normative perspectives of child and adult power. In his critique of normative analyses of power, Dowding (2012: 126) notes that he is opposed to ‘those who want to moralize concepts so that actions they consider justified are only described in a language with positive normative connotations’. Similarly, we believe that in the context of childhood, power will benefit from being discussed more ‘non-normatively’, avoiding easy conclusions about its either positive or negative effects.

Second, drawing on insights from theoretical approaches to power enables a more complex understanding of power relations between children and adults, which, as we have argued for above, takes into account not only conflicting agendas but also intergenerational relations, dialogues and collaboration. The explicit focus on theories of power furthermore helps illustrate some of the many complexities and levels upon which power may operate in the context of childhood. While children are generally considered less powerful than the adults around them, children and adults are complex categories whose power in relation to one another requires careful scrutinisation. It is thus entirely possible that some children may be more powerful than some adults, as, for example, in the relationship between a child in a wealthy family who employs an adult servant. Children and their parents may in addition be relatively powerless in relation to larger institutions, such as welfare agencies. As commented by Shier (2019: 6), power is not a ‘monolithic force that is wielded in top-down hierarchies, it can be conceived as something much more fluid that is enacted within networks of people through their everyday actions’. The argument in this book is that such networks need to be more thoroughly analysed in their context, taking into consideration both inter- and intragenerational relations.

This leads to our third reason for critically and theoretically analysing kid power: approaching intragenerational relations between different groups and individual children through the lens of power enables a more in-depth analysis of the role of power in children’s diverse lives and the way in which it plays out in different contexts, for example, in families, communities, on social media and in research. In her discussion of children’s agency, Valentine (2011: 356) has argued that ‘critical perspectives on agency seem necessary to ensure that privileged children are not recognised as agents and therefore entitled to participate, to the exclusion of less privileged children’. Similarly, in the context of power, we argue that a critical perspective on kid power is necessary to avoid drawing imprecise conclusions about children’s levels of power based on the capacity of particular groups of children to impact the actions of others.

This book provides a framework for understanding and discussing kid power as an intergenerational, intragenerational and multidimensional concept. It adopts a critical theoretical approach to children’s varied levels of participation, mediation and involvement in their families, communities, online and in research. Through this, the book aims to provide a nuanced view of children’s levels of power and a critical examination of the power dynamics between children, and between children and adults in different contexts and areas of the world.

Contents of the Book

The book is divided into two parts. Section 1 (Chapters 1–4) outlines the background for our developing framework of kid power. Chapter 1 discusses different theories of power, with a particular focus on Lukes’s and Foucault’s interpretations of power. The chapter outlines the three dimensions of power (Lukes, 2005) and relevant mechanisms for exercising them (Foucault, 1991). It furthermore discusses the two dominant views of power as zero-sum or positive-sum, and considers generational power as an area of particular importance to our analysis of kid power. In this chapter, we also briefly outline two power-related concepts – agency and empowerment –