Conference Agenda

Both Childhood Studies and the New Sociology of Childhood revised the idea of children as passive and dependent individuals and understand them as social actors and active co-constructors of their environment (Honig, 2009) which induced an increasing consideration of children’s agency as “the will and capacity to act and to influence others or the environment” (Deakin Crick et al., 2015). This understanding relates to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, UN 1989) which recognises children’s participatory rights as well as their right to a voice which is heard, given a space to be expressed, listened to and acted upon (Article 12; Lundy, 2007). Despite the increasing attention for children’s voice and agency, a need for clarification in the theoretical conceptualisation of children’s agency has been identified (Priestley, 2020).

Childhood and adolescence are concepts that are constructed and shaped by normalising practices, discourses and structures. Thus, children and adolescents are constantly confronted with the demands of a complex social reality as well as societal norms (Corsaro, 2005). Educational institutions have the function to foster young people’s development into agentic, critically thinking and creative citizens for a democratic society and to empower them to develop their capacities as it is emphasised in article 29 of the UNCRC. They are, however, also places of reproducing social inequality (Ballantine & Stuber 2017).

Thus, this symposium focusses on the questions “How do children and young people who are labelled as not fulfilling societal norms or being in socially disadvantaged positions experience agency? How are they supported or restricted in achieving agency by educational institutions?”. The symposium aims to discuss children’s and young people’s agency in relation to different dimensions of diversity and social inequality from an international perspective, involving perspectives from Scotland, Estonia and Germany. The focus of the papers lies on the following questions:

• How do children and young people experience agency within educational institutions?
• How is children’s and young people’s agency related to different dimensions of diversity/social inequality as well as the ecological conditions of the different countries?
• How do educational institutions and practices support or restrict agency?

The twofold comparative perspective on children’s and young people’s agency does not only involve different national perspectives but as well different dimensions of diversity. Representing an intersectional approach, the three papers address different dimensions of diversity which do not only relate to categories that are currently associated with diversity such as gender, ethnicity or dis/ability, but also focus on the diversity of children’s experiences (e.g. care experiences or experiences with individual assistance at school). Moreover, different age groups are represented which is why both the terms “children” and “young people” are used. All papers represent a methodical approach (qualitative or quantitative) which emphasises the experiences and voices of children and young people recognising them as experts of their own living realities.

Furthermore, the symposium intends to contribute to a discourse of a theoretical conceptualisation of children’s agency by discussing the theoretical implications of the different research perspectives and using a temporal-relational ecological approach as a theoretical framework to analyse and understand agency (Emirbayer & Mische 1998; Priestley et al. 2015). From this perspective, agency is conceptualised as “a temporal and relational phenomenon” and “an emergent phenomenon of the ecological conditions through which it is enacted” (Biesta et al. 2017, 40). The focus lies on how actors achieve, produce and enact agency within specific environments and under certain ecological conditions. This understanding emphasises agency being a social construct rather than being an individual capacity. Agency is therefore shaped by possibilities and restrictions of the physical and social environment (Priestley, 2020).

This paper explores the concept of young people’s agency, addressing the question: How can we better understand young people’s achievement of agency? Drawing on two studies (see below), I argue that educational and broader contexts have roles to play in shaping the agency that young people can achieve. An analysis using a temporal-relational ecological understanding of agency (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998), makes visible some of the enablers and constraints that young people can face in particular educational contexts. Empowerment discourses, fashionable in current policy and practice, are reflected in Scottish legislation for children and young people and evidenced by duties on public bodies to consult children and young people in policy making (see for example; Scottish Executive, 1995, 2000, 2004). The Scottish Government’s (2007) recognition of a strong association between under-achievement and unemployment is evident in increased flexibility in the senior phase of secondary education, to allow students more choice (ibid., 2010), and in the trend to encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning, something that Davies (2006) terms ‘responsibilisation’ (Davies, 2006). This policy turn suggests that the agency young people achieve is important and that education has a key role to play in fostering it. However, ecological perspectives on agency (Biesta & Tedder, 2006) would suggest that this is problematic. Whilst education can develop individual capacity, this is not the same as agency, which is also shaped by the conditions of educational and wider contexts. This paper discusses two cases, using this ecological framing of agency. The first case studies secondary school students, labelled as non-attenders, and their opportunities in the post-compulsory phase of schooling. The second explores an empowerment group for care-experienced young adults (18-21) and their experience of schooling and post compulsory education. In both cases, educational trajectories were tailored to suit performative agendas of schools, rather than educational needs; but in the second case the existence of developed social networks helped these students achieve agency despite this. The data were generated through recorded interviews. Initially simple coding or ‘descriptive’ coding was applied to the data (Miles & Huberman, 1994), and then thematic coding. The cross-case analysis of the interviews included an iterative process of engagement with the research literature, including the application of Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) agency framing. This research followed the principles of the British Educational Research Association Ethical Guidelines (BERA, 2018).

Biesta, G. J. J., & Tedder, M. (2006). How Is Agency Possible? Towards an Ecological Understanding of Agency-as-Achievement. Learning Lives: Learning, Identity, and Agency in the Life Course. Working Paper Five, Exeter: Teaching and Learning Research Programme. British Educational Research Association (BERA) (2018). Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. Fourth Edition. Davies, B. (2006) Subjectification: the relevance of Butler’s analysis for education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27 (4), pp. 425-438. Emirbayer, M. & Mische, A. (1998) What is agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962-1023. Miles, M., & Huberman, A. (1994). Qualitative data analysis. London, UK: Sage. Scottish Executive. (1995). Children (Scotland) Act. Edinburgh, UK: HMSO. Scottish Executive (2000) Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc. Act. Edinburgh, UK: HMSO. Scottish Executive. (2004). The local government in Scotland Act 2003. Community planning: Statutory guidance. Edinburgh, UK: Crown Copyright.

Estonia is an interesting case for studying student agency due to its ethnically segregated school system. Since the Soviet occupation in 1940 the Estonian education system was segregated into Estonian and Russian language schools to accommodate an increasing number of Russian speaking immigrants. After Estonia regained its independence in 1991 the only official language became Estonian but 25% of the population speaks Russian. The segregation has created many problems: Russian schools lag behind in state exam and PISA test results (on average by 40 points). Further, the Estonian language skills of many Russophone students are not sufficient to continue their education in high school or higher education where the instructional language is predominantly Estonian. There is some evidence that teachers in Russian schools have not adopted the same student-centred educational philosophy as in Estonian schools (Carnoy, Khavenson & Ivanova 2015) and prefer using the Soviet pedagogy. As a consequence, Russian students face problems with social mobility (Kunitsõn & Kalev 2021). This study had two aims: to develop an instrument to measure student's agency for Estonian and Russian schools and to compare the agency scores of students in order to ascertain to what extent do Estonian and Russian language schools currently support the development of students into agentic, critically thinking and creative individuals and citizens for a democratic society. The student agency scale includes concepts such as: agentic engagement (Reeve & Shin, 2020), resistance to perceived injustice (Mameli, Grazia & Molinari, 2021), perceived agency support (Reeve & Shin, 2020), persistence in pursuits (Vaughn, 2021; Dweck, 2006). According to a confirmatory factor analysis they loaded in three factors. 9309 students in grades 6-12 from 55 Estonian and 4 Russian schools participated in the main study in February 2022. Four hypotheses were set: 1) Students in Estonian gymnasia report higher levels of agency than students in Russian schools; 2 there are differences in perceived agency support in Russian and Estonian language schools; 3) there are gender differences in the agency scores between boys and girls both in Estonian and Russian schools; 4) students in higher school stages report higher levels of agency both in Estonian and Russian schools. The indpendent T-tests and Anova tests proved all four hypotheses. Student's agency scores were higher in Estonian schools and boys estimated their capacity for agentic behaviour and teachers’ support for their agency higher than girls. This confirms that agency is a cultural and gender phenomenon.

Carnoy, M., T. Khavenson, and A. Ivanova. 2015. ‘Using TIMSS and PISA results to inform educational policy: a study of Russia and its neighbours.’ Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 45(2): 248-271. Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House Publishing Group. Kunitsõn, N., & L. Kalev. 2021. ‘Citizenship education policy: a case of Russophone minority in Estonia.’ Social Sciences 10 (4), 131. Mameli, C., Grazia, V. and Molinari, L. (2021). The emotional faces of student agency. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 77. Reeve, J. & Shin, S. H. (2020) How teachers can support students’ agentic engagement, Theory into Practice, 59:2, 150-161. Vaughn, M. (2021) Student agency in the classroom: honoring student voice in the curriculum. New York: Teachers College Press.

This paper engages with children’s agency in German primary school classrooms with paraprofessional assistance. With signing the UN-convention of the rights of persons with disabilities (UN 2006), Germany committed to create an inclusive educational system recognising the right to education for all pupils. In order to ensure the participation of pupils with special educational needs, paraprofessional assistance has been established as a resource of individual support. The structural conditions are complex, since paraprofessional assistance is a resource of social care and not of the educational system (Fritzsche & Köpfer 2021). Research indicates that the individual child-centred support and the close relationship between pupils and paraprofessionals can impact the pupils’ participation in the classroom as well as the social interaction with peers and that it can be a practice of labelling the pupils as ‘special’ (Ehrenberg & Lindmeier 2020). This raises the question of how the individual support practices affect, support or restrict the pupils’ agency. The paper discusses the findings from the PhD-project “Reconstructions of subjectivity, power and agency in the context of paraprofessional assistance in inclusive school environments”. The project uses an ethnographic design in order to reconstruct practices of subjectivation linked to ascribing or denying agency to the pupils using a theoretical perspective which links the ecological approach to agency (Biesta et al. 2017) to post-structural theory. Following the understanding of Butler (1997a, 1997b), we understand agency as the power to act emerging from processes of subjectivation and being related to subject positions in which individuals are addressed. In this understanding, agency is a performative concept in which social norms and structures are reproduced, potentially enabling individuals to resist and destabilise the social order (Butler 1993; McNay 1999). In linking the post-structural and ecological understanding of agency, we focus on how processes of ascribing or denying agency are framed by social norms, the ecological and temporal conditions and power relations from which they emerge. Within this theoretical framework, we present data from both participant observation in class-rooms environments and focus group interviews with primary school pupils that are analysed using a method which combines interaction-analytical and discourse-analytical elements. The focus lies on the following questions: • How do pupils in inclusive classrooms with paraprofessional assistance experience, achieve and negotiate agency? • How is their agency shaped by practices of individual support? Which spaces of acting are opened up to the pupils and how do they use them?

Biesta, G.; Priestley, M. & Robinson, S. (2017). Talking about education: exploring the significance of teachers’ talk for teacher agency, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49:1, 38-54. Biesta, G. J. J., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: Towards an eco-logical perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39, 132–149. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997a). The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Butler, J. (1997b). Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. London: Routledge. Fritzsche, B. & Köpfer, A. (2021). (Para-)professionalism in dealing with structures of uncer-tainty – a cultural comparative study of teaching assistants in inclusion-oriented classrooms. Disability and Society, 37 (6), 972-992. Ehrenberg, K. & Lindmeier, B. (2020). Differenzpraktiken und Otheringprozesse in inklusiven Unterrichtssettings mit Schulassistenz. In: Leontiy, H. & Schulz, M. (Eds.): Ethnographie und Diversität. Wissensproduktion an den Grenzen und die Grenzen der Wissensproduktion. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 139-158. Mc Nay, L. (1999). Subject, Psyche and Agency. The Work of Judith Butler. Theory Culture & Society, 16 (2), 175-193. United Nations (2006): Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html .