This paper reviews the concept of resistance, contrasting modernist and postmodernist positions in terms of what resistance is, its relationship to power and agency, how it is identified, where it comes from in the lives of young people, and what it achieves. Foremost attention is given to subcultural and Foucauldian positions, to argue that while resistance remains a relevant and useful concept, there are significant underlying differences between such positions on it, differences that fundamentally affect how the concept is deployed.

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Children's participation initiatives have been increasingly introduced within various institutional jurisdictions around the world, partly in response to Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Such initiatives have been critically evaluated from a number of different angles. This article engages with an avenue of critique which argues that children's participatory initiatives resonate with a neoliberal economic and political context that prioritizes middle class, western individualism, and ultimately fosters children's deeper subjugation through self-governance. Respecting these as legitimate concerns, this article draws on two counter-positions to argue that while children's participation can certainly be conceptualized and practised in ways that reflect neo-liberal, individualized self-governance, it does not necessarily do so. To make this argument I engage, on the one hand, with Foucault's work on the care of the self, and on the other, with more collective approaches to participation.

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Cet article analyse la Loi sur la sécurité dans les écoles de l'Ontario (2000) ainsi que les codes de conduite des commissions scolaires et des écoles secondaires des régions de Niagara et de Toronto. L'auteure examine comment ces codes sont organisés, justifiés et présentés aux élèves. En même temps, elle essaie de savoir à quel genre d'eleves (et d'adolescents) ils s'adressent, de même que quel type d'élèves ils créent, particulièrement sous l'angle de citoyens et de futurs travailleurs. Les codes de conduite sont des lieux de production du savoir qui façonnent le genre, les normes et le statut de classe moyenne des citoyens. Ils marginalisent également ceux qui ne s'y conforment pas facilement. De plus, ces codes suggèrent la gouvernance des jeunes au moyen de leur capacité d'agir et de l'autorégulation qui en résulte, accompagnées de techniques d'approche descendante. This paper examines Ontario's Safe Schools Act (2000), and the codes of conduct of school boards and high schools in the Niagara and Toronto regions. I investigate how these codes are organized, justified and presented to students and, in the process, what kind of students (and adolescents) are assumed and created, particularly in terms of citizens and future workers. Codes of conduct are sites of knowledge production, fashioning middle‐class, normative, gendered citizens, and marginalizing those who do not easily conform. These codes also suggest a government of young people through their capacity to act and consequent self‐regulation, alongside more “top‐down” techniques.