Children's Citizenship and the Structuring of Adult-child Relations in the Primary School

Abstract

This article analyses the experience of school in terms of children's citizenship, exploring the level of participation experienced by a sample of Irish primary school children over decisions related to the control of their time, space and interaction in school. Locating such experience within the context of the structuration of adult-child relations, education for and into citizenship, it is argued, must take account of the dynamics of power and control between adults and children, teachers and pupils and the impact on children's construction of themselves as citizens with a voice to be both heard and expressed in school.

Children's experiences of democracy, participation, and trust in school

“…The result shows that children's influence is limited thus confirming other studies (Aspán, 2009;Devine, 2000Devine, , 2002Dovemark, 2004;Ekholm & Lindvall, 1991;Fjeldstad & Mikkelsen, 2003;Forsberg, 2000;Johansson & Johansson, 2003;Raby, 2008;Raby & Domitrek, 2007;Selberg, 1999;Thomas & O'Kane, 1999). Even though teachers have certain ambitions for school democracy and pupil participation, as in the third school in this study, the children's opportunities to have any say are still limited (cf., Aspán, 2009).…”

“…Moreover, this study indicates that pupils' perceptions of arbitrary rules, unfair rules and rule applications, rule-and teacher inconsistencies, and bad or poor rule explanations from teachers, appear to lead to criticism and negative attitudes from pupils (a trust-reducing effect), as seen in other studies (e.g., Alerby, 2003;Devine, 2002;Elliott, Witt, Galvin, & Moe, 1986;Lewis & Lovegrove, 1987;Scarlett, 1988;Tattum, 1982;Thomson & Holland, 2002;Williams, 1993). For example, according to a study by Williams (1993), students consider some of their teachers to be insincere and inconsistent, because they do not follow the rules and standards themselves.…”

“…This can be understood as an expression of children's subordination. As in Devine's (2002) study, the findings here show ''how children are positioned as subordinate within the school, with negative implications for their perception of themselves as active contributors to the schooling process'' (p. 303 ff.). Nevertheless, some of the pupils (especially the older ones) are critical and argue that they should also participate in the decisions about rules.…”

“…Thus, there are two dominant distinct views among the pupils regarding teacher power and their own lack of any say, which in turn can be related to naïve trust as well as negative attitudes because of the lack of grounded trust. Furthermore, even if naïve trust was produced by the teachers' teaching and disciplinary practices across all grades, in accordance with the discourse of development (see Devine, 2000Devine, , 2002Millei & Raby, 2010), naïve trust was more prevalently nurtured by the teachers in pre-school classes and Grade 2 as compared to teachers in Grades 4 and 5. For example, whereas the teachers in Grade 2 were the ones who talked most in the class councils, the pupils in Grade 4 and 5 talked a lot more in the class councils.…”

“…They are dependent on adults and subordinated to adult control (Alderson, 1999). According to an ethnographic research conducted by Devine (2000Devine ( , 2002 in primary schools in Ireland, pupils usually have neither any say nor are they consulted regarding rules or other aspects of their school lives. The wide-spread perception among pupils that decisions on rules are made by teachers and head teachers and that pupils have no say, has also been found in British studies (Davies, 2000;Thomas & O'Kane, 1999), a Canadian study (Raby, 2005(Raby, , 2008Raby & Domitrek, 2007), and Scandinavian investigations (Aspán, 2009;Fjeldstad & Mikkelsen, 2003;Johansson & Johansson, 2003).…”