Young children in Kyrgyzstan: Agency in tight hierarchical structures

Abstract

This article focuses on preschool children in Kyrgyzstan, a poor country of the former Soviet union. What are children's views on the relational order in this transition society, and what is their contribution to the reproduction or challenging of this order? The authors use and elaborate the theoretical concepts of 'agency' and 'collectivism-individualism' to develop ageappropriate research instruments and to interpret children's views. Data were collected in a mixed-method field study. The presented results show children's agency in a tight hierarchical structure, revealing both complicity and self-assertion, occasionally resulting in opposition.

Generationale Verpflichtungen – normative Muster und ihre Umsetzung

“…So ließen wir 61 Kinder beim Einrichten eines Puppenhauses erzählen, wie ihr Tagesablauf aussieht. Nur 9 dieser Drei-bis Sechsjährigen nannten keine häuslichen Aufgaben, die sie im Laufe des Tages übernehmen, die übrigen zählten folgende Leistungen auf: Wasser holen, sauber machen im und um das Haus, Feuerholz suchen, kleinere Geschwister hüten, in der Küche helfen, den Tee auftischen (Bühler-Niederberger und Schwittek 2014). Soweit es die Erwartungen der Eltern hinsichtlich der Schulleistung ihrer Kinder betrifft bzw.…”

Agency and its Constraints among Biological Children of Foster Carers

“…Children's agency is seen to emerge from a process of "interpretive reproduction", where children reflexively and actively reflect on and alter behaviours and ideas based on their interpretations of the world around them (Corsaro, 2011;Matthews, 2007). This directly challenges traditional views of children as passive recipients of the social structures and processes in which they are situated (Bühler-Niederberger & Schwittek, 2014). The interactive nature of relationships, and the ability to produce change in their environments, have been seen as important markers of agency by childhood theorists (Bolin, 2015;Mayall, 2002).…”

“…However, the level of children's agency, and the way they can exert it, changes over time with their development (Stoecklin, 2012), and is also affected by the context within which it occurs and the resources children have available (Ungar, 2004). As such, recent scholars have called for childhood studies to consider carefully the constraints of children's agency and to incorporate more critical social perspectives into accounts of childhood agency (Bühler-Niederberger & Schwittek, 2014;Hartung, 2011;Valentine, 2011). Evans' (2002 "bounded agency" is one concept that allows us to view agency as a "socially situated process".…”

Childhoods in Policy: A Critical Analysis of National Child Protection Policy in the Philippines

“…To understand children and childhoods, Prout and James (2015) argue that children should be viewed as 'agentic', actively involved in the construction of their own social lives, the lives around them and the societies in which they live. This theoretical standpoint directly challenges traditional conceptions of children as passive recipients of the social processes and structures in which they are embedded, and confronts the idea that participation in society is a privilege reserved solely for adults (Buhler-Niederberger and Schwittek, 2014;Qvortrup and others, 2011). Children, as social agents, contribute and participate in the social processes around them, but this can be constrained by the structures and their representations in the societies and cultures within which they live.…”

“…Arising from understandings of the constructed nature of childhoods, children are now broadly regarded as ‘subjects’, rather than ‘objects’, in a shift away from traditional views of children as incapable, vulnerable or irrational (Trinder, ). Studies reveal that children are active social agents (examples include; Bolin, ; Buhler‐Niederberger and Schwittek, ; Roche and Noble‐Carr, ), whose capacity and value does not emerge out of biological growth, but via their social experiences and interactions, as well as their views and perspectives, which are critical in the formulation of social institutions of schools, families, communities and legal systems (Neale, ). To understand children and childhoods, Prout and James () argue that children should be viewed as ‘agentic’, actively involved in the construction of their own social lives, the lives around them and the societies in which they live.…”