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~Today’s Article : “Enacting children’s citizenship: Developing understandings of how children enact themselves as citizens through actions and Acts of citizenship” by Cath Larkins (2014)
1) What are the basic assumptions that inform the reading?
-Children have social status and power, and their rights are either upheld or denied. Children can engage in acts of citizenship, and these social engagements “enact them as independent citizens”. Children’s actions being viewed as “exercising freedoms to achieve their own rights” is the difference between a child’s actions and a child acting as a citizen.
2) What are the major organizing ideas?
-The key argument is to broaden the scope in which children’s actions are judged, more or less, and to view them in a lens of participating in their environment as a citizen, who possesses the power of autonomy and exercises agency. “Children are participating social actors.”
3) What serious questions does the reading raise regarding the fields of child and youth study?
-Working to broaden the scope in which we view children’s actions, is this cause working to include children into the communities where they live, all across the world? There are limitations being in the position of a child that are not imposed on adults, is it correct that we are acknowledging children’s acts of citizenship as independence, or rather, acknowledging their social competence?
4) What serious omissions are left out of the article or reading (if any)?
-The research discusses how adults perceive children’s experiences and attributing the children’s acts with meaning that may not align with the child’s intentions and ideas. Given the focus is how children’s actions are perceived as acting as citizens, there should be questions that allow the children the space to explain their actions, behaviours and choices, and if they were intended to make social action.
5) In what ways does this article reinforce, extend, challenge, or oppose your own views on child and youth study/research/practice?
-This article reinforces the importance of children’s voices in the research about their lives. It is vital to recognize children’s voices and to make them aware of the validity of their voice. Adult interpretation is meaningful but of a different perspective, whereas child interpretation is meaningful because of the child’s immersion in the practices. This view allows the child to account for their thoughts going into an action, through it, and reflecting afterwards. This perspective is not available to adults unless they give children the space to show it’s value.
6) What do you take away from the reading in terms of your own child and youth practice?
-In practice, I will continue to support children to discuss their thoughts and motives behind their actions, behaviours and choices. Additionally, I will be mindful that actions that may appear as “troublesome” may be a child acting to change a social situation or construct boundaries, and therefore the child deserves respect and should be heard to gain understanding of their perspective.