Children’s rights and childhood in general are battled concepts. They become battled especially when actors make public claims on “children’s good”. A recent phenomenon of school strikes represents one such battle in Finland. The school strikes relate to a broader debate on indoor-air problems and mold in publicly funded buildings, such as schools. School strikes mean that parents collectively take their children out of school and home-school them for a certain period. The strikes draw on the fact that even though education is compulsory in Finland, school attendance is not. Through these strikes, parents have voiced their concerns on the possible health hazards for students and school staff. Continuous exposure to mold might trigger asthma and decrease working ability now and in the future. Through the strikes, parents’ associations have also criticized the slowness of local governments in repairing schools with indoor-air problems. Such political activity of parents is exceptional in Finnish context. It is also exceptional as it involves children as its core participants and as the “political power” with which decision-makers are pressurized. However, children’s perspectives have been inadequately represented within the debate. This paper studies one of these strikes from children’s perspective. How do children experience their participation in the strike? How do they interpret the core concepts of the struggle and how do these interpretations reflect their positions (thus reflecting their rights and responsibilities) within their community and also within the society at large?

The paper grounds on theoretical insights of (new) social studies of childhood and recent developments on citizenship learning. Criticizing the notion of socialization, Corsaro & Johannesen (2007) provide a concept of “interpretive reproduction” which emphasizes children’s creative responses on adult culture and their attempts to share knowledge among peers but also notifies that children are constrained by adult structures. Further, Jans (2004) argues that children’s peer culture, and especially play, should be taken in account when studying their citizenship. Likewise, the recent theorizing of citizenship learning takes in consideration the various contexts and power relations through which places in society are negotiated. Brooks & Holford (2009) point out that recent studies on citizenship learning have been extended to include the informal and incidental contexts of learning, the active role of the learners in their learning processes, and the operation of power relations in structuring and framing access, legitimate knowledge and appropriate behavior, for example. Delanty (2003, 603) points out, that “ […] one of the most important dimensions of citizenship concerns the language, cultural models, narratives, discourses that people use to make sense of their society, interpret their place in it, and construct courses of action.” Thus, the theoretical framework leans on the picture of the child as an active, yet developing and dependent participant and an understanding of citizenship learning as a continuous interpretation and negotiation of positions in community and society.

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