Session Information
25 SES 04, Researching Children’s Everyday Lives and Views
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
Citizens’ responsibilities are discussed by politicians and researchers as well as in the public debate, in Sweden as in many other countries. For instance, according to the government Swedish citizens need to take more responsibility to prepare for emergencies and crises, and to prevent injuries in their daily life. As in so many other cases citizens below 18 are not included as actors in these debates. In my ongoing PhD study I examine children's views on injury risks and injury prevention. The aim is to study how children understand their own responsibility to deal with injury risks and safety. The general perspective is that children are in fact, full citizens.
The study may be placed in an overall theoretical framework of social studies of childhood, where childhood is regarded as a generational space and as a constant structural feature of all societies. The diversity of childhoods is acknowledged as well as children’s agency in shaping their childhood experiences.
To large extent traditional concepts of citizenship exclude children, partly due to the fact that children lack the rights of adult citizenship. For example they do not have the right to vote or to enter into legal agreements. Children’s citizenship has recently been acknowledged by theorists arguing that children’s claim to citizenship lies in their membership of a community and their set of rights. Some have outlined models of “children-sized” citizenship where children are considered to be different yet full worthy citizens. An important point is that children are in fact citizens in the present, not only “in the making”.
In the study children’s citizenship is examined from a model of four elements defining citizenship as:
· a whole of rights
· a whole of responsibilities
· identity
· participation
Furthermore, children’s citizenship is regarded as practice rather than as formal status. Thus, interest is pointed towards children’s lived citizenship and the meaning that citizenship actually has in their everyday lives.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Archard, D. (1993). Children: Rights and childhood. London: Routledge. Biesta, G.J.J. and Lawy, R. (2006) From teaching citizenship to learning democracy: overcoming individualism in research, policy and practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 36(1):63–79. Cohen, E. F. (2005). Neither seen nor heard: children’s citizenship in contemporary democracies, Citizenship Studies 9(2): 221-240. Delanty, G. (2000) Citizenship in a Global Age: Society, Culture, Politics. Buckingham: Open University Press. Green, J., Hart, L. (1998). Children's views of accident risks and prevention: a qualitative study. Injury Prevention, 4; 1. s.14-21 Hart, Stella(2009) 'The 'problem' with youth: young people, citizenship and the community', Hine, J. (2004). Children and citizenship. Home Office Online Report 08/04. Department of Sociological Studies and School of Education, University of Sheffield Hägglund, S. (2009). Barn, rättigheter och medborgarskap. Några tankar om medborgarskap som status och som praktik. I Markström, A-M., Simonsson, M., Söderlind, I., Änggård, E. (red.). Barn, Barndom och föräldraskap. Stockholm: Carlssons Bokförlag Isin, E. F. & Wood, P. K. (1999) Citizenship and Identity. London: Sage. James, A. (2011) To Be (Come) or Not to Be (Come): Understanding Children's Citizenship. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2011 633:167 Jans, M. (2004). Children as Citizens: Towards a Contemporary Notion of Child Participation. Childhood 11:27. 27-43 Lee, N. (2005). Childhood and human value. Development, separation and separability. London: Open University Press. Lister R (2008) Unpacking children’s citizenship. In: Invernizzi A and Williams J (eds) Children and Citizenship. London: Sage, 9–19. Moosa-Mitha, M. (2005). A different-centered alternative to theorization of children's citizenship rights. Citizenship Studie, 9:4 369-388 Pakulski, J. (1997). Cultural citizenship, Citizenship Studies, 1 (1), pp. 73-86 Qvortrup, J. (2005). Studies in Modern Childhood. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Roche, J. (1999). Children: Rights, participation and citizenship. Childhood, 6:4, 475-493.
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