The philosophy of critical realism and childhood studies

Critical realism is a philosophy of social science that analyses and aims to remedy current problems and gaps. Basic tenets of positivist and quantitative research tend to contradict those of qualitative and interpretive research, and critical realism proposes ways to resolve the contradictions. Vital themes in childhood research that are reviewed in this article include a comparison with feminist research, critical realism, being and thought, transitive and intransitive, theory/practice consistency, agency and structure, closed and open systems, micro and macro in the global/local nexus, four planar social being, facts and values, and transformative change through the four-stage MELD dialectic. Critical realism aims to understand the world in order to be able move from coercion towards creative liberating power

'Surely the most natural scenario in the world’: Representations of ‘Family’ in BBC Pre-school Television

Historically, the majority of work on British children’s television has adopted either an institutional or an audience focus, with the texts themselves often overlooked. This neglect has meant that questions of representation in British children’s television – including issues such as family, gender, class or ethnicity - have been infrequently analysed in the UK context. In this article, we adopt a primarily qualitative methodology and analyse the various textual manifestations of ‘family’, group, or community as represented in a selected number of BBC pre-school programmes. In doing so, we question the (limited amount of) international work that has examined representations of the family in children’s television, and argue that nuclear family structures do not predominate in this sphere

Music, middle childhood and agency:The value of an interactional-relational approach

This article considers the implications of children’s out-of-school musical experiences and activities for conceptualisations of child agency. In particular, it engages with differing approaches to relational agency and considers their value for understanding music-related practice during middle childhood. Accounts from children (n = 111) living in three parts of England are explored, and the subsequent analysis provides the basis for proposing the potential of an interactional–relational approach for approaching questions about children’s agency within such domains of practice and beyond

Children’s rights online: challenges, dilemmas and emerging directions

In debates over internet governance, the interests of children figure unevenly, and only partial progress has been made in supporting children’s rights online globally. This chapter examines how the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is helpful in mapping children’s rights to provision, protection and participation as they apply online as well as offline. However, challenges remain. First, opportunities and risks are positively linked, policy approaches are needed to resolve the potential conflict between protection on the one hand, and provision and participation on the other. Second, while parents may be relied on to some degree to balance their child’s rights and needs, the evidence suggests that a minority of parents are ill-equipped to manage this. Third, resolution is needed regarding the responsibility for implementing digital rights, since many governments prefer self-regulation in relation to internet governance. The chapter concludes by calling for a global governance body charged with ensuring the delivery of children’s rights

Childhood publics in search of an audience: reflections on the children’s environmental movement

The essay reflects on the children's environmental movement from the perspective of cultural theory, as well as the authors' own and others’ research on children’s encounters, experiences and engagement in public life. The concepts of political knowingness, childhood publics, and listening publics are evoked to think through the surprise that the children's environmental movement generated in the public sphere. The idiom is positioned as an audience ‘hearing aid’ for turning babbling into political messages. In so doing we find that the messages from the children’s environmental movement are not out of place in the current humanities and social sciences literatures on the Anthropocene

Child-Led Research, Children’s Rights and Childhood Studies: a Defence

Recent articles by Kim and Hammersley have critiqued, respectively: the methodological and normative assumptions that underlie research ‘by’ children; claims made about the implications of children’s rights for the ethics of research with children; and more broadly, some of the central commitments of Childhood Studies. This paper offers a response to these critiques, seeking to distinguish between those that clearly should be accepted, those that appear to be based on a misreading of the claims being made by scholars and researchers, and those that represent serious challenges to defend, redefine or rethink our aims, claims or practices

Children’s agency in the modern primary classroom

This paper examines where and how children achieve agency in the primary classroom, drawing on a multimodal ethnography of the Year One classroom. It utilises a relational conceptualisation of agency, where children act purposively to achieve outcomes of educational relevance. It demonstrates that children achieve agency performing ‘good’ and ‘clever’ child subject positions, helping to make classroom life more liveable, although this form of agency is limited when dealing with unexpected challenges. Children also deviate, finding moments to pursue desires and ways of knowing not provided for within the classroom, insinuating a political critique of the current education system

A sensory sociology of the future: Affect, hope and inventive methodologies

The starting point for this article is that the future is difficult to research because of its intangibility. Drawing on recent work in visual and sensory sociology, affect, and time and futurity, I propose that sensory methodologies provide some ways of grasping, understanding, attuning and relating to the future. To develop this argument, I pay close attention to the Children of Unquiet (2013-14) project by artist Mikhail Karikis, and especially the film of the same name. This project involved Karikis working with local children to probe the possible futures of a site that was invested with hope and progress in the twentieth century, but has since been depopulated. In turning to an art project to consider the developments of a sensory sociology of the future, my intention is to examine the resonances between the project and some of the concerns of a sensory sociology of the future. In particular, I discuss the participation of children, and a conceptualization of hope as potentiality, open, affective and in the present. In conclusion, I explicate how the article seeks to contribute to a sensory sociology of the future, not by providing a blueprint for further work but rather by offering some indicative points and coordinates for this emerging field of research, including its involvement in creating conditions through which possible futures might be provoked or invented