Children as democratic agents in literacy practices of school – learning of and with children and young people in school

Abstract

In this article, a call is made for educational research starting from a transactional epistemology in order to explore the conditions and prerequisites for realising the desirable in educational practices (Biesta, 2010). Furthermore, two ethnographic studies, conducted with such an approach, are presented. The first study explores the democratic, deliberative qualities of writing processes, where a teacher and six children write a common narrative. The second study explores children’s agency when writing individual narratives. Both studies show how educational practices, in this case literacy activities, in school can be the place for children to make democratic experience and having agency when children and their initiatives are taken seriously.