Children’s Agency and Curriculum Making

This seminar will present some findings from the Children’s Agency in the National Curriculum research project (CHANT: funded by The Leverhulme Trust). CHANT’s longitudinal research has included in-depth ethnographic work with three primary schools from diverse contexts, over two years of data collection. Children’s views have been a vital source of data.

We will begin by defining and reflecting on what the word and concept ‘agency’ means in theory and in practice. In particular we address what ‘a socially situated capacity to act’ means. This definition will be exemplified through examples from the critical discourse analysis of England’s national curriculum text, and brief links made with other national curricula. We will discuss how curriculum texts can play a pivotal role in shaping and influencing children's agency, but also how such policies are enacted in profoundly different ways by schools.

We will showcase three illuminating scenarios drawn from participating schools. These scenarios serve as examples that illustrate how agency can be enacted within the established framework of a prescriptive knowledge-based national curriculum. The examples will demonstrate how schools can create opportunities for children to exercise agency in extracurricular activities, in lesson design, and as part of ongoing whole-school curriculum development. We are interested to learn more about how curriculum debate in Scotland differs from, and resonates with, debates in England and other regions internationally.

One of the purposes of this seminar is to bridge the gap between research and practice by presenting insights for practitioners who are keen on supporting and promoting children’s agency within national structures for education.

Speakers will include:

• Yana Manyukhina and Dominic Wyse, UCL