Dan Connolly, Senior Lecturer in Community and Youth Work StudiesSchool of Applied Social Sciences

University of Sunderland

TAG Annual Conference, University of Hull, 6th June 2017

“Cry Freedom” – Emancipatory Practice Through Dialogue and Change

Stance: Critique of participation practice

“The harsh reality is that much, if not most, of the

current, adult-led work in this area is tokenistic, does not

lead to the political changes or changes in

services/practice that children and young people require

and is based on an understanding that their participation

can be justified either as an end in itself, or as a

convenient tool to promote their personal development.”Establishing a Centre for Children and Young People’s Rights in the North of the UK, October 2016 (Unpublished paper)

Participation in schools

“The evidence in the report confirms that although students currently have opportunities…these:

• comprised largely ‘horizontal’ rather than ‘vertical’ participation and engagement. They concerned opportunities to take part rather than opportunities to effect real change by engaging with the decision-making process.” (Ireland et al, 2006, vi)

“..the still unfinished journey towards equality and social justice for all.” (Hull UK City of Culture 2017)

“Various commentators have remarked on the irony of promoting the concept of young people’s citizenship rights in an institution that is singularly ill equipped to treat young people as citizens.” (Cairns, 2006, p.223)

Laboratories of democracy?

“There’s no point Miss,

– no-one ever takes what we say seriously anyway.”Young person from a NE school council

Constructions of childhood

“Children's lives are lived through childhoods constructed for them by adult understandings of childhood and what children are and should be.”

(Mayall, 1996: 1 cited in Dahlberg et al, 1999, p. 43)

“These constructions…produce a ’poor’ child, weak and passive,

incapable and under-developed, dependent and isolated.” (Ibid p.48)

An alternative “emancipatory” stance

“New social studies of childhood” paradigm (James and Prout,

1997).

Children and young people as citizens and rights holders NOW! As

experts in their own lives. As “competent witnesses” (Hill cited in

Tisdall et al 2006 p. 91)

Participative democracy. True “demos” rather than representative

models. Addresses “Children’s own expressed concerns”

(Lansdown, 2006, p.145)

Habermas, dialogue and change.

Freire and education.

Exposing power (Foucault), challenging inequalities and countering

hegemonic discourses (Gramsci)

Children as competent citizens

“our image of the child is rich in potential, strong, powerful, competent..”(Loris Malaguzzi, 1993a: 10 cited in Dahlberg et al, 1999: 48))

The emancipatory approach applied to education - Freire

"Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the

younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it

becomes “the practice of freedom”, the means by which men and women deal critically and

creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their

world.“(Shaull in foreword to Freire 1996, p.160).

"The structure of the ideal speech situation (which means that the

discourse is) immunised against repression and inequality in a

special way… The structures of a ritualised competition for the

better arguments". (Habermas, 1984, p.25)

Habermas and “true” dialogue

Operationalising an emancipatory stance: True dialogue in action

Everyone has the right to their say.

Everyone must be listened to with respect.

Everyone deserves to have their claim considered.

There must be no coercion.

The outcome is....the force of the better argument.

Investing in Children, “The Concept of Dialogue”, November 2015

Operationalising an emancipatory stance

Agenda days

Project groups

Membership

Website: http://www.investinginchildren.net/

Agenda days

Project groups

Investing in Children, 2014

Membership

Investing in Children, 2015

ReferencesCairns, L. (2006) Participation with purpose. In Tisdall E. Kay M., Davis J., Hill M., Prout, A. Children, Young People and

Social Inclusion. Bristol. Policy Press.

Dahlberg, G., Moss, P. and Pence, A. (1999) Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care:Postmodern

Perspectives. London: Falmer Press. Available online at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED433943.pdf

James A., and Prout, A. (1997) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood. London. Falmer

Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Translated

by T.McCarthy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Hull UK City of Culture 2017. Available online at: https://www.hull2017.co.uk/thestory/the-seasons/. Accessed 01/07/17

Investing in Children (2015) Staff Development Programme. Presentation at Sunderland University, November 2015.

Unpublished.

Investing in Children (2014) Self-Harm - What young people in County Durham and Sunderland know about self-harm,

their views of the services they have accessed, and what they have found to be most helpful. Available online

at: http://www.investinginchildren.net/

Ireland, E., Kerr, D., Lopes, J., Nelson, J. with Cleaver, E. (2006) Active citizenship and young people: Opportunities, experiences and challenges in and beyond school citizenship education longitudinal study: Fourth annual report. National Foundation for Educational Research. Available online at: https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/CEE06/CEE06_home.cfm

Lansdown, G. (2006) International developments in children’s particiaption. In Tisdall E. Kay M., Davis J., Hill M., Prout,

A. Children, Young People and Social Inclusion. Bristol. Policy Press.

Shaull, R in foreword to Freire P. (1996) Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin

Tisdall, E. Kay M., and Bell R. (2006) Included in governance? Children’s participation in ‘publ;ic’ decision making. In

Tisdall E. Kay M., Davis J., Hill M., Prout, A. Children, Young People and Social Inclusion. Bristol. Policy Press.

Tisdall E. Kay M., Davis J., Hill M., Prout, A. (2006) Children, Young People and Social Inclusion. Bristol. Policy Press.

(School photograph: www.posture.doonks.com)

(Smiling girls photograph: http://www.parentinginottawa.com/en/youth/immunization.asp)