Changing views on children and sociopolitical participation

This first chapter provides an overview of the interdisciplinary literature on children’s sociopolitical location and participation. Much of the earlier literature on children was from a social problems perspective with children viewed as victims to be protected by adult-led social movements. Another focus of the literature has been children’s political socialization and civic participation, exploring the complex dynamic between agency and socialization of children. Much of this research has been on children in training to become civic actors. Their agency as children began to be more fully recognized with the advent of the children’s rights movement and within the field of children’s studies. This literature recognized children as having agency and rights. Despite this advance in views of the child as a sociopolitical actor, there is a noted absence or marginalization of children in social movement literature. Child participants have a unique social location, and their experiences should be incorporated into existing analysis of larger social movement patterns. The typology presented in the book is a step towards correcting this neglect.