Children as citizens of today. From the margins to the centre in recognising the distinctive features of childhoods

Abstract

The article seeks to propose, from a Critical Pedagogy perspective, an interpretation of the marginalisation of childhood as a socially and historically determined phenomenon. Within this framework, a contrast is drawn between the construct of childism and two defining features of the educational role – authenticity and a research-oriented stance – considered particularly effective for analysing its underlying assumptions and their implications for educational practice. Seeking to actualise the recognition of children’s full citizenship, the project-based approach is identified as a potential way of translating into educational practice a radical rethinking of the otherness embodied by childhood, understood as an evolutionary possibility for society. By overcoming the opposition between formal inclusion, and children’s agency, education is called upon to acknowledge its positioning at the margins, transforming boundaries into spaces of encounter between differences as well as sites for the negotiation of meanings. Such awareness may also serve as a foundation for the full recognition of children’s rights – so widely advocated and yet, at the same time, so frequently violated.