Agency, participation and childhood protagonism: dialogues with the Social Studies of Childhood

Abstract

In this article we approach and discuss the notions of agency, participation and child protagonism, in dialogue with the field of childhood studies, with the aim of systematizing and examining theoretical references from dissimilar geographies. There have been several contributions to thinking about the concept of childhood, which have gained more visibility since the emergence of the field of sociology of childhood, whose reflections have been amplified from an interdisciplinary perspective that focus on the position of children in society. Likewise, from these approaches we recognize heterogeneous dimensions in the children’s experiences in intergenerational relationships, especially in the Latin American context. The methodological strategy connects and analyzes the antecedents of two doctoral theses, recently developed in Argentina and Brazil, as well as indicative of how the concepts were being used in these countries with some differences in the perspectives constructed in the countries of the northern hemisphere. In relation to the field of social studies of childhood, we aimed to provide conceptual clarifications for understanding: participation in its social, political and legal character, protagonism as a praxis of transformation, and child agency as a social disposition that can be socially invisible; at the same time, we problematize these categories according to situated contexts, from the specificities of Latin America.