Exploring Agency in Children and Youth - by Voula Marinos & Christine Tardif-Williams & Dawn Zinga & Rebecca Raby & Shauna Pomerantz (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A critical exploration of how young people come to have agency in the world.

In this critical study, readers are asked to consider how children and youth are constrained by social, cultural, political, and economic forces and how they overcome these to exercise their agency. This volume discusses issues such as the place of institutional and residential care, children as the subjects of academic research, and the voice of children and youth in the justice system, particularly that of Indigenous youth. Each chapter explores and challenges the notion that only adults can understand and determine the needs of young people by providing examples of children and youth who already participate in complex environments and by arguing for an acknowledgment of their rights and agency in each circumstance. By dismantling the Western world's romantic notion of childhood innocence, the authors critically explore the understandings of young people as agents in their own worlds.

About the Author

Voula Marinos is associate professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University. Christine Tardif-Williams is associate professor at Brock University. She is also a developmental psychologist. Dawn Zinga is professor and associate dean in the faculty of social sciences at Brock University. Rebecca Raby is professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University where she directs the Social Justice Research Institute. Shauna Pomerantz is an associate professor at Brock University.