Children's agency at school

Abstract

This study addresses agency practices by working class children at a primary school in Villa María, Córdoba, Argentina. Using an ethnographic method, the research focused on children's agency ca-pacity in school contexts. The author asked what modalities are assumed by children's agency prac-tices? This is based on how children resist temporal and spatial orders in school, redefine their views and assessments of teachers and dispute the distribution of material resources. The results indicate that children produce different agency processes through intergenerational discourses and interac-tions that are woven into everyday school life. These practices are not instrumental nor in all cases reflexive, instead they are socially embedded.