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Chapter 7 - Children’s and Youth’s Civic Projects and Responsible Agency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2023

By
Jaakko Hilppö  and
Antti Rajala
Edited by
Nick Hopwood  and
Annalisa Sannino
Nick Hopwood
Affiliation:
University of Technology, Sydney
Annalisa Sannino
Affiliation:
Tampere University, Finland
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Summary

In this chapter, we focus on an understudied aspect of children’s and youth’s civic engagement, namely their responsible agency. ‘Responsible agency’ draws attention to children and youth’s ethical and political aspirations and how they give meaning to their civic engagement. Over the last decades, the ways in which children and youth engage in civic activities have been in motion. An important form of this engagement are personally resonant activities that we call civic projects. Our cultural-historical activity theory analysis of two ongoing civic projects - P365 and Climate Warriors – highlights how the projects emerge and are sustained and developed through the children and youth’s responsible agency as well as the re-mediation of social and material support for the projects.

Keywords

responsible agencycivic engagementcivic projectschildrenyouthre-mediation
Type
Chapter
Information
Agency and Transformation
Motives, Mediation, and Motion
 , pp. 162 - 182
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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