1 - Power and Children
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 June 2021
Summary
We speak and write about power, in innumerable situations, and we usually know, or think we know, perfectly well what we mean. In daily life and in scholarly works, we discuss its location and its extent, who has more and who has less, how to gain, resist, seize, harness, secure, tame, share, spread, distribute, equalize or maximize it, how to render it more effective and how to limit or avoid its effects. And yet, among those who have reflected on the matter there is no agreement about how to define it, how to conceive it, how to study it and, if it can be measured, how to measure it. There are endless debates about such questions, which show no sign of imminent resolution, and there is not even agreement about whether all this disagreement matters (Lukes, 2005: 61).
Acknowledging the diversity of power theories and concepts, Haugaard (2002: 61) has argued that ‘we should not look for a single theory of power, but rather construct meso-level theories which we use as conceptual tools for specific tasks’. Adopting this argument, the purpose of this chapter is not to provide a comprehensive theoretical account of power or a summary of the many positions and debates in the field. Rather, it is an attempt to construct a theoretical framework for the specific task of analysing kid power as a multidimensional, intragenerational and intergenerational phenomenon. However, the way in which we think of power, and the particular theoretical framework we chose, is also to some extent a political decision, which may be controversial and have significant consequences (Lukes, 2005). The framework we have chosen to develop our analysis of kid power is therefore not neutral or objective, nor is it the only one which could possibly have been used for the task. Dowding (2012) has argued that discussions of power should be kept as non-normative as possible and not automatically assume either positive or negative elements. Throughout the book, we try as far as possible to draw on empirical material to discuss power as a concept rooted in children's realities, rather than presupposed ideas about its inherently positive or negative implications. In this chapter, we set out the theoretical basis for this endeavour.
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- Kid Power, Inequalities and Intergenerational Relations , pp. 15 - 30Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2021