Search

This article will argue for and unfold the conceptualization of children’s proximal societal conditions. Through out different research project in which children’s everyday life in different day care settings and in schools has been studied, it becomes clear that ‘the societal’ is not something that is above or outside the institutional setting or the children’s everyday life, but something that is represented through societal structures and actual persons participating (in political ways) within the institutional settings, in ways that has meaning to children’s possibilities to participate, learn and develop.Understanding school or kindergarten as (part of) the children’s proximal societal conditions for development and learning, means for instance that considerations about an inclusive agenda are no longer simply thoughts about the school – for economic reasons – having space for as many pupils as possible (schools for all). Such thoughts can be supplemented by reflections about which version of ‘the societal’ we wish to present our children with, and which version of ‘the societal’ we wish to set up as the condition for children’s participation and development. The point is to clarify or sharpen the dialectic relation between the subject and the societal conditions. In this article I argue for and unfold the conceptualisation of children’s proximalsocietal conditions. This concept is developed through research based on theGerman/Danish version of Critical Psychology. Various research projects studyingchildren’s everyday life in different day care settings and in schools have made it clear that ‘the societal’ is not an abstraction – something above or outside the institutional settings or children’s everyday life. Rather, it is something that is represented through societal structures and actual persons participating within the institutional settings in ways that have meaning to children’s possibilities of participating, learning and developing.Understanding school as (part of) children’s proximal societal conditions fordevelopment and learning means, for instance, that considerations about an inclusive agenda are no longer simply thoughts about the schools’ capacity for as many (different) pupils as possible (the school for all). With the concept of proximal societal conditions, we come to reflect on e.g. school not only as “a place to learn” but also as a societal meeting place where children participate in societal (re)production, hence developing as societal beings. Such a perspective has wider political and ethical implications on how we understand school and its many participants as a part of society. The aim is to clarify or sharpen the dialectic relation between the subject and the societal conditions.Through an analysis of inclusion and exclusion processes in a Danish elementaryschool, I develop the concept of children’s proximal societal conditions in order to emphasise how such processes not only affect the potentially singled-out child, but also have meaning to all the other children. I also show how such processes are always connected to broader societal structures such as school laws, rules for allocating professional resources and working conditions for teachers and pedagogues.

Vi underprioriterer børnenes liv uden for skolen, og det er et oplagt bud på, hvorfor mange børn og unge mennesker har vanskeligt ved at håndtere almindelige og ualmindelige udfordringer – både i og uden for folkeskolen, skriver lektor Anja Hvidtfeldt Stanek og postdoc Rolf Hvidtfeldt. Personer: Anja Hvidtfeldt Stanek & Rolf Hvidtfeldt