Making agency matter: rethinking infant and toddler agency in educational discourse

Iris Duhn

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

    27 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This article engages critically with the concept of agency in infant and toddler educational discourse. It is argued that agency, when conceptualised with emphasis on individuality and the autonomous self, poses a conceptual dead end for those who are not-yet-in-language, such as babies and toddlers. In considering agency as an aspect of becoming that is inherent in all matter, the article seeks to explore new pathways for conceptualising agency in infant and toddler education. Methodologically, the article aims to generate complex questions and, following Nigel Thrift s call, wild ideas , rather than solutions by addressing the relationship between discourse and matter to open up new spaces for thinking and doing agency in education, for babies and toddlers and beyond.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)920 - 931
    Number of pages12
    JournalDiscourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education
    Volume36
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2015

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