CHILDREN & SOCIETY (2011)

DOI:10.1111/j.1099-0860.2011.00373.x

The Form of Children’s Political

Engagement in Everyday Life
Dorothy Moss
Childhood Studies, Carnegie Faculty, Leeds Metropolitan University, Headingley Campus, Leeds, UK

This article explores the form of children’s political engagement, considering the politicization
of events, their political understanding and alignments. It draws on research into memories of
childhood and social change in the latter half of the 20th century and builds on academic
debates about children’s political participation. Children’s experience of policing, industrial
unrest, popular dissent, social movements and party politics is discussed. Children’s political
engagement involves three elements. They must navigate different political perspectives, their
understanding grows through feelings of concern and empathy, and they align to groups they
can relate to and feel might make a difference.  2011 The Author(s). Children & Society 
2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited.

Keywords: childhood, participation, policy and practice, welfare, youth.

Introduction
This article draws on research into memories of childhood and social change in the latter
half of the 20th century, to consider the form of children’s political engagement. It argues
that this develops in relation to experiences, relationships and wider social change. First,
children must navigate different political perspectives, secondly, develop their own under-
standing and thirdly, align to groups they feel might make a difference.

Problematizing everyday experience of wider social change increases insight into the rela-
tionship between personal and political change (Smith, 1987). The focus here is how children
make sense of their experiences, and from this develop political alignments. It is important
to recognize that children’s political engagement is grounded in relationships and involves
feelings of fear, care and concern. The article discusses how social events are politicized in
childhood, how children’s political understanding develops and how they politically align.
Rather than focusing on government, party politics and children’s formal participation, it
explores children’s everyday experience of social change, giving greater visibility to the
‘ruling relations’ that ‘hook [children] in’ and ‘organize [their] everyday lives’ (Smith, 2005,
in Nichols, 2008, p. 686).

First, the research is situated in current debates about children’s political participation. Then
the research approach is discussed and following this, different aspects of children’s experi-
ence, including of policing, power cuts, animal rights, and Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’
speech (1968). Then children’s developing alignment is discussed in relation to social move-
ments and party politics. Material is selected to explore some common features, as well as
the diversity of children’s political engagement. Although drawn from previous times, the
relevance to current debates is drawn out in the conclusion.

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Children’s political participation

Children’s political engagement is underestimated when the lens is on, ‘narrowly defined
concepts of civil society and socio-political participation at the macro level’ (Nolan, 2001,
p. 308). Cockburn (2007, p. 447) calls for a ‘radical pluralist approach’ that recognizes the
diversity of children’s experiences. If participation is measured through children’s engage-
ment with formal organizations, then it will be underestimated, ‘Media and government con-
tinue to portray children and young people … as ‘‘politically apathetic’’ and disinterested in
politics and the life around them’ (p. 446). In relation to participation at a formal level, chil-
dren may be invited as, ‘guests in ritualized political or administrative occasions’, rarely
within the realms of their everyday life but at, ‘targeted points of diffusion into the official
sphere’ (p. 449). Rather than conceptualizing children as ill informed and disengaged,
Drakeford and others (2009) argue that children become engaged if questions are broached
meaningfully. Youth and community work has consistently demonstrated the importance of
engaging where and how young people live their lives. A deeper understanding of the
form of children’s political engagement should strengthen strategies for their more formal
inclusion.

Reynaert and others (2009) argue that scholarly attention to children’s rights has focused on
particular themes, creating some pitfalls. In the past, children’s interests were commonly sub-
sumed with those of their families. There is now more emphasis on their autonomous rights
which has been vital to securing these. However, this may have lead to an emphasis on indi-
vidualism, rather than the complex relationships that inform childhood. The over ‘dichoto-
mizing’ of children’s and parents’ rights may have lead to an underestimation of shared
interests. Although families involve conflict and unequal child–adult relations, there are
important shared experiences.

There has also been a focus on the mechanics of children’s participation, perhaps at the
expense of the diverse ways that they politically engage. Although there is little evidence
that children’s formal participation has impacted on major policy (Sinclair, 2004), there is
evidence that children have exerted political pressure that has led to social change, for
example, the schools boycott in apartheid South Africa. This article stresses the relationships
between family, community and state in childhood; the way wider social events are politi-
cized and the ways children weave different threads of political narrative in order to make
their own political choices.

The research approach

The article draws on a qualitative study into childhood based on adult memories from the
second half of the 20th century. The aim was to explore childhood in relation to events more
usually associated with adults, such as war, religion, migration, policing, employment and so
forth, in order to reconsider the relationship between childhood and wider social change.
Rather than focusing on those with direct experience of particular events, the aim was to
widen the lens on childhood, to generate a wide canvas and identify a diverse sample that
reflected a range of positions. Sixteen respondents were selected of different ethnicities, class,
sex and so forth. Although based in England, several spent part of their childhood in other
countries. It was important that respondents were committed to the aims of the research
because of the sensitive areas being covered, time commitment and limited resources. This
sample was therefore selected from researcher professional networks related to children and

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young people. The research received ethical approval in May 2007; informed consent
was gained and all names have been changed. This article discusses the findings related to
children’s political engagement. The key research question being addressed here is ‘How do
children politically engage, considering the politicization of events, their own understanding
and the ways that they politically align?’

The research was informed by the sociologies of social memory, space and time. In rela-
tion to social memory, Halbwachs (1925 ⁄ 1992) argues that collective memories provide
social frameworks which individuals rely on in order to socially engage. These, for exam-
ple, inform systems of political organization in different societies. Because adult interests
have dominated; most of these systems have formally excluded children. It is relatively
recently that children’s formal participation has been advocated. It is important to bear in
mind that social memories are also shared in family and community and it is in these
spheres, rather than the sphere of formal politics, that the form of children’s engagement
may be most visible. In relation to space, Lefebvre (1991) argues that individuals are
actively involved in the social production of space. Although formal politics may be asso-
ciated with particular age groups, institutions and types of representation, Lefebvre draws
attention to the wider spatial relations of children’s political engagement, for example,
their involvement in the less formal spaces of social and youth movements (Ben-Arieh
and Boyer, 2005). In relation to time, the dominant interpretation of political time
involves the official ‘clock’ times and calendars that regulate political representation
(Adam, 1995). A less common interpretation involves recognizing that political engage-
ment is a process that involves weaving many temporal influences and linking, ‘… mem-
ories in the present of the past, expectations and desires in the present of the future’
(Jacques, 1982 ⁄ 1990, p. 22).

Informed by these ideas, two semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire were developed.
In the first interview, respondents were encouraged to remember childhood through a wide
social lens; to share memories of wider social change. It included questions directly con-
cerned with politicians and party politics. In the second interview, they were asked for recol-
lections of the spaces of childhood related to everyday experiences, such as care, play,
schooling and so forth. The questionnaire was used to gather information related to social
position, mobility and family heritage.

Data from the three tools were analyzed and triangulated in relation to different research
questions. In the analysis, consideration was given to the selectivity of memory, silences in
the memory, differences across space and time and the way that children carve out space
and time for themselves. As will emerge, the form of their political engagement became more
visible when respondents shared memories of wider social change, rather than the official
politics of their time. There was evidence of some distance from ‘[the] specific institutions of
democracy’ (Nolan, 2001, p. 308).

Working with adults remembering childhood involves drawing on memories as ‘pockets of

history’ (Brannen, 2004, p. 425). Experiences are filtered through selective remembering.
Contemporary ideas may influence the selection and evaluation of memories. It was therefore
important to provide clear guidelines to respondents in order to draw out memories of areas
of social life not usually associated with childhood, such as industrial and civil unrest.
Despite the difficulties of memory-based research, the findings discussed here are grounded
in verifiable events from the past, some described through ‘flashbulb’ memories that cluster

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around major events but are personally differentiated (Misztal, 2003, p. 81). This casts light
on how similar events are politicized differently. The events discussed here were mainly
experienced in England, but also Northern Ireland and South Africa. Unless otherwise stated,
respondents were born in England, of English heritage.

Policing
Memories of policing are discussed to introduce the complexity and form of children’s politi-
cal engagement. Respondents’ remembered policing as protective, to be respected, as a source
of amusement and to be feared. The police were experienced as part of the furniture of every
day childhood, ‘They used to come in [to school] and do the cross code … I won a colouring
competition for the best colouring in of a Belisha Beacon’ (George, b. 1958). Children learned
that the police had status and were authorized to protect them from crime, ‘My father was
always very worried about burglary and robbery. We … referred to the front door as the …
drawbridge … every morning to unlock it and every evening to lock it up’ (Pamela, b.
1955).

Born in 1961 in Northern Ireland, James lived in a protestant community affected by violent
conflict. The police were more allied to his community’s political interests, ‘Guardians of
‘‘You do not do’’ … a respect and an aura that surrounded the police … uniforms … badges
and emblems … signaled a particular allegiance to one side of the divide.’ The understanding
that the police provided protection was qualified by knowledge of their power to discipline,
‘We knew if we did anything wrong they’d give us a clip around the head’ (Lara, b. 1964, of
St Lucian ⁄ Italian heritage). Children were uncertain and policing was a source of attention
and sometimes humour,

Bumbling Bobbies … officer was hiding in a hedge and his legs were sticking out … trying to catch
somebody … I used to think, ‘What an idiot’ … but he was in a position of authority … I took other
people’s authority seriously (Claudia, b. 1954 of German ⁄ Romanian heritage).

Five respondents became aware that some were policed differently. James learned this
through the conflict in Northern Ireland. Apara was born in Nigeria in 1968, of Nigerian and
English heritage. When she was 5 she moved to England. She learned of the police killing of
Liddle Towers, whilst she was at primary school in 1976. He had died in police custody and
the enquiry verdict was justifiable homicide by the police (Hansard, 1977). Her mother
worked where Liddle was killed, ‘That frightened me, the idea that you could be beaten to
death and it was ‘‘justifiable’’ … the law itself could be above the law’. Paulina (b. St Kitts,
1956) also came to England when she was 5. She recalled the police killing of David Oluwale
in 1969. He was a homeless Nigerian she had seen living rough (Aspden, 2008). She began
to connect this to wider events and personal experiences,

I had seen him … a vagrant … scared of him … I used to be one who’d be in front of a mirror with
a towel and imagine being [in the police] … his pictures … what happened to him, especially when
you heard the things about him being weed on by the police … at the same time, there was some-
thing happening in France, which was to do with peoples’ colour … looking at my skin and think-
ing, ‘What is it, what’s this about, why?’

Richard (b. 1961) emigrated to apartheid South Africa when he was 3 years old. He also came
to realize the power invested in the police, remembering news of violent deaths in custody,

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Mainly White … completely armed … guns … rhino tails on sticks … frightened of the idea of
them, frightened of them, being aware that they were unjust, that they were arresting people who
were trying to change the system … using torture as a routine way … acutely aware of all that …
[from] 12 onwards … the story of the Biko murder and others started to come out.

From a young age, George was also aware of the police potential to punish him. Later, he
faced aggressive policing because of his sexuality.

I was attracted to other boys from 8 or 9 … it wasn’t legal … always frightened, ‘cause I knew that
it was ‘bad’ … The police were always tinged with that … When I was 19 … driving in a car with
my then boyfriend … four policeman, on motorbikes, drove up and started hammering on the win-
dows of our car and shouting ‘Puff’.

In the late 1970s, the policing of intimate relations was contradictory. Failures to police
abuse inside the home contrasted with heavy state intervention in relation to consenting gay
and lesbian relationships, whilst homophobic violence was ignored.

State functionaries such as police were experienced as part of childhood; their status and
functions learned early. Respondents learned they were subject to their authority; pleased to
be praised, glad to be protected and fearful of punishment. Their attention was drawn to
policing which could be the subject of humour. Some learned that the police could be dan-
gerous, go beyond the role permitted by law; act on behalf of particular groups and against
others. Paulina, remembering David Oluwale, encapsulates the complex form of children’s
political engagement. She remembered playing at being in the police. Her fear and anxiety
at David’s death was a turning point that she connected to her colour and community. She
looked at media coverage of riots in France and made political connections. Policing was
politicized in different ways through family, community and state and she re-evaluated
police power. Her political understanding deepened through emotions of fear and concern
(empathy, connectedness). It has been argued that such emotions represent the disjuncture
between dominant representations of how things should be and personal experiences (Jaggar,
1996). Emotions involve political engagement, ‘What emotional paradox are we apparently
trying to resolve in order to live the life we want to live?’ (Hochschild, 1998, p. 11). Nolan
(2001, p. 210) argues that fear informs political understanding; ‘the lived realities and identi-
ties of young people must be negotiated through a nexus of social fears and aspirations —
and exclusions.’ Apara, James, George, Paulina and Richard, in different times and places,
remembered fear. The form of children’s political understanding (their acceptance and resis-
tance in relation to policing) varies at different times, in relation to different events, leading
to particular political alignment (see below).

Power cuts
This part focuses on power cuts in the UK in the 1970s to explore the ‘background noise’
informing children’s political understanding. The ‘flashbulb’ memories discussed here disrupt
and relate to everyday home life. Apara was 5 years old at the time and recalled,

A link to being in Nigeria … sitting around at night by the light of the fire … candles … had to be
very careful … we’d all be in the same room together and it was cozy and the adults would talk …
you could eaves drop.

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Her family was supportive of industrial action, ‘My grandfather was unemployed for 8 years
through the depression … talked about the general strike and the fact that we ‘‘bottled out.’’
Pamela’s father, however, in a more privileged home, politically opposed the power cuts. She
was in her teens, ‘… doing my homework by candlelight … father saying … ‘‘These people
should not be going on strike … This is disgusting’’ … I quite enjoyed them actually …
thought it was quite exciting …’ Cathy’s parents also expressed anger and she too, aged 10,
found events exciting,

Marvelous thing … happy memories … sitting round the candles in the dark … quite exciting and
different … my parents … being very angry … the feelings that it was a fairly cataclysmic thing,
‘The whole country should have come to this.’

George was aged 13, from a working class community with a strong street culture. He
remembered power cuts as bringing people together, ‘… would go into each other’s houses
with candles.’ Lara was also from a working class community but lived in a family more iso-
lated because of racism. She was 7, at the time and fear was uppermost, ‘Scared of the mice
… only just dawn and I turned over and there was mice in my sister’s hair … I never under-
stand why they wouldn’t let us have electricity’.

In Northern Ireland, power cuts in the 1970s were related to strikes organized by the Ulster
Workers’ Council. James, in his early teens, was very aware of the power involved,

Went on for three years … wiping out the whole of the city lights, for days … lots and lots of times,
sitting with candles and having meals … there’s somebody out there that’s doing this and they are
very, very scary people that control to such an extent as that, but at the same time, knowing it was
sort of on the same religious side, there was no fear.

Respondents’ memories of power cuts involved excitement, some fear, different home
arrangements, darkness and candle light. There was political background noise as events
were politicized differently. For Apara, the memory contained cosiness and continuity,
including threads of memory from her birth place in Nigeria and a family past of working
class struggle. Pamela’s and Cathy’s excitement was interrupted by rumbles of discontent
with references to ‘these people’ and fears for ‘the country’ (‘enemies within’). George
enjoyed the sense of community but for Lara, fear was dominant; she felt alienated from and
confused by events.

There were similarities and differences in children’s experience of events and the ways these
were politicized, related to age and circumstance. Events were politicized through different
back ground noise. Some children, such as James, were more ‘locked in’ to their family per-
spective. For some, the political back ground noise felt a distraction from their more immedi-
ate enjoyment or fear. Nevertheless, the absence of power (the cuts in energy) was a
powerful learning experience in relation to political power.

Animal rights
Children who share common ground may politically engage in very different ways. Kate and
Tessa, White and from relatively well-off families, responded differently in relation to animal
rights. Kate (b. 1950) from an urban middle class area loved animals and identified with
the animal rights movement. At school, ‘We had to give a talk on something that we were

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interested in and I chose the cruelty associated with mink farms.’ Tessa (b. 1969) also loved
animals, but was caught up in struggles defending fox hunting where she lived. She partici-
pated in hunts and was told that animal rights activists had been paid to protest, implying
they were mercenary and only interested in violence, ‘We used to call them rent-a-crowd …
if you’d paid them ten pounds they’d have supported fox hunting.’ Fox hunting was legal
and associated with a powerful landowning lobby and some rural workers. Tessa remembered
repeated encounters with protestors,

The antis were trying to get to the hunt, the hunt were trying to keep out of the way … the foot fol-
lowers and a couple of farmers … would block roads … quite scary … I saw somebody … they
pulled him so the horse came over … a local farmer who’d lost all his fingers in a farming accident
and I can remember vividly thinking ‘Well it’s not fair cause he’s only got one hand.’

Those involved in the hunt were people she knew and cared about, who were struggling with
people she didnot know and feared.

These two similar children, one in the countryside and one in the town, nearly 20 years
apart, developed very different political positions because events were politicized differently.
Kate understood the animal rights movement as compassionate; Tessa as callous. For both,
their political understanding deepened through feelings of care and connectedness (with peo-
ple and animals) as well as some fear.

‘Rivers of Blood’
Children who share little common ground may politically engage in very similar ways.
Martin (b. 1951) and Rehana (b. 1960) shared hostility to Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’
speech (1968) even though they were from very different backgrounds. Rehana came to
England when she was 11, to join family. She was 8 years old and living in Pakistan when
Powell, a Conservative Unionist politician, who had actively recruited immigrant workers
(including her family) to the UK, positioned them as ‘outsiders’. Her community was in a
weak political position. If elections were to go the ‘wrong’ way her family might be at risk,

Very aware of [the National Front] … and Powell … ‘Rivers of Blood’ … I knew that there was an
anti-immigrant feeling … the elders always voted for Labour … All the Asians would ring each
other up and say, ‘Don’t forget to vote Labour’. I don’t think anybody ever voted Conservative.

Although not directly affected, Martin was 17 years old at the time of Powell’s speech and
remembered it because of the wide publicity. He lived a relatively privileged life in England,
attending boarding school. His father had taught him not to discriminate and introduced him
to Kenyan colleagues,

There was a lot of anti-immigration feeling … I was probably fairly politically naı̈ve … but I was
certainly of the view that these people were actually contributing to British society and they had
every right to be here as we did … Having an argument with … a couple that lived down the road
about immigration.

These two children, of different sex, class, ethnicity, age and country heritage, shared a per-
spective on Powell’s speech. Rehana’s community developed a pro-Labour stance. The older
Martin drew on family and the social movements of the time (see below) to politically resist

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anti-immigrant views. Both he and Rehana understood ‘Rivers of Blood’ with concern about
what it represented for the future, drawing on a different mix of political influences.

Children’s political alignment

Having considered different politicization of events and how children’s political understand-
ing deepens, this part focuses on their political alignment, considering popular unrest, social
movements and political parties.

Paulina’s awareness of police brutality was shared amongst Black young people in her com-
munity. She remembered ‘Bonfire Night 1975’ which she did not attend, but brothers did, ‘…
a pitched battle between the police and the people in the community … The year before that,
people had said, ‘‘That’s it, if they come back next year and bother us, we’re not going to put
up with it’’. Respondents remembered very different perspectives on such popular discontent.
Three remembered civil unrest in the early 1980s. Apara, remembered riots in Liverpool when
she was 13 years old and felt ‘a real connection’, linked to her Nigerian heritage, ‘My mother
had a friend … who lived in Nigeria, but she was actually from Liverpool and we’d visited her
once’. Cathy, who was 19 at the time, felt scared and confused, ‘… coming in to the parlour
… watching images on the television … thinking it was in South Africa … they said they
were in … [Liverpool].’ Rachel, at 17 years old, felt distance, ‘I was a product of a typical
middle class suburban upbringing … it wasn’t actually impacting on my immediate life.’

In apartheid South Africa, young Black people had been involved in a wide range of resis-
tance. White friends of Richard’s sister joined this, ‘I felt proud, but on the other hand …
some of the people she associated with, were actually arrested … interrogated … made to
feel frightened … there was always that edge to, that kind of darkness there.’

Very few of the respondents directly engaged in street protest, but such events had political
impact. They disrupted established frameworks for understanding their lives; introducing
new fears and for some, new possibilities for alignment. They aligned differently with the
social and youth movements of their times; close up and at a distance. In the 1960s, the ani-
mal rights movement was important to Kate; civil rights and anti-war movements, to Martin
when he was at University. In the 1970s, Rachel was coming out as lesbian. Having experi-
enced sex discrimination, she was drawn to feminism,

as soon as I could look outwardly … very early teenage years … because of very, very stark memo-
ries of injustice … There was a newspaper seller … I’d circle him about ten times before I’d pluck
up the courage to go and ask for the gay newspaper.

These movements politicized events differently, resonating with everyday experience and emo-
tion, and providing a means to imagine a different future, ‘I can remember … writing for the
school newsletter … even in primary school, I was campaigning for girls’ rights to do stuff.’ In
the early 1990s, Madhi (b. 1978, of Indian heritage) learned from Black political movements,
‘Malcolm X was released in the cinemas … the Black kids … were becoming aware of the civil
unrest … strong desire to get back in touch with their roots.’ Place, time and shared memories
positioned children differently in relation to different struggles and movements.

In relation to party politics, most, but not all, respondents found it harder to remember
significant events, bearing out arguments about children’s distance from the civic and political

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sphere at a formal level (Wyness and others, 2004). Memories of politicians and parties were
wrapped up in significant social and life events and the sharing of familial memory. Through her
grandfather’s swearing, Apara remembered Thatcher’s Conservative election victory in 1979.

Quite frightening … the only time I’d heard my Grandfather swear … news bulletin on about Mar-
garet Thatcher … out for a certain section of the country and we weren’t in that section and even if
we had been … that still would have been wrong.

Similarly, Rehana learned to vote ‘Labour’ to protect her family’s immigration and other
rights (see above). Tessa was distressed by the assassination of Conservative politician, Airey
Neave (Hansard, 1979) who was a friend who visited her grandfather. ‘The bodyguards
taught us how to play … ‘‘bodyguard patience’’ … He was blown up … not very long after
… it was the first person I knew that had been killed.’

In relation to the mechanics of elections, memories were scarce. Unless politicians were con-
nected to significant childhood experience, there were fairly surface associations, some
amusement and puzzlement, ‘My parents used to deliberately vote to cancel each other’s vote
out …’(George). Some, such as Cathy had no memory of party politics ever being discussed
at home, although she experienced ‘political background noise’ during the power cuts. The
most memorable aspect of elections might be, ‘They would close school, and that was a good
thing’ (George). As they got older, some were drawn into electoral processes, whether these
were ‘mock elections’ at school, or real elections. Two remembered first voting, ‘[In1970] …
My mother, my father and myself went to vote. My mother had voted Conservative, I’d voted
Labour and my father had voted Liberal’ (Martin). Rachel’s father was Conservative. She first
voted in 1982, ‘… out of rebelliousness … in terms of human rights … Thatcher … constant
battles of the [Greater London Council] who were trying to do lots of things … I was only
ever gonna be a Labour voter’. For Martin and Rachel, these political decisions were more
possible because of their access to ideas from the social movements and cultural arrange-
ments of their times. For James, it was not possible to divert from Unionism, ‘deeply inter-
twined with the Fence … no real interest, to be honest, of the politics … very, very clear,
you voted this, or you had allegiance to that, full stop … no real choice’.

Political alignment involved navigating landscapes where social events were politicized in
different ways, through family, community and state. Popular unrest, youth cultural arrange-
ments and social movements may have added to fears and also increased the range of politi-
cal choices. Respondents aligned to groups that they felt connected to their everyday lives,
fears and concerns. Some learned early the significance of party politics; that particular par-
ties may protect their own and their families’ interests related to social class, ethnicity or
particular sides in violent conflict. For others, the mechanics of voting and formal participa-
tion felt more distant. This does not mean they lacked political engagement.

Conclusion
This article has considered three aspects of children’s political engagement that may enrich
understanding for their more formal political inclusion and support calls for a more radical
and pluralist approach (Cockburn, 2007).

First, wider social events are politicized in complex ways in everyday childhood. There are
different political frameworks available to evaluate everyday experience. Political back

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ground noise accompanies major social events. Children navigate politicized landscapes
that include a cacophony of voices about right, wrong and how things might be changed
(Lefebvre, 1991). They are already differently included in complex political processes, learn-
ing politics through their engagements in family, community and state. Selective social
memory is shared at all these levels, tying children to different times, places, groups and
political beliefs (Halbwachs, 1925 ⁄ 1992). Apara’s childhood involved a political education in
her family that linked her to a much earlier period of struggle in the depression of the
1930s. The place where James lived was rigidly differentiated by politics and religion, ‘You
meet somebody in the street and they asked you a question and the question has one of two
answers … it’s called survival’. These divisions cut across childhoods where he lived.

Second, political engagement has a deep emotional aspect. Children’s political understanding
develops in relation to experiences, fears and caring connections with others. Because the
places they occupy are differently politicized, similar children, like Kate and Tessa, develop
different political understanding. Both cared deeply about people and animals, but one iden-
tified with and one feared the animal rights movement. It is important to recognize the emo-
tional paradoxes children face and that emotions are uppermost in informing how and
whether they politically engage (Hochschild, 1998; Jaggar, 1996).

Third, children’s political alignment is a temporal process (Adam, 1995). Children weave con-
nections between their many everyday experiences, political influences, people and social
organizations. Their alignment draws on the past and involves hopes for the future. It may
be the outcome of a long process of exclusion; this is how Rachel came to feminism. It may
involve critical turning points, such as Paulina, learning of a death in custody. It may be a
temporary or more permanent alignment; with other children and with adults. Children such
as James may have a very limited range of choices because they live in conflict areas. Chil-
dren may feel distance from processes of formal political representation; unless they feel
their everyday significance and that they provide safety for the people they care about.
Rehana, for example, learned the importance of supporting the Labour party because of
direct threats to her community. Children ‘have to negotiate their agency through social
spaces of their own changing times’ (Nolan, 2001, p. 310) and may feel more immediate
connection to the less organized spaces of community. As with Rachel and Martin, it may be
in social or youth movements that ‘the genuine political participation of children’, is seen
(Ben-Arieh and Boyer, 2005, p. 49) but there are many other sites for children’s political
participation related to their shared interests with and concern for adults.

Clearly it is not possible to generalize from the past experiences discussed here to the lives
of today’s children. Nor is it possible to draw linear causative connections from past events
to explain personal political alignments (Neale and Flowerdew, 2003). However, it is possible
to gain deeper understanding of the form that children’s political engagement takes, to give
more attention to their connectedness with others, their emotional ties and their feelings of
fear and empathy in relation to the particular places and times they occupy. At the time of
writing, children are visible in different protests related to war, the treatment of refugees,
and cuts in education and welfare. This is despite a continued refrain that they lack serious-
ness and political understanding. The form of their political engagement is not necessarily
different to that of adults, but may be more transparently grounded in feelings of fear and
care, as well as less cluttered by ideas about formal representation. It is essential to support
Cockburn (2007, p. 454) and look beyond formal forms of representation when encouraging
children to make their own political claims, ‘The onus should not be put on young people to

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Children & Society  2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited
 Children’s Political Engagement 11

change … the surroundings must change to suit the young people’. Children’s engagement is
not formulaic; what is important for one group and one generation may differ. However,
shared memories and experiences generate political links across and within generations.

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Correspondence to: Dr. Dorothy Moss, Principal Lecturer, Childhood Studies, Leeds Metropolitan University, Carnegie
Hall, Carnegie Faculty, Headingley Campus, Leeds LS6 3QS, UK, Tel.: 0113 2832600 ext 24715; Fax: 0113 2837410.
E-mail: d.moss@leedsmet.ac.uk

Accepted for publication 25 March 2011

 2011 The Author(s) CHILDREN & SOCIETY (2011)

Children & Society  2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited