A Preschooler's Agency: Why Did Different Types of Agency Emerge in Social Interaction?

• In Event: 61.071 - Sheraton Roundtable Session 10 - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 61.071-9 - Centering the Voices of Children

Abstract

Agency is children's power to act purposefully, negotiate roles, and construct relationships with others based on their own desire and ability as well as resources and constraints of the context (Choi, 2018). This study explores a preschooler’s different types of agency through looking at the power structure and friendship network among peers. In particular, the reasons behind contradictory types of agency, submissive participation and control of interaction will be investigated. As an ethnographic case study, this study illustrates how the preschooler came to understand himself and others in the figured worlds and endeavored to enter the world through displaying different types of agency.

Author

• YoungAe Choi, University at Buffalo - SUNY