UPCOMING
CHILDISM AND PROTAGONISMO IN LATIN AMERICA
Spring and Summer 2025
The following series of conversations explore a new project on "Childism and Protagonismo in Latin America." The project is organized by Monique Voltarelli, Universidade de Brasília, and John Wall, Rutgers University. The aim of the project is to critically examine the relationship between these two terms with the aim of producing a special issue of a journal on the topic. The conversations and subsequent publications will take place in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
While these conversations have a workshop format, anyone is welcome to attend and provide comments. Participants may wish to use an online translator.
All meetings take place at 08:30-10:00 UTC-5 / 09:30-11:00 UTC-4 / 10:30-12:00 UTC-3.
Wednesday February 19, 2025: Presentations by John Wall and Monique Voltarelli introducing
the themes of childism and protagonismo
Wednesday March 12, 2025: Maria Cristina Soares de Gouvea, "Infancia, Protagonismo e
Participacao: Crianca e Movimentos Sociais"; and Paüla Shabel and Santi Morales, "Palabras Como
Amuletos: Intergeneracionalidad y Perspectiva Niña"
Wednesday April 9, 2025: Lourdes Gaitán
Wednesday May 14, 2025: Rossana Mendoza Zapata, Fabian Nichel Valenzuela, and Irene Rizzini
Wednesday June 11, 2025 at different time: 11:30-13:00 UTC-5 / 12:30-14:00 UTC-4 / 13:30-15:00 UTC-3: Natalia Sepúlveda Kattan and Gustavo Belisário
Next!
SPECIAL DOSSIER OF THE JOURNAL CHILDHOOD & PHILOSOPHY
Spring and Fall 2025
The following series of conversations engages with articles and themes published in the special issue ("special dossier") of the journal childhood & philosophy on the theme of "Confronting Adultcentrism: Childist and Decolonial Interventions in Educational Philosophies and Institutions." The special issue can be found here. The special dossier is guest edited by Tanu Biswas and Toby Rollo and the conversations below take place in a variety of languages.
Discussions last 90 minutes and include brief presentations, responses, and time for open discussion. Anyone interested is welcome to attend.
Language
English
Français
Español
Deutsch
Português
Skandinavisk
(Dansk/Norsk/
Svensk)
Italian
Main Hosts
Tanu Biswas (University of Stavanger), Joanna Haynes (Plymouth University Institute of Education), David Kennedy (Montclair State University), Yao Luo (Hunan Normal University), Toby Rollo (Lakehead University), Itay Snir (Yezre'el Valley Academic College), and John Wall (Rutgers University)
Elsa Roland (University of Namur), Serena Iacobino (Free University of Brussels - ULB). Yves Bonnardel (Indepedent), Gabriel Allegret (University of Science Po), Claire Greslé-Favier (University of Teacher Education of Vaud), and Cécile Kovacshazy (University of Limoges)
Edgar Eslava (Universidad Santo Tomás), Pedro Hernando Maldonado Castañeda (Universitat de Barcelona), Erick Javier Padilla Rosas (Marquette University
Manfred Liebel (University of Applied Sciences Potsdam) and Philip Meade (University of Applied Sciences Potsdam)
Otavio Henrique Ferreira da Silva (Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais), Vanessa Vanin Chaves (Universidade do Planalto Catarinense), Vinicius Bertoncini Vicenzi (Universidade do Planalto Catarinense)
Maria Louise Larsen Hedegaard (Aarhus University), Hanne Warming (Roskilde University), and Sarah Alminde (Roskilde University)
Serena Iacobini (KY Leuven), Maura Tripi (University of Catania), and Tanu Biswas (Stavanger University)
Dates
Thursday, 27th February, 15:00 CET
Thursday, 27th March, 18:00 CET (120 mins)
Thursday, 24th April, 15:00 CET
Thursday, 26th June, 15:00 CET
Thursday, 28th August, 15:00 CET
Thursday, 9th October, 15:00 CET
Thursday, 20th November, 15:00 CET
Next!
PH.D. MASTERCLASS IN CHILDISM 2025
This online course provides an opportunity for early-career Ph.D. students to develop an in-depth understanding of the critical theory of childism.
Organized by the Childism Institute and key scholars in childist research, it explores what it means to empower children by transforming norms and structures in societies. The three central modules examine the central concept of childism, how it relates to other critical theories such as feminism and decolonialism, and what it might look like in practical research and activism.
This free course provides students multiple opportunities to interact with established scholars from around the world, network with other doctoral students in a diversity of academic programs, and develop new perspectives on their own research projects. No prior experience in childism is required.
GRUPO DE LEITURA SOBRE CRIANCISMO E ADULTOCENTRISMO
Este grupo de leitura explora o criancismo e o adultocentrismo por meio de textos selecionados, promovendo discussões críticas sobre dinâmicas intergeracionais. Nos reunimos duas vezes por semestre para analisar as leituras e compartilhar perspectivas.
Próximos encontros:
18 de setembro & 13 de novembro
14:00 – 15:30 GMT (Portugal) | 11:00 – 12:30 BRT (Brasil) | 09:00 – 10:30 ET (United States)
Contato: Daniele Bruno Santana
PAST EVENTS
Sydney Campbell, Dalhousie University
WORKSHOP: CHILDISM AND MEDICINE
Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 10:00-11:00 am US ET
This hour-long workshop features a short presentation by Sydney Campbell, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Canada, on ways that a childist lens might inform medicine. This presentation is followed by extensive time for discussion.
In many Westernized pediatric health settings, the prevailing model of care delivery is often said to be "child and family-centred", acknowledging the pediatric patient as situated within a family or social circle that contributes to and informs the care they receive. Yet in practice, young people tend to remain on the margins of conversations and decisions that pertain to them in these settings, lacking opportunities to be meaningfully engaged as the implications of a particular decision become more serious--particularly in the context of end-of-life care. In this talk, we will highlight some of the personal and societal impacts of this "status quo" and open a forum for discussing the ways in which childism can inform directions and dialogue in this area moving forwards.
WORKSHOP ON DECOLONIALITY, CHILDISM AND INTERCULTURALITY
December 4, 2024, 14:00 - 17:00 Central European Time
Hosted by: Global Childhoods, Dep. of Pedagogy, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, in cooperation with the Childism Institute (Rutgers University – University of Stavanger – University of Roskilde), The Portuguese Society for Educational Research and The Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE), University of Porto
The notion of decoloniality has recently garnered significant attention in educational sciences globally. Scholars and educators have primarily used the notion to problematize the fact that content, course literature and forms of teaching have been steeped in Eurocentric structures and Western epistemologies, thereby excluding other ways of thinking and performing education. In relation to the less well-known notion of childism (a radical focus on children’s perspectives), and the more well-known notion of interculturality (a processual understanding of diversity), new ideas and new knowledge may be produced about decoloniality, children, childhoods and early childhood education. The aim of this workshop is to further develop a critical interdisciplinary understanding of these notions and their potential to further the understanding of contemporary global childhoods, as well as to be a starting point for a journal special issue.
PAST EVENTS
2023-2024
Heading 5
CHILDISM AND HISTORY
Presenters respond to the following questions:
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Can the lens of childism be helpful for historical research? That is, can placing children at the center of inquiry change broader understandings of history and/or historical scholarship?
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What, if anything, might distinguish childist approaches from other work in the history of childhoods?
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What might childism offer to historical research that complements other critical perspectives such as feminism, anti-racism, disabilities studies, and decolonialism?
Program (in US ET)
9:00 - 9:10 am: Introduction (John Wall)
9:10 - 10:00 am: Panel Presentations (10 minute each)
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Anna Mae Duane, Professor of English, University of Connecticut, United States, with expertise in 19th century US literature and race (website)
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Sivan Balslev, Lecturer in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, with expertise in modern Iranian childhoods and gender (website)
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Elena Jackson Albarrán, Associate Professor of History and Global and Intercultural Studies, Miami University, United States, with expertise in Latin American and Cold War childhoods (website)
- Julie Reus, Research Assistant in Modern History, University of Bayreuth, Germany, with expertise in kinship, sexuality, and deviance in the Federal Republic of Germany (website)
- Ishita Pande, Professor of History, Co-Convener of Global History Initiative, Queens University, Canada, with expertise in age and sex in post/colonial South Asia (website)
10:00 - 10:30 am: Open Discussion
Wednesday March 27th, 2024, 9:00 - 10:30 am US ET
Online via Zoom (join below)
Purpose
Patriarchy in the form of adultism is deeply rooted in history. Across a diversity of times, places, cultures, and social systems, adulthood (in similar ways to masculinity, Whiteness, heterosexism, and so on) has come to represent a normative humanity. This colloquium is the start of a project that aims to develop childist readings of history that both deconstruct its embedded adultism or age biases and lift up ways that children and adults have sought children's structural empowerment.
To this end, the colloquium explores possible connections between historical research and the critical lens of childism. While historical research has increasingly attended to children’s lived experiences, agency, and voices, it also needs to examine the underlying structural norms by which children are marginalized and/or empowered in the first place.
Gandhi and grandson at Salt March, 1930
CHILDISM AND DECOLONIALITY IN EUROPEAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Wednesday January 24th, 2024, 9:00 - 10:30 US ET (15.00 - 16.30 CET)
Online via Zoom (join below)
This is the first colloquium organised as part of the Childism Institute's project 'Childism and Decoloniality in European Educational Research'. It will address the relevance of age as an analytical category in research developments at the intersection of coloniality, racism and education. There will be short presentations by Tanu Biswas, Annette Hellman, Serena Iacobino and Elsa Roland, and Emiliano Macinai, followed by an open discussion.
Program (in US ET)
9:00 - 9:20: Introduction - Default Addressees of Pedagogy at the intersection of adultism and coloniality, Tanu Biswas (University of Stavanger)
The colloquium begins by introducing the shared interest of the presenters in advancing age-critical dimensions in educational research, especially at the intersection of diverse understandings of coloniality. The presentation will discuss the idea of children as ‘default addressees of pedagogy’ and the need for research cooperations that can contribute to age-inclusive transformations in educational relationships.
9:20 – 9:40: Reflections on childism and decoloniality from a Foucauldian and intersectional perspective, Serena Iacobino (KU Leuven) and Elsa Roland (University of Brussels)
This presentation takes as its starting point Michel Foucault's genealogies of childhood, scattered throughout his work, and made more complex by contemporary Foucauldian studies, in particular Silvia Federici's feminist research and Anne Laura Stoler's postcolonial studies. The genealogies and concepts of these various authors will enable us to produce an original methodological framework from an intersectional perspective. Indeed, since the 1990s, intersectionality has been used in various ways: the question is how we want to think about intersectionality with reference to Foucauldian analytical frameworks and their critics. From this point of view, thinking about an 'intersectional childhood', as a method and a praxis, helps to modify debates about childhood in different geographies and temporalities, in order also to highlight its agentivity.
9:40 – 10.30: Open Discussion and Conclusion
PREVIOUS EVENTS
CHILDISM AND DECOLONIALITY IN EUROPEAN EDUCATION RESEARCH
Thursday November 16, 2023, 15.00 - 16.30 CET (11:00am - 12:30 pm US ET)
Online via Zoom
Conveners of the project Childism and Decoloniality in European Education Research, warmly welcome you to the project’s first open meeting. This meeting is open for those who want to get to know more about this project. In the meeting the co-conveners will discuss:
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Upcoming submission of an application to the European Educational Research Association – see google doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qOM7VvzUmodL-HXcDQVpHcvdP2wNOVd06NXYzrSYAmU/edit?usp=sharing
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Preparation for a Transnational Childism Colloquium tentatively on 22.2.2024, 15-16.30 hrs CET
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Building the project’s webpage
Join Zoom Meeting
https://stavanger.zoom.us/j/6078250046?pwd=dEl3Rk1HNUJsVUFJOGFrQjZtSlhUQT09
Meeting ID: 607 825 0046
Password: 766532
Best,
Tanu Biswas (University of Stavanger), Annette Hellman (University of Gothenberg), Serena Iacobino (KU Leuven), Elsa Roland (University of Brussels) and Emiliano Macinai (University of Florence)
CHILDISM AND DECOLONIALITY IN EUROPEAN EDUCATION RESEARCH
Thursday November 16, 2023, 15.00 - 16.30 CET (11:00am - 12:30 pm US ET)
Online via Zoom
Conveners of the project Childism and Decoloniality in European Education Research, warmly welcome you to the project’s first open meeting. This meeting is open for those who want to get to know more about this project. In the meeting the co-conveners will discuss:
-
Upcoming submission of an application to the European Educational Research Association – see google doc here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qOM7VvzUmodL-HXcDQVpHcvdP2wNOVd06NXYzrSYAmU/edit?usp=sharing
-
Preparation for a Transnational Childism Colloquium tentatively on 22.2.2024, 15-16.30 hrs CET
-
Building the project’s webpage
Join Zoom Meeting
https://stavanger.zoom.us/j/6078250046?pwd=dEl3Rk1HNUJsVUFJOGFrQjZtSlhUQT09
Meeting ID: 607 825 0046
Password: 766532
Best,
Tanu Biswas (University of Stavanger), Annette Hellman (University of Gothenberg), Serena Iacobino (KU Leuven), Elsa Roland (University of Brussels) and Emiliano Macinai (University of Florence)
MOVING FORWARD WITH THE CHILDISM INSTITUTE
Friday September 27, 2023, 10:00-11:30 am US ET
Online via Zoom
After three years of transnational colloquia and other events, it is time to rethink how childism can be developed and critiqued in new ways. To this end, anyone interested childist theory, practice, and/or activism is invited to help think together about the following questions:
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How can theories and practices of childism better engage with work in childhood studies, critical childhood studies, critical children’s rights, and other critical approaches to understanding young people?
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Where might childism make deeper inroads into broader scholarship (in, e.g., history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, literature, law, and so on)?
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What would it take to develop more effective childist public activism (e.g. in voting rights, juvenile justice, education, and so on)?
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How are or could be children and young people better included in childist work?
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What are the best ways for the Childism Institute to use its limited resources over the next three years (e.g. more colloquia, broader collaborations, developing teaching resources, new publications, funding, and so on)?
This will be a brainstorming type of conversation, so bring your creativity and ideas. All are welcome to listen and/or contribute.
2022-2023
Heading 5
TROUBLING RESEARCH ETHICS
Friday April 21, 2023, 9:00-10:30 am US ET
Online via Zoom, Transnational Childism Colloquium
This colloquium explores the possibilities for a broadly (though not necessarily explicitly) childist approach to thinking about research ethics, that is, one that deconstructs prevailing adultist biases and tries to imagine more child-responsive research ethics for the future.
There are two presenters: Afua Twum-Danso Imoh of University of Bristol (UK), and Anna Sparrman of Linköping University (Sweden). These are preceded by an introduction by Tanu Biswas of University of Stavanger (Norway), and followed by short responses by Karin Murris of University of Oulu (Finland) and Peter Kraftl of University of Birmingham (UK).
CHILDISM AND DECOLONIALITY
Thursday February 9, 2023, 9:00-11:00 am US ET
Online via Zoom, Transnational Childism Colloquium
This colloquium explores the intersection of adult subordination of the young and colonial subordination of the ‘non-Western’ subject, along with a corresponding intersection of child and decolonial liberation.
There will be two panels: Panel 1 on “’The Child’ and Coloniality” with presentations by Toby Rollo (Lakehead University) and Lucia Rabello de Castro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro); and Panel 2 on “Politics and Education” with presentations by Tanu Biswas (University of Stavanger) and Erica Burman (University of Manchester). There will be plenty of time for open discussion.
Mary E. John, Child Marriage in an International Frame: A Feminist View from India
NEW BOOKS SERIES (with CCYSC: Critical Childhoods
and Youth Studies Collective)
November 11, 2022, 6:00 pm IST (India), online.
Discussants:
Samita Sen, University of Cambridge
Ravinder kaur, IIT Delhi
Madhu Mehra, Director, Partners for Law in Development
Chair: Janaki Nair
A CONVERSATION ABOUT COP 27:
TOWARD CHILD AND YOUTH CLIMATE JUSTICE?
November 10, 2022, 9:00-10:30 am US ET, online via Zoom.
While COP (Conference of Parties) 27 is taking place in Egypt, this panel of childhood scholars and young activists discusses how well the international community is responding to the climate concerns of children and youth. Discussion focuses on COP 27 as well as a range of relevant documents such as the COY (Conference of Youth) 17 "The Global Youth Statement.
2021-2022
Heading 5
CHILDIST APPROACHES TO LAW
April 29, 2022, online via Zoom. Transnational Childism Colloquium.
This colloquium brought together legal and childhood studies scholars to create new synergies that lay the groundwork for a new field of childism and law. Presenters were Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Rebecca Stern, Pernilla Leviner, Hiroharu Saito, Karl Hanson, Aoife Daly, Thoko Kaime, Nate Walker, Hedi Viterbo. Each addressed the following questions: (1) What critiques might a childist perspective make of the study and practice of law? (2) What solutions can childism offer for developing more child-responsive legal structures? (3) What conclusions might be drawn about how different senses of childism as discrimination and empowerment can be productively combined.
CHILDISM AND FEMINISM
February 25 2022, online via Zoom. Transnational Childism Colloquium.
Panelists critically interrogate the generative tensions and possible synergies between feminism and childism.
How can feminism contribute to rethinking the empowerment of young people? How could childism borrow from and contribute to feminist scholarship and struggles to dismantle neo-colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism and heteropatriarchy? What tensions emerge between feminist and childist visions of critical scholarship and a more just world? How can feminist intellectual and activist histories inform ongoing movements to empower children?
MINI-CONFERENCE ON JOURNAL SPECIAL
ISSUE
January 20, 2022, online via Zoom.
This mini-conference workshopped five articles for an upcoming special issue of the journal Children and Society on the theme of "Childism."
Presenters were Erica Burman, Manchester University, UK; Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, University of Wroclaw, Poland and Macarena Garcia, Pontifical Catholic University, Chile; Marek Tesar, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Britta Saal, Independent Scholar, Germany; and Julie Faith Parker, General
Theological Seminary, United States.
Paul Klee
Angelus Novus
CHILDISM AND PHILOSOPHY
December 10, 2021, online via Zoom. Transnational Childism Colloquium.
This colloquium brings together a diversity of perspectives to develop conceptual clarity about what could and should be meant by the term childism. What does the notion of childism mean? How could childism contribute to better understandings of human beings and relations? How is childism a challenge to the discipline of philosophy itself?
2020-2021
Heading 5
CHILDISM AND THE FUTURE OF
DEMOCRACY
May 21, 2021, online via Zoom. Transnational Childism Colloquium.
Co-organized with the Department of Child Studies, Linköping University, Sweden
This colloquium explores some of the pressing challenges to democracy today and stimulates a discussion around how we can build a more child-responsive democracy for the future. How does childism help address
challenges like populism, authoritarianism, migration, the climate, and the pandemic?
RACISM AND CASTEISM IN LIGHT OF
CHILDHOODS
March 26, 2021, online via Zoom. Transnational Childism Colloquium.
Co-organized with the Critical Childhoods and Youth Studies Collective (CCYSC), India
Four panelists introduce us to how structural racism and casteism intersect with the marginalization of childhoods. How may childism be related to global anti-discrimination/privilege-critical movements? What can it learn from them? And what can it contribute?
EXPLORING CHILDISM ACROSS DISCIPLINES
INAUGURAL ADVISORY BOARD MEETING
June 11, 2020 online via Zoom.
The first meeting of the Childism Institute Advisory Board, to plan mission, projects, and organization.