Peer-reviewed article

The child as a medium. Breakdown and possible resurgence of children’s agency in the era of pandemic

Sara Amadasi, Claudio Baraldi · 4 May 2022

Summary

Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001

This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected children's agency and education systems in Italy. It argues that the pandemic promoted a narrative treating children as passive recipients of learning rather than active agents. The paper describes the CHILD-UP research project, which investigates how to support and analyse children's agency and structural flexibility in classroom interactions during uncertain times.

Key points

The pandemic has undermined children's agency by promoting a narrative of the child as a medium of learning
Structural flexibility in education is presented as a way to face unpredictability
The CHILD-UP project focuses on hybrid integration and learning dialogue to upgrade participation policies
Children's agency and classroom interactions were studied as part of the research

Limitations

The document is an abstract or introduction that does not provide data on outcomes, study findings, or empirical evidence about the effectiveness of the CHILD-UP approach. It does not describe the actual results or impact of the intervention.

Abstract

This paper deals with the unpredictable outbreak of the pandemic, explaining its impact on the education system, and with structural flexibility as a way to face unpredictability, based on the generalisability and coordination of manifestations of agency. The pandemic has enhanced a narrative of the child as a medium of learning, which undermines children's agency. The example of the research project CHILD-UP (Children Hybrid Integration: Learning Dialogue as a way of Upgrading policies of Participation) is used to show how children's agency and structural flexibility in classroom interactions can be supported and analysed.

Findings the Hub has extracted

Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.

DevelopmentParticipation

Problem

The pandemic undermines children's agency by treating them as passive mediums of learning rather than active participants

Intervention: CHILD-UP (Children Hybrid Integration: Learning Dialogue as a way of Upgrading policies of Participation) - a research project supporting children's agency and structural flexibility in classroom interactions
Population: Children in Italian education system during the pandemic

Key finding

The pandemic narrative treats children as mediums of learning, undermining agency

Practitioner