SLIPPERY AS FISH... BUT ALREADY CAUGHT? SECONDARY STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT WITH SCHOOL RULES

Drawing on nine focus groups with secondary students in southern Ontario, we investigated secondary students’ perceptions of, and experiences with, school codes of conduct and their application. While generally supporting the ‘big’ rules such as no weapons, students engaged more critically with minor ones. We drew on Foucault’s governmentality studies to discuss students’ successful compliance. We evaluated students’ contestation of the rules, rule‐breaking as potential resistance, and rule breaking as a manifestation of students’ desire. Although students challenge school rules, they are “already caught” within the dominant language that frames the rules and their top‐down application, with little sense of themselves as potent political actors. Key words: discipline, citizenship, resistance, secondary education D’après neuf groupes de disccusion d’étudiants au niveau secondaire du sud de l’Ontario, nous avons enquêté leurs points de vue et leurs expériences au sujet des règlements de leurs écoles et leurs méthodes d’application. Généralement, les étudiants sont en faveur des ‘grands’ règlements, tel que armes interdites, mais ils sont plus critiques envers les moins importants. D’après les études de gouvernementalité de Foucault, nous discutons comment les étudiants réussissent à se conformer. Nous avons évalué la contestation des règlements par les étudiants, l’évasion des règlements comme résistance potentielle, et l’évasion des règlements comme manifestation des désirs des étudiants. Même si les étudiants résistent les règlements, ils sont “déjà pris” à l’intérieur d’un language dominant qui encadre les règlements et leur application par les haut‐placés. Ainsi, ils ont l’impression d’être impuissants comme acteurs politiques. Mots clés: discipline, citoyenneté, resistance, education secondaire

ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? SPACE, CONTEXT AND PERSPECTIVE IN THE REGULATION OF MP3 PLAYERS AND CELL PHONES IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

Recently, there has been much media coverage about cell phone and personal music player usage in schools, including in the Toronto and Whitton regions. However, there is little literature on how students and teachers view rules on the use of such electronic devices. Using data gathered from focus groups with students in Toronto and Whitton and interviews with teachers and administrators from Whitton, we present the viewpoints from these stakeholders on the usage of cellphonesandpersonalmusicplayers. Weframethispreliminarydiscussion around six themes: the importance of context; public/private space and cyberbullying; safety; regulation and enforcement; and tension between integratedandperipheralusersofdigitaltechnology. Weconcludethattherole of such electronic devices in school is understood quite differently between administrators, teachers and students, that music players and cell phones are not equivalent and that movements towards top-down „blanket‟ rules limit input from most stakeholders.

Children's participation as neo-liberal governance?

Children's participation initiatives have been increasingly introduced within various institutional jurisdictions around the world, partly in response to Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Such initiatives have been critically evaluated from a number of different angles. This article engages with an avenue of critique which argues that children's participatory initiatives resonate with a neoliberal economic and political context that prioritises middle class, western individualism and ultimately fosters children's deeper subjugation through self-governance. Respecting these as legitimate concerns, this article draws on two counter-positions to argue that while children's participation can certainly be conceptualised and practised in ways that reflect neo-liberal, individualised self-governance, it does not necessarily do so. To make this argument I engage, on the one hand, with Foucault's work on the care of the self, and on the other, with more collective approaches to participation

Early teen-work assemblages and embedded dependence

This chapter aims to trouble the common linkage often made between work, independence and adulthood by emphasizing how young workers are embedded in human and non-human collectivities of interwoven dependences. We focus on two 16-year-old participants from conventional interview and photo elicitation interview data with 32 Canadian young people discussing their first part-time jobs, to we recognize how our participants, and indeed all of us, are embedded ‘in the midst of an open-ended swirl of extensions and supplementations’ (Lee 2001, 115). These entangled dependences can activate privilege; they also bolster the illusion of individual independence and autonomy. The intent of this chapter is to work with ideas from Actor Network Theorist Nick Lee and from Deleuze and Guattari to reveal this illusion, for we are all enmeshed in dependency. We particularly focus on four components of teen-work assemblages: family; time, space and bodies; tools/machinery, practices and roles; and capitals/money

Constructs of childhood, generation and heroism in editorials on young people's climate change activism: Their mobilisation and effects

We analyse the effects of constructions and mobilisations of childhood, generation and girl heroism in 30 Canadian editorials written in response to 2019 climate change protests. We discuss how the editorials strategically position—and sometimes dismiss—young activists through discourses of childhood innocence, becoming and social participation. Second, we focus on how the editorials mobilise generation to emphasise either generational division or cross‐generational solidarity. Finally, we problematise the editorials' concentration on individualised girl heroism. We thus contextualise and deconstruct truth statements around age, generation and heroism, emphasising instead their effects and the potential for certain narratives to better recognise the diversity and solidarity in climate change activism

Off track or on point? Side comments in focus groups with teens

Side comments and conversations in focus groups can pose challenges for facilitators. Rather than seeing side comments as problematic behavior or “failed” data, we argue that they can add to and deepen analyses. Drawing on focus group data with grade nine students from a study on early work, in this methodological paper we discuss three patterns. First, side comments have highlighted where participants required clarification, and illustrated their views and questions about the research process. Second, side comments added new data to our analysis, including personal reflections, connections to others’ comments, and information about participants’ uncertainties about the research topics. Third, these comments offered insight into peer relations and dynamics, including participants’ reflections on age, and how they deployed gender relations in their discussions. Provided that their use fits within established ethical protocols, we argue that there is a place for attention to side comments, especially in focus group research with young people where adult-teen hierarchies and peer dynamics might lead young people to engage more with peers than directly respond to researchers’ questions

Navigating babysitting as liminal, gendered, and undervalued work

Babysitting is a common early-work experience in the West, yet there is little research on babysitters. From in-depth, qualitative interviews with 16 babysitters, we explore three themes related to liminality and gender inequality in babysitting. First, babysitting is a skilled job; many babysitters undertook formal and informal training and used it at work. Second, babysitters occupy a liminal position between childhood and adulthood, bringing challenges and opportunities at work. Finally, babysitters thoughtfully negotiate pay, but sometimes experience challenges doing so

“I’ll be more prepared than most people”: Very young Canadian workers talking about their first jobs

We report on interviews with very young Canadian workers regarding their first jobs, with a focus on why they started working, the rewards and risks of their work, and their familial supports. Our participants were largely positive about their early work experiences, although they also raised concerns, e.g. about safety. We reflect on three inter-related themes emerging from their accounts: competence and vulnerability, independence and dependence, and protection and under-protection