Kid Power, Inequalities and Intergenerational Relations

This book combines theories of power with empirical material on children’s lives across the world to propose a novel framework for understanding kid power. It explores the nature of power relations between children and adults and provides a critical analysis of kid power, considering inequalities and inter-generational relations. Contemporary understandings of inter-generational relations assume that the balance of power has shifted from adults towards children in recent years. The rise of children’s rights, the trend towards more child-centred pedagogies and practices within schools and the incorporation of children within a global free market as consumers have all been interpreted as the loss of adult power and the consequent growth of kid power. This book critically examines these ideas and reframes the zero-sum conceptions of power implicit within such assumptions. It draws on Lukes’ three dimensions of power and Foucault’s theory of power and knowledge in advancing the view that kid power is inter-generational, multi-dimensional and distributed variably across the child population. The book illustrates this theory through children’s political activism, their digital power and the varied roles they play within their families and communities. The book also offers a brief re-examination of kid power within the current context of Covid-19.