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Thousands of children and youth across the country took to the streets for two weeks in spring 1947 to protest a three-cent increase in the price of chocolate bars. The protest initially generated enthusiastic press coverage and had widespread popular support, but when the National Federation of Labor Youth (nfly), the Communist Party's youth organization, announced its support, anti-communists in the press and the community red-baited the protesters. The campaign quickly lost momentum, which anti-communists attributed to the presence of Communists but was more likely due to their own red-baiting attacks in the press. Some of these protests were spontaneous reactions to a 40 per cent increase in the price of candy bars, while others were led or inspired by nfly. Either way, the countrywide mobilization of thousands of children and youth marks a turning point in the history of Canada's left. Erupting in tandem with a nationwide strike of industrial workers and protests of activist consumers demanding greater economic security and a more responsive state, the children's chocolate bar protest provides a window on this critical moment in the class struggle. The attacks on this popular protest at the moment that the long run of community-based militancy was about to be demonized, delegitimated, and silenced by red-baiting marks a significant milestone in Canada's Cold War. In addition to adding the youngsters' challenge to capital and the state to the history of the popular left, the event contributes to the growing literature on children and youth engaged in political protest, while their creative protest strategies offer a youthful dimension to the study of performance activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The beliefs and behaviors of U.S. adults are increasingly sorted and polarized along partisan lines. We draw on studies of partisanship and social identity formation to argue that children develop partisanship as a social identity during the political socialization process. For a group of children, their partisan social identity produces an affective (and largely negative) evaluation of the political world. Analyzing survey data collected from 1500+ children ages 6–12 in 2017 and 2018, we show that some children develop a partisan identity as they learn about politics that operates similarly to other social identities like gender and race. Children's partisanship is associated with negative affective evaluations of politics, particularly leaders of the other political party. Using an innovative measurement tool, we show affective, negative reactions in children's open-ended responses, including when they are asked to draw a political leader. Other children simply learn about politics without developing partisan identities and thus hold more positive affective evaluations of the political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various issues on peace and the politics of childhood in the late Cold War as referred to the case of Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, peace activist and child actress, who became famous during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union when she got a reply to a letter she wrote to Yuri Andropov, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Smith, who accepted Andropov's invitation to visit the Soviet Union, together with her family, visited the country on July 7, 1983. The letter exchange between Smith and Andropov received a mixture of sympathy and derision from U.S. citizens. She became the focus for high-profile partisan debates over the arms race. Narratives about her life changed after she died in 1985.

From the early Frankfurt School through to the work of Manuel Castells, there has been a rich body of work on the cleavage between technological and social developments of the twentieth century in respect of the consequences for the constitution of subjectivity. However, little attention is paid to the role of children during their childhoods in attempts to bridge this gap beyond discussions about the democratic actors children will become when they are adults. This paper argues that only the full integration of children, during their childhoods, into democratic development of societies will prevent the deepening of the rift between technological and social progress. The paper traces the correspondence between the new childhood studies and those concepts of politics and politicisation which can support social progress towards an emancipatory social perspective undergirded by particular and democratisation of all areas of everyday life. Drawing on Bourdieu and ideas of participation as action, the paper critically examines the various mechanisms by which children are conventionally excluded from democratic participation and then explores how a deeper consideration of agency in childhood and social actorship opens up alternative mechanisms of inclusion and the concomitant expansion of the concept of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article analyses the possibilities of producing the common in school by the children. Schools have favoured the development of individualities centred on aims of self-realization and individual competitive performance. Beyond these identifications that secure personal interests and survival, the conviviality with the others in school poses demands that allow for children's mobilization in the construction of collective senses, actions, territories and social spaces. In the present work, the issue of the break-time constitutes the dispositif whereby children institute, however ephemerally and punctually, singular points of view on their particular gerational position in school. We discuss the results of an empirical research carried out in a municipal school in Rio de Janeiro and argue for the "public voice of children" in their process of collectively engaging to recreate the school context. We conclude considering the relevance of bridging the distance between the fields of politics and childhood as it seems necessary to give an answer to the question about what childhood has to do with democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates childhood politics through a case study of voluntary sector responses to benefit sanctions in the UK. This article explores the absent 'voices' of children in this resistance and considers, in contrast, the possibilities of engaging with children's perspectives in political endeavours. We argue for the importance of moving away from both simple platitudes about listening to 'the voice of the child' and the political retreatism that results from a sole focus on the impossibilities of representation. Whilst aware of inevitable power relations between children and adults, we suggest 'solidarity' as an animating concept, emphasising attention to the processes whereby people are differently impoverished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relations between those positioned as women and as children, and the political and intellectual consequences of how we conceptualise these connections, has received only scant attention. In this article we describe a symposium and on-going project which aim to bring together community-based and academic scholars to debate the intersections and perceived antagonisms between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. We trace how these intersections have been debated in the literature and outline the potential benefits and pitfalls of encouraging further connections between these fields. Drawing on our symposium experience, we also outline the challenges involved in bringing together academic and community-based scholars and activists, and consider the implications for similar future endeavours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender gap is one of the main puzzles explored in research on political knowledge. Studies on children have shown that this phenomenon takes root in childhood. Girls score lower than boys on knowledge tests, despite cultural developments promoting greater gender equality. How can the gender gap in children’s political knowledge be explained? This article examines the leading explanations for the gender gap found in the literature in light of the results of an original empirical study conducted with French children in primary school. It suggests that the gender gap in children’s political knowledge does not mainly result from either specific social inequalities or methodological bias, although the study does find that question-answering behavior differs between boys and girls. Rather, the gender gap appears to primarily result from socialization. Children progressively develop different perceptions of politics according to their gender, as well as different approaches to knowledge tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses historical documents produced by children in Mexico from 1921 to 1940 in the years after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), such as letters, drawings, and writings. Particular focus is given to the views of children on the historical process Mexico was going through at that time. Topics discussed include the new concept of education brought about by the post-revolution government, political and social participation of Mexican children in that context, and cultural programs of the education bureau Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP).

This paper sets out to explore children's worlds as potential fields of political action. Children are approached as competent political agents whose mundane lives are permeated by politics in which they have their own positions and roles. The paper discusses how children can be found to act politically in their everyday lives and, to some extent, also practice their own political geographies. The main objective is to propose a theoretical basis for recognising the political aspects of children's agency and studying political geographies embedded in children's lived worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on children often fails to consider the impact of children's agency from a political perspective. Recent literature in political and children's geography has begun affording children the possibility of being political actors. Attention to the differences that children bring and make through their everyday becomings - what children often do - permits recognizing a range of children's activities as political work. Examples from children's everyday activities in Latino immigrant families along the US/Mexico border demonstrate how children often connect their families to politics at a variety of scales. They also help recognize the political possibilities that emerge out of consideration of the many spaces that children occupy and produce in contemporary societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the active role of children in everyday politics. Distinct from empowerment, it is suggested that children can be political on their own terms. The article focuses on revealing the social production of childhood, which takes place in the confrontation between child policy and children's own politics. Children's bodies are found to be both the main focus of policy practices and a central avenue of children's own agency. Hence, children are understood to be not only objects of policy, but also embodied political subjects. Using the example of Finnish child evacuees’ experiences during the Second World War, it is shown that, despite their positions in policy fields, children do act as political selves. Using the ideas of Michel de Certeau and Carl Schmitt, it is argued that there is an autonomous politics to children which can be recognized as a significant means of coping in their everyday lives. On these grounds, the article sets out to use Pierre Bourdieu's concept of political struggle in considering childhood spatialities in more detail. Overall, children's politics are understood as a wider geographical concept which requires further examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Involving children in policy is now popular, a recent UK example being the consultation on Every Child Matters. This can be viewed as progress in increasing children's status as stakeholders in policy formation. However, questions remain about the reality of children's engagement and the validity of the methods used to gather, analyse and present their views. We need to protect children from exploitative or tokenistic processes and differentiate between gathering children's views and involving them as partners in policy formation. The former requires greater rigour of methodology. The latter requires moving from short term policy development to a longer term shared engagement enabling powerful adults and children to think collaboratively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the ways in which the Commonwealth Games Baton was integrated into a day in the lives of Montserratian children and symbolized aspects of their complex political status and geographical spatiality in Great Britain. Citizenship and political identity are going to be crucial features of Montserratian children's lives as they grow up.

The article discusses issues about children, childhood and political participation in relation to case studies of young people's councils from India and England. Membership of a political community is based on the idea of a social contract. Membership is granted on the basis that any rights to participate and have a voice in the running of an institution or the governing of a territory bring with them obligations or responsibilities. Adults always mediate children's worlds. It is thus difficult to think of children as political actors. The idea of children's interests, on the other hand, takes children as the primary reference point. Children's interests' often consists of pressing adults to meet their needs. Where interests have been articulated it is quite often children making demands on adults to provide adequate guidance and protection. International opinion on children has been informed by the problems of child poverty, child labor and child abuse with a concomitant gravitational pull towards children's needs. The issue of influence is also a significant feature of the councilors' accounts of their roles. With respect to the English councils the influence that young people aim to have here over the adult population is couched in terms of challenging a needs model of childhood, the assumption that children necessarily have to be kept in line by adult authority figures.

Two questions are considered: to what extent do children's levels of political knowledge and news media use change during an election campaign? To what extent are levels of political knowledge related to levels and types of news media use? The hypothesis that news media use at one point in time is related to subsequent levels of political knowledge is tested using crosslagged partial correlation analysis. The patterns of political knowledge and news media use in January (prior to the 1976 primaries), late May and early June, and after the general election among a panel of high school students are examined. The means indicate a small increase in news media use and a more substantial increase in political knowledge. A greater increase occurs in political knowledge about campaign and election relevant institutions and processes than about other types of political institutions and processes. Limited support is provided for the hypothesized lagged influence of news media use; the impact varies with the political interest of the student and the type of news media used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]