ChildAct16 · Shaping a Preferable Future: Children Reading, Thinking and Talking about Alternative Communities and Times
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2017-08-21 → 2018-08-20
- EU contribution
- €97,727
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Shaping a Preferable Future: Children Reading, Thinking and Talking aboutAlternative Communities and Times
Utopianism means being critical about one’s society, desiring alternatives to sociopolitical conditions one does not like, and expressing these alternatives. All this is often done in literature, including children’s books. The ability to understand literary images of alternative political and social orders plays a crucial role in effecting transformation both at individual and societal levels. Equally important is the ability to form and express one’s own ideas about the desired future, especially in the context of intergenerational solidarity and dialogue. However, the significance of children’s views about the growth of better societies is hardly ever acknowledged. Therefore, ChildAct: Shaping a Preferable Future: Children Reading, Thinking and Talking about Alternative Communities and Times has explored whether and how books make children think about their own role in shaping their future and the future of their communities in collaboration with adults. The project has proposed to achieve this aim through participatory research with children, that is, research with children as researchers working with adult researchers. This kind of research, still uncommon in children’s literature studies, is important because it acknowledges children’s impact on societies and produces knowledge that can only be made by children themselves, making academic research directly relevant to children’s lives as a cultural practice sustaining intergenerational dialogue. The final result of the grant is a new model of child-led children’s literature research based on connectivity, rooted in local communities, and addressing global issues.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Despite overall agreement that children’s voices matter in the development of policies affecting them, little effort has beenmade to develop cultural practices encouraging utopianism as a critical attitude to reality and a means of facilitating theexpression of formative opinions on the part of children. Nor have young readers’ interpretations of utopian literature beeninvestigated as indicating their perception of the sociopolitical arrangements around them, including the context of the EU.Notwithstanding the popularity of YA dystopian fiction, little attention has been given to utopian contents in other children’stexts. A specialist in children’s literature studies and utopian studies, Deszcz-Tryhubczak addresses these lacunae in aproject examining utopianism as a significant element of discourse about children, manifesting in various cultural productsaddressed to them. She also conducts empirical participatory research (with children as peer researchers) aimed at creatingegalitarian spaces within which young readers are not only heard but also collaborate with adults towards a betterunderstanding of how books shape ideas for the desirable future. This approach—an innovation in children’s literaturestudies—has a huge potential for making children’s literature scholarship relevant to young people’s lives as a culturalpractice sustaining intergenerational dialogue. Thus this project is challenge-based and integrates unprecedentedlychildren’s literature studies, empirical studies of literature and media, utopian studies, and childhood studies. The fellow willpublish its results in one article and a co-edited a collection. She will organize a colloquium for international scholars. Herstay at Anglia Ruskin will be crucial in her obtaining full professorship and in her leading a children’s literature researchcenter in Poland. No secondment is proposed, but the research and public outreach activities provide opportunities toexpose her work to the public.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY · ChelmsfordCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/745888
- https://cyplc.wordpress.com/2018/08/03/child-act-shaping-a-preferable-future-childrens-reading-thinking-and-talking-about-alternative-communities-and-times/
Data: CORDIS, © European Union