Conference Program

In contemporary educational debates, the concept of agency has become a recurring keyword in reflections on democratic education and childhood. Often interpreted as an intrinsic quality of the child or as an individual competence to be fostered, agency risks being framed as a neutral and transferable attribute, almost independent of the relational and institutional conditions that make its enactment possible. Starting from the idea of children as citizens in the present, agency is situated within a broader reflection on democratic experience in early educational contexts. Rather than being reduced to the transmission and acquisition of civic values or formal competences, it concerns the construction of conditions that enable meaningful participation and shared action. In this perspective, agency does not simply coincide with the possibility of choice or self-expression; rather, it entails participation in processes that generate recognisable effects within one’s own context, in this case the school environment. The empirical core of this contribution consists of participatory workshops conducted as part of a doctoral research project involving primary and lower secondary school classes. These workshops, focused on the co-design and transformation of school spaces, are analysed not so much in terms of their design outcomes, but rather through the decision-making processes that underpin them. A central role is played by student assemblies, understood as pedagogical devices for public deliberation. During these moments, proposals developed within small groups are presented, discussed, and collectively reformulated. The assembly thus becomes a space where dynamics of leadership, conflict, alliance, and mediation are made visible, and where decisions are not reduced to simple voting procedures but are constructed through argumentation, negotiation, and engagement with concrete constraints, such as safety regulations involved in modifying school spaces. It is within the assembly space that agency emerges as a situated practice: not merely the individual expression of preferences, but participation in a collective process capable of shaping shared decisions. The comparative analysis shows that, despite similar declared objectives, participatory practices produce different outcomes depending on the context. In some cases, agency takes the form of an increased awareness of the possibility of influencing one’s environment; in others, it assumes a more transformative dimension, challenging spatial and organisational arrangements predefined by adults. These are not different forms of agency, but situated enactments, shaped by school culture and social context. Furthermore, a gap emerges between the principles of democratic education and everyday practices: participation is often reduced to choices within pre-defined boundaries, resulting in predominantly formal experiences. Agency thus appears not as an acquired condition, but as a process that depends on the organisational and relational conditions that make it possible. From this perspective, early educational contexts can be understood as spaces in which democratic participation is not assumed, but constructed through concrete and shared practices.