Conference Program

This co-authored paper, written by an adult scholar and a young person, examines children as present political actors whose everyday experiences in school reveal ongoing negotiations with power, authority and democracy. The collaboration itself is a deliberate enactment of the argument: that children are not citizens-in-waiting but legitimate co-producers of political knowledge. By sharing authorship, the paper seeks to live the democratic and intergenerational values it advocates.

The paper argues that children already participate in political life through subtle acts of compliance, resistance, solidarity and collective action within and beyond formal schooling. Drawing on Ivan Illich’s critique of institutionalized education and Foucault’s analysis of discipline and surveillance, contemporary schooling is situated within neoliberal structures that normalize hierarchy, performance and compliance. At the same time, Václav Havel’s notion of the “ideological excuse” helps illuminate how children strategically conform to institutional expectations in order to avoid sanction and preserve spaces of autonomy. The presentation will explore real-life examples of such ideological excuses, while privately disengaging, questioning or reinterpreting their experiences.

Building on James C. Scott’s concept of infrapolitics, the paper examines everyday forms of resistance, such as minimal compliance, quiet refusals, peer solidarities and selective participation, as “hidden transcripts” that coexist with public conformity. These practices reveal children’s political literacy and their capacity to interpret and negotiate institutional power without necessarily engaging in overt confrontation.

The paper also turns, briefly, to more visible collective struggles through Gramsci’s distinction between “war of position” and “war of manoeuvre.” Examples of war of position include sustained efforts to reshape school culture through student assemblies, curriculum discussions, and solidarity with teachers during disputes, as gradual attempts to transform common sense from within institutional spaces. In contrast, examples of war of manoeuvre include school occupations, coordinated walkouts and public protests. Such moments of direct confrontation expose the political character of schooling and disrupt established hierarchies.The paper focused more on "war of position".

Engaging critically with Hannah Arendt’s call for the depoliticization of education, the paper argues that schools are inherently political in their organization of time, authority and recognition. As such, the paper advances the concept of the Scholé as an alternative democratic imaginary: reclaiming time and space for shared inquiry, dialogue and collective reflection beyond narrow productivity regimes. In this vision, children are not merely being prepared for democracy; they are already enacting it through infrapolitics, solidarities and collective struggles in contested educational spaces.