Children's Perspectives on their Education

Abstract

Sociologists of education were among the first to deal with pupils' perspectives as regards their school life. However, children's points of view on their global educational experience are still rarely explored by sociologists. Although the sociology of childhood is growing fast, it more often covers what adults do to children rather than what children do with what adults do to them. This article discusses some methodological issues involved in the study of children and presents a conceptual framework for approaching the children's points of view on their own education. Based on indepth interviews of 67 11- to 12-year-old children from Geneva it deals more particularly with their experience of parental and teacher educational practices and organization. It presents the types of experience these children have of their school and family education and socialization, based on the subtle analyses they make of their parents' and teachers' roles and authority, the emotions they experience vis-a-vis their parents' and teachers' educational practices, and the strategies they develop to face their parents' and teachers' actual or anticipated demands.