Children as Actors or as Participants of Practices? The Challenges of Practice Theories to an Actor-Centered Sociology of Childhood

Bollig S, Kelle H. Kinder als Akteure oder als Partizipanden von Praktiken? Zu den Herausforderungen für eine akteurszentrierte Kindheitssoziologie durch Praxistheorien. Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation. 2014;34(3):263-279.The article deals with the question how new practice theories could provide the Social Studies of Childhood with more advanced theoretical and analytical perspectives. In the first section, the theoretical references on the agency concept in Childhood Studies are taken under revision. These have conceptualized agency up to now mainly oriented towards classical theories of action and the dualism of structure and agency. In contrast to this classical conception, the relation between sociality, agency and actors as conceived in practice theories is presented in the main section in three consecutive steps: 1. The corporeality and material-mental structure of practices is reflected; 2. the role of artefacts in the structuration and reproduction of practices is discussed; 3. the practice-theoretical change of perspective from intentionally acting human actors to multiple participants of practice and to agency as an effect of practices is pointed out. In the concluding part, the challenges of these practice theoretical reflections to Childhood Studies are elaborated: Insofar as agency is not only conceptualized as an incorporated (and to be biographically incorporated) characteristic of children as persons but also as an effect of practices, it is more understood as depending on situations and more variable, context sensitive and complex as in the Childhood Studies so far. Practice theories thereby open up differentiated heuristic perspectives for Childhood Studies. In return, Childhood Studies also challenge practice theory in its adult-centrism