Abstracts
Abstract
This article explores how contemporary Swedish childhoods are constructed through analysis of 5,933 children’s drawings and conversations about their living conditions and leisure time. Four constructions are identified: scheduled, isolated, digital, and restricted childhoods. These reflect how structural inequalities, material conditions, and place shape children’s opportunities, participation, and agency. While digital spaces offer new forms of belonging, economic and spatial disparities continue to limit children’s participation and well-being. The study highlights the need for educators and policymakers to recognize children’s diverse realities in an emerging class-based society and to promote more just and equitable conditions for all children.
Keywords:
- Childhoods,
- children’s drawings,
- agency,
- structure,
- place
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Appendices
Biographical note
Helena Ackesjö is professor of education with a specialization in childhood and education at Linnaeus University in Sweden. Her research focuses on education for children of school-starting age and primarily concerns teachers’ roles, work, and working conditions in preschool class and school-age educare/school, as well as children’s childhoods. Email: helena.ackesjo@lnu.se
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