Enabling agency (Mashford-Scott & Church, 2011)

Mashford, A. and Church, A. (2011) Promoting children’s agency in early childhood education. Novitas –ROYAL: Special Issue: Conversation Analysis in Educational and Applied Linguistics. 5 (1), 15-38. 

In this paper, Angela Mashford-Scott and Amelia Church show how a teacher can support children to resolve their own disputes rather than impose a solution. Most commonly, teachers will suggest to children how they can compromise or come to some form of resolution. The focus here is on cessation of the dispute. In an extended abstract in this paper, however, the teacher spends time with the children asking them for their own suggestions, what they think they can do to resolve the situation (an object dispute in this case). Agency is relevant here as the teacher enable children to propose their own management of the situation, thereby equipping them with skill development to manage conflict when the teacher is not nearby.