Towards a child-driven understanding of citizenship: children as co-researchers in search of their place in society.

Over the past decades, the question of children’s status as democratic citizens has become a subject of debate and a topic of research in (inter)national practice, policy and academia. Within the existing body of literature, research on citizenship is merely confined to educational settings, focusing on children’s political socialisation in function of their adult-future. As such, the debate on children’s citizenship remains to a large extent outcome-oriented and adult-driven. Moreover, even though children are the object of this debate, research rarely includes children’s, especially young children’s, voices about their position and views on citizenship. As a result, we lack knowledge regarding (1) young children’s actual citizenship experiences in today’s society and (2) child-driven research methodologies. Against this background, this study suggests a social-pedagogical approach to scrutinize young children’s (6-12 years) actual citizenship experiences in relation to their social, cultural, economic and spatial environments through a qualitative child-driven approach, in which children are enabled as co-researchers throughout the whole research design. In doing so, this study will contribute to (1) the international body of empirical and theoretical knowledge on young children’s actual citizenship; and to (2) the emerging academic field of participatory research with children as co-researchers, aiming to deepen the methodological and ethical dimensions of this approach.