Journal of Moral Education, 2014

Vol. 43, No. 3, 250–268, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2014.918875

Children and adolescents as political

actors: Collective visions of politics
and citizenship
Teresa Silva Dias and Isabel Menezes
University of Porto, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Centre for
Educational Research and Intervention (CIIE), Porto, Portugal

This article presents a case study on the political thought and citizenship conceptions of children
and adolescents. Considering children and adolescents as reflexive citizens and partners in com-
munity development processes, it is our purpose to understand the development of political
thought, and particularly how children conceive the exercise of citizenship and participation.
Participants were 97 children of a primary and middle secondary (basic) school, aged 5 to 14
years, organized into age groups of 12 children each. Focus group discussions were used as par-
ticipatory research methodology which involves children as active collaborators, a method that
appears to be a good alternative to the traditional individual interviews used in previous
research. Results point to the existence of a developmental process of political thought that
begins before the start of formal schooling, and a parallel evolution of the conception of social
organization and the concepts of citizenship and participation.
Keywords: political thought, citizenship conceptions, focus groups

Democracy as a dynamic process requires the critical participation of citizens and

tolerance of the diversity of positions that arise through this participation (Sullivan
& Transue, 1999). In free societies it is an essential task that links the different
dimensions of citizenship: political literacy, social and moral responsibility and com-
munity involvement (Crick, 1998). Research shows that the level of political knowl-
edge affects the acceptance of democratic principles, attitudes towards key issues of
democracy and political participation (Berti, 2005; Galston, 2001). In fact, many
European educational systems assume that learning about rights and duties, respect-
ing democratic values and human rights and participating in a democratic society

Teresa Silva Dias, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto; Isabel
Menezes, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto. Correspondence
concerning this article should be addressed to: Isabel Menezes, Faculty of Psychology and Edu-
cation Sciences, University of Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 4200–135 Porto, Portugal. Email:
imenezes@fpce.up.pt
© 2014 Journal of Moral Education Ltd
 Children and adolescents as political actors 251

should be a means for preparing children and young people to become responsible
and active citizens (Eurydice, 2005). Moral judgement has also been considered a
central variable in this process as different people act differently toward the same sit-
uation depending on their ways of conceptualizing moral problems and according to
their own age and education (Narvaez, 2001). The relationship between level of
moral reasoning and political ideology has long been established (see for example
Candee & Kohlberg, 1987; Haan, Smith, & Block, 1968); Fishkin, Keniston, &
McKinnon (1973, p.118) found a strong association between conventional moral
reasoning and conservatism concluding that ‘moral reasoning is thus tied to political
ideology in that it partly determines the terms in which politics is understood’.
However, the link is not limited to political ideology as more recent research con-
cludes that individuals exhibiting greater complexity in moral judgement are ‘able to
consider the welfare of more and more “others’ when conceptualizing ideal forms of
co-operation” (Narvaez, 2001, p. 43). Finally, many authors, such as Sherrod,
Flanagan, and Youniss (2002), state that the involvement of children and adoles-
cents in voluntary activities is important in order to foster a sense of community and
pro-social development that is essential for active citizenship.
However, citizens’ participation in political decision-making also implies access
to resources and the mobilization of individual cognitive and social skills-in-con-
text (Emler & Frazer, 1999; Galston, 2001; Haste, 2004; Lawy & Biesta, 2006).
According to ecological perspectives (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) the development of
the person must take into account the different contexts in which one is involved
—and this is particularly relevant as citizens are social actors in the dual sense that
they are (consciously or not) constrained by the structural environments around
them (as their opinions and experiences are socially and historically constructed).
In addition, they are also involved in generating a dynamic equilibrium with the
micro and macro levels of the social structure because citizens have the ability to
produce social change (Giddens, 1976). Therefore, participation, taken as a politi-
cal act, represents a learned capacity and it is necessary to create the opportunities
for children to develop this competence-in-context. The process of participation
involves having a voice and this implies enhancing the visibility and audibility of
the individual child when she/he is actively involved in different activities in her/his
life contexts (Hart, 1992; Convention on the Rights of the Child, CRJ, 1989). In
fact, the conceptualization that children are not only ‘future citizens, but also cur-
rent citizens’ (Van Deth, Abendschön, & Vollmar, 2011) is of growing relevance
in contemporary research.

The political development of children and adolescents

The first studies on children and adolescents’ political development appeared dur-
ing the second half of the twentieth century based on the assumption that cogni-
tive and affective structures underlying the political attitudes and behaviours of
adults emerge in childhood or adolescence (Adelson, 1968; Adelson & O’Neill,
1966; Berti, 2005; Connell, 1971; Jennings & Niemi, 1974). Since then, it has
252 T.S. Dias and I. Menezes

been possible to identify two basic research trends in the political development of
children and adolescents: the first, inspired by the cognitive-developmental tradi-
tion of Piaget (1941) attempts to characterize the growing complexity of political
understanding; the second emerged more recently in line with the revival of the
concept of citizenship as both a social and personal organizer of civic and political
belonging and engagement.
The early studies on political development and understanding of the mechanisms
governing the social organization of societies assume a constructivist perspective
following Piaget´s perspective on cognitive development (Adelson, 1968; Adelson
& O’Neill, 1966; Berti, 2005). In fact, Adelson (1968) explicitly makes a link
between the development of political understanding and cognitive development
concluding that adolescence is marked by a rapid growth in the understanding of
political ideas, as formal operations consolidate. Later on, Connell (1971) suggests
that children at preschool age are already able to organize themselves according to
a system of rules and decision-making in different life contexts, while Moore, Lare,
and Wagner (1985) consider the existence of a pre-political stage in childhood in
which children have an undifferentiated perspective of society, but can operate with
social concepts in their proximal contexts. Anna Emilia Berti (1988) furthers this
line of research, focusing on Piaget´s pre-operative and concrete operations stages,
with children from 6 to 12 years old, and concludes that children of this age build,
in the context of their personal relationships and social spaces, a set of interrelated
concepts that precede the concepts of law, political authority, civil and individual
rights. In 1993, Laupa and Turiel argued that at the beginning of schooling chil-
dren have already developed the concepts of political and social organization in the
context of relations of authority in which they participate.
In a recent study, Van Deth et al. (2011, p. 148) also conclude that ‘young chil-
dren indeed have meaningful political orientations if we look at (1) political knowl-
edge, (2) issue orientations, and (3) notions of good citizenship’. Research on
citizenship conceptions has been expanding in the last decades, accompanying a
revival of the academic (and public) interest about citizenship as both an elusive
and emblematic concept (Ignatieff, 1995). Marshall’s (1950) original account of
the concept as the result of a historical evolution since the eighteen century implies
full participation in a (national) community and emphasizes citizens’ civil, political
and social/economic rights that were typical of the welfare societies in the 1970s.
However, the recognition of severe tensions between inclusion and exclusion,
equality and inequalities, universalization and homogeneity, identity and belonging
(see for example Beiner, 1995; Benhabib, 1999; Haste, 2004; Young, 1995) has
generated an intense critique of this definition, with a strong recognition of the
complexity and multidimensionality underlying citizenship (Ichilov, 2003). Helen
Haste (2004) emphasizes how citizenship is simultaneously socially and individu-
ally constructed, and discusses how the political and the moral become intertwined
as the motivation for political involvement of an individual is related to moral sen-
sibility that generates a sense of personal responsibility to act or to persuade some-
one to act (Haste & Hogan, 2006). Lister, Smith, Middleton, and Cox (2003), in
 Children and adolescents as political actors 253

a study with young people aged 16 to 23 years, from different ethnic backgrounds,
explore how young people perceive their own citizenship and identify five models
of citizenship: universal status, respectable economic independence, constructive
social participation, social contract and the right to a voice. These models express
different meanings that directly relate to the experience of young people in their
transition into assuming adult roles and express a vision of young people them-
selves as ‘becoming’ citizens rather than ‘being’ citizens. Furthermore, they appear
to be strongly related to daily experiences in their life contexts. In a recent study,
Ribeiro et al. (2012) also detect a tendency for young people of migrant and non-
migrant origin to view themselves as ‘citizens-in-the-making’, internalizing the dis-
courses about their lack of political and civic knowledge and competences that are
expressed by both their parents and teachers.
Therefore, children and adolescents’ experiences in their life contexts, such as
family and school—but not limited to these—emerge as central to the development
of political thought and citizenship conceptions. For instance, in the moral domain
Narvaez and Lapsley (2009, p. 250) underline that the moral self that regulates
the individual life in society ‘emerges in the dynamic transaction between the
inductive capacities and other person qualities of the child and the familiar and
relational interactions that provide the context for development’. It is not surpris-
ing that other studies state similar conclusions in the political domain. For
instance, Youniss, McLellan, and Yates (1997) argue that civic identity emerges
from participation in different formal and informal activities in adolescence and
evolves into the sense of agency and social responsibility that is central in adult cit-
izenship, while Berti (2005) notes that opportunities to discuss and reflect on dif-
ferent social issues in school favour the development of political understanding
and should be emphasized by education policies. However, it is important to stress
that not all experiences, in school and beyond, combine the opportunities for a
meaningful activity with ‘the pluralism and diversity (…) [that can] generate the
cognitive conflict and reflective abstraction that foster psychological development’
in the political realm (Ferreira, Azevedo, & Menezes, 2012, p. 608).
In this paper we will try to bring together these two research traditions in politi-
cal development by simultaneously considering how children and adolescents artic-
ulate their political thought and citizenship conceptions within the school context
when confronted with the classical Adelson’s task of constructing a country on a
desert island. In order to do this, we decided to use focus group discussions,
assuming that a collective dynamic would be favourable to the social construction
of reasoning about politics.

Method
This study rests on the assumption that children should be research partners and
that we need to consider more inclusive research methods that allow children to
make visible what they feel, what they think and how they live as a social group
254 T.S. Dias and I. Menezes

(Pascal & Bertram, 2009; Veale, 2005). This process empowers and promotes the
active involvement of all participants in the research and reinforces the rights of
children as citizens with voice and power (Holland, Renold, Ross, & Hillman,
2010; Pascal & Bertram, 2009).
In order to foster the emergence of democratic processes such as participation
and negotiation in a group context, this case study used focus group discussion
(FGD). Focus group discussion has been widely used to favour the expression and
generation of ideas and perceptions in a group context (Tonkiss, 2004) and it
recreates a group dynamic that is particularly familiar to the child who attends
educational settings, creating a safe environment through the presence of peers.
The support of the peer group also provides a balance of power between adults
and children; it allows greater openness to the participants’ responses and reduces
the pressure on the individual as an isolated element to share her/his opinions and
feelings (Hennessy & Heary, 2005).
This method assumes that a group of individuals with common characteristics
involved in a discussion about a topic constitutes a rich source of information,
including both individual and collective responses encouraged by the interac-
tion (Williams & Katz, 2001). Starting with a script, in this case based on
Adelson’s (1968) original story of a desert island, the moderator led a semi-
structured discussion that facilitated the expression of a wide range of views and
perspectives in a dynamic that was less threatening and ‘formal’ for the individual
subject (Lunt, 1998). In an FGD context, participants influence each other, (cor-)
responding to multiple ideas and comments that arise in/during the discussion,
resulting in the emergence of a multiplicity of perspectives that, being individual,
are also a result of this group influence (Lunt, 1998). The added value of FGD is
precisely the fact that it allows generating data that could not emerge in individual
interviews because it results from the interaction, a bi-directional influence process
generated in the dynamics of the group itself where researcher and research sub-
jects share power and responsibility in a collaborative manner (Krueger & Casey,
2000; Williams & Katz, 2001).
In this study, the FGD occurred in children and adolescents’ natural context,
namely the school (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Trickett, 2009), in the presence of
peers (Hennessy & Heary 2005), giving participants the opportunity to share and
negotiate ideas, attitudes and experiences in a true implosion of democratic pro-
cesses inside the group. Participants were involved ‘in a process of identification
and belonging, as a group, to a society, as well as a process of negotiation of rights
that membership implies’ (Gardner & Forrester, 2010, p. xi). This is a dialectical
process between the discourse production and the interaction that respects chil-
dren and adolescents as social and political actors in their own right (Heller,
2003).
However, the FGD is also a more adequate research strategy if we view cogni-
tion as a collaborative process that emerges from sociocultural interaction (Lunt &
Livingstone, 1996; Rogoff, 1998)—a vision that is particularly adequate to political
cognition, as politics, as Hannah Arendt [1995 (1950)] would say, ‘emerges from
 Children and adolescents as political actors 255

the interaction of (inevitably) different individuals’. In this sense, we are clearly

not concerned with the individual participant’s cognition, but with creating a
social situation where ‘by participating in shared endeavours in sociocultural activ-
ity, the individual is continuously in the process of developing and using their
understanding’ (Rogoff, 1998, p. 689). It is important to note that the role of
equals in generating new ways of thinking has long been stated by Piaget (1941),
but sociocultural perspectives on development focus on the process of shared
thinking that we are favouring here.

Participants
Ninety-seven children and adolescents participated in this study. Our sample
included participants from kindergarten (5-year-olds) to grade 8 (14-year-olds)
divided into nine groups according to their age and school level. Table 1 presents
participants’ distribution by age, school grade and gender.
They come from a kindergarten and basic school in the metropolitan area of
Porto, Portugal; and they were from a spectrum of socioeconomic background
but, on average, from middle and upper middle class. Groups were gender
balanced (47 males, 50 females) and each group had on average 10 participants,
randomly assigned. All had an average achievement level.

Procedure, measures and materials

In order to consider the development of political thought we used part of Anna
Emilia Berti’s (1988) interview guide that she created from Adelson’s original
work in her study on the development of political understanding. The FGD script
was organized into three distinct phases: the first phase was an icebreaker
dynamic; the second phase included several questions to facilitate and guide the
discussion; during the third phase moderator and participants organized all the
information and made a first categorization.
After the icebreaker dynamic where participants made themselves more comfort-
able to speak and share opinions, they were shown a picture of a desert island with

Table 1. Participants’ characteristics

Grade Male Female Participants Age Average age

Kindergarten 7 4 11 5–6 years old 5.36

Grade 1 6 5 11 6–7 years old 6.63
Grade 2 7 5 12 7–8 years old 7.66
Grade 3 6 6 12 8–9 years old 8.58
Grade 4 4 6 10 9–10 years old 9.6
Grade 5 4 7 11 10–11 years old 10.55
Grade 6 5 5 10 11–12 years old 11.6
Grade 7 5 6 11 12–13 years old 12.54
Grade 8 3 6 9 13–14 years old 13.55
Total 47 50 97 8.84
256 T.S. Dias and I. Menezes

the minimum conditions for survival. They were part of a group of 1000 people of
different nationalities and they were explorers. The challenge was to reflect on
what they would do to stay there and to live and survive. This association with a
desert island follows Adelson and O’Neil’s (1966) classical study.
The second phase involved four groups of questions related to: (a) survival
issues on the desert island (What must we do to survive on the island?); (b) social
organization and laws (How can you divide and organize responsibilities and tasks?
What rules should you create?); (c) the institutionalization of society (What can
you do to create a society? Despite the existence of rules/laws, people do not
always obey—how can you act? And if two people start an argument, how should
we solve the problem?); (d) the definition of citizenship and governance (What
does it mean to be a citizen of the island? Do we have rights? Do we have duties?
Is anyone in charge? Who is in charge? Why?).
At the last moment in each FGD participants reviewed all the information col-
lected and made a first categorization together with the researcher. With the youn-
ger five-year olds, this initial categorization was made asking children to draw the
most important things that were mentioned in the group discussion; with the older
children and adolescents, the moderator proposed that the group should make a
summary of the major topics addressed during the discussion, a collaborate task
that was written in a flipchart, revised and modified until participants felt that this
was a reliable summary of the group discussion (Table 2).
All FGDs were filmed and recorded to allow better transcriptions of partici-
pants’ opinions and commentaries. Detailed transcriptions included not only dis-
course but also relevant elements of the group dynamics. Then a thematic analysis
was performed using Nvivo 9 around the two main topics of the script, namely the
organization of the community and the model of citizenship and participation.
Regarding the first topic, some categories were predefined according to Berti’s
(1988) coding manual for political understanding. The second topic also took into

Table 2. Systematization of information focus discussion group grade 4

Themes Topics

Build a society build properties, hospitals, schools, universities, an airport

Communications ports, boats, streets, roads, traffic lights
Disadvantaged groups associations for elderly, children’s homes, people with little
money
Organize people divide into groups, teams to explore
Tourism hotels, advertising, slogan
Citizen a part of the community, ordinary citizen, rights, obeys rules,
differences between people
Trade industries, supermarkets, clothing factories
Government vote, island name, rules, punishments, penalties, fines,
judgements—President republic, ministers
Command, rule President of the republic, leader, city president
Environment, preserve the recycling, landfill, endangered animals, alternative energy
environment sources, natural reserves
 Children and adolescents as political actors 257

account the theoretical contributions of Lister et al. (2003), Haste (2004) and
Narvaez (2009). However, the definition of categories connected these models
with the participants’ initial categorization in a process of knowledge construction
inspired by grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Therefore, our thematic
analysis explicitly combined inductive and deductive approaches, meaning that the
categories were both data- and theory-driven (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The catego-
rization involved a progressive data reduction (Miles & Huberman, 1984) devel-
oped by the first author, with the second author acting as a reviewer—as a
verification strategy to guarantee the ‘inter-subjective comprehensibility of the
research process’ (Steinke, 2004, p. 187). The definition of categories took into
account criteria such as internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity (Patton,
1990), and also ‘the validity of individual themes in relation to the data set’
(Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 91). Peer debriefing was also used as an additional
strategy to ensure the rigour of the analysis through several presentations and dis-
cussions of the procedures with members outside the research team (Creswell,
2009). Table 3 systematizes the predefined and emerging categories in this study.

Table 3. Categories emerging from the focus discussion groups

Category Sub-category

Theme: Community organization

1. Recognition of the community and 1.1. Individual and family needs (e.g. food, housing,
its need for organization transport, …)
1.2. Societal needs
1.2.1. Public or social institutions (e.g. schools,
hospitals, …)
1.2.2. Concerns for social management (emerging
category e.g. management of natural resources,
economy, …)
1.3. Political structures
1.4. Political organization of society
2. Democratic and political systems 2.1. Nobody governs
and political articulation 2.2. A chief
2.3. Several chiefs
2.4. Direct democracy
3. Laws 3.1. Unaware of the word law
3.2. Law prohibits
3.3. Laws governing community
4. Conflict recognition 4.1. Conflict unrecognized
4.2. Conflict recognized
4.3. Conflict spontaneously mentioned
4.4. Strategies for dealing with conflicts (emerging
category, e.g. appeal to group negotiation or authority)
Theme: Citizenship conceptions
1. Models of citizen 1.3. Universal status
1.2. Right to a voice
1.3. Constructive social participation
1.4. Social contract
2. Forms of civic and political 2.1. Conventional participation
participation (emerging category) 2.2. Unconventional participation
258 T.S. Dias and I. Menezes

A wide range of illustrative extracts was collected and served as a basis for the pre-
sentation of the results.

Results
Development of political thought
Children of preschool age recognize individual basic needs for survival, as they
refer to water ‘We need water to drink … so we can survive’ (S., 5 years); food
‘The island has fruit for us to eat. We no longer die of starvation.’ (R., 5 years);
and houses ‘We may use stones to build homes.’ (T., 5 years). Concerns with
comfort, safety and clothing come early to guarantee stability in the creation of a
new community. They also express goals related to longer term permanence on
the island, such as more resistant houses, the manufacturing of clothes and food
storage.
Secondly, both pre-school children and those attending grades 1 and 2 mention
that they should explore the geography of the island: ‘We have to know the island
…’ (S., 5 years); and have an initial approach to the concepts of law, order and
resolution of conflict situations, defining the basis of social organization: ‘We are
so many, we need to plan what we are going to do, we need to divide the space on
the island.’ (P., 7 years), starting by recognizing the need for group organization
and leadership ‘I’m going first because I’m in charge today … we can form groups
and each one does something!’ (R., 5 years). In these groups the organization pro-
posed by the children follows the model used in the classroom, suggesting a strong
internalization of school rules for solving social dilemmas. Additionally, issues of
community and belonging emerge through the mention of symbols of identity and
citizenship, such as the need for a flag: ‘The flag is from our country; it shows
which country we belong to.’ (M., 5 years).
Although there are important differences in the discourses produced by kinder-
garten and grade 1 and 2 children, there is a predominant concern with the indi-
vidual, with a focus on individual needs and interests and a reasoning that is
circumscribed by close relationships (e.g., families), even if sometimes concerns
for the collective start to emerge when they begin to plan things to do as a group/
community.
From 8/9 years old, children clearly mention a set of needs and concerns related
to social organization that indicate the recognition of social structures, such as
authorities and courts: ‘We need police and a police station … to maintain order,
so there won’t be confusion! … Yes, we also need lawyers and judges and a court’
(T., 8 years); economic organizations: ‘We have to set up businesses to have things
… The money we make selling fruit in supermarkets and shops, we divided the
island to get profits and be able to live!’ (B., 9 years); public services related to
education, health and social protection: ‘We need to have schools … and hospitals
and health centres and a fire brigade.’ (D., 8 years); and services related to the
management of natural resources like environmental conservation and renewable
 Children and adolescents as political actors 259

energy: ‘We must have our plantations; we cannot always go looking for food! …
And we have to have an irrigation system… and water pipes to bring clean water
to the houses’ (R., 8 years) or ‘Instead of cars with diesel engines, we should use
alternative energy’ (D., 9 years).
Additionally, there are some references to political structures as fundamental to
the organization of the society: ‘I think someone should tell them how to do it …
a President of the Republic.’ (B., 9 years) or ‘… We also have to have a President
in the City Hall … I’d like to be a minister of education, it is very important that
all children go to school.’ (M., 8 years), and some markers of national identity: ‘If
this is our island we have to put a flag on the island … we also have to name it’
(R., 8 years). However, it is only around 11–12 years old, in grades 5 and 6, that
these concepts begin to be fully understood with a clear assignment of roles and
functions: ‘I agree. This person [the governor] should explain to others what can
be done, and the obligations that everyone must have as citizens of the island; he/
she must allocate jobs, keeping everything organized’ (T., 10 years).
With the older groups, it is possible to identify four separate moments in the
FGD dynamic. The first three moments evolved quickly (in the first 20 minutes)
and then the adolescents took time to discuss citizens’ participation in the organi-
zation of political society. Like others groups, initially, all elements were centered
on a set of individual basic needs that would have to be met: ‘We must organize
ourselves to look for food …’ (M., 13 years), ‘… check the type of vegetation and
animals that exist …’ (J., 14 years); ‘We should seek a sheltered space near the
water and with conditions to plant some essential crops …’ (B., 13 years); ‘… I
think we can create a temporary camp until we know the island and adapt, then
plan and build…’ (N., 13 years). Then the groups pointed out some needs and
concerns related to broader social organization and the organization of public
space, of the economy, of public services and natural resources: ‘I think it’s impor-
tant to think from the outset to produce our own essential goods, what we brought
from the boat will run out soon.’ (N., 13 years); ‘… and how do we pay the work-
ers?’ (A., 14 years), ‘Apart from putting together the money that we brought, we
have to do more …’ (B., 13 years); ‘Our island must have banks, schools, police,
shopping centers, everything … we have to define priorities.’ (D., 14 years). Later,
the groups discussed the political organization of society departing from a demo-
cratic perspective and concrete issues that emerge from experiences in the commu-
nity: ‘My father told me, when it was the last elections, that more important than
people are their [political] proposals’ (C., 13 years); ‘But it is important to do what
is planned … I also think that we shouldn’t be changing all the time; the gym
where I train is not finished because people who are in charge often change’ (P.,
14 years); or ‘I would like to create a theatre group for the elderly’ (C., 13 years).
The level of complexity and interconnection of some of these analyses is apparent:
‘Even with rules there are always conflicts. I think it’s important to make laws and
to elect someone who represents the country. Everyone must respect the rules and
if that doesn’t happen, the person should be obliged to do something … I don’t
know … for the good of the community.’ (D., 13 years).
260 T.S. Dias and I. Menezes

In summary, as shown in Figure 1, children and adolescents are able to apply

their political knowledge to the task of organizing a society. Similarly to Berti’s
results (1988), from a very early age children appear to reveal representations and
concepts about the organization of societies and we can trace a growing complexity
with age in the understanding of political organization of society. Children note
individual and collective needs and suggest ways of social organization with the
creation of rules, division of tasks and assignment of responsibilities and leadership
that appear to be directly related to their experience in schools and the commu-
nity. During the preschool and first years of primary school, children appear to
easily manipulate the concepts of social organization with a special focus on
human and natural resources, the need for infrastructures and public spaces and
even—more extensively than in Berti’s (1988) study and in a previous research
with Portuguese adolescents (Menezes, 1998)—to economic and financial con-
cepts; by the age of eight to nine, the concepts of organization and maintenance of
the spheres of society are more central in the children’s discourses.
The group context seems to favour the recognition of collective needs and social
organization even for kindergarten children, when we compare the results with
those obtained by Berti with individual interviews. Nevertheless, as in her research,
the growth of political understanding increases with age. By 8/9 years old, chil-
dren’s concerns with social organization gain relevance and preadolescents (11/12-
year-olds) clearly express a set of structural and organizational needs of society
(delimitation of territory, definition of roles and hierarchies) as well as a clear ref-
erence to the political organization of society. The older groups (13/14 years old)
reveal an increased consciousness of social and political issues. To interpret these
results, it is important to consider both the main categories and sub-categories; for
instance, ‘recognition of the community’ ranges from mentioning individual and
family needs to the assertion of a political organization (Figure 2); younger partici-
pants tend to focus almost exclusively on individual and family needs (73% for the
group of 5-year-olds; more than 50% for grade 1 and 2, and then declining to less
than 25% from grade 3 on), while the references to political structures that emerge

Figure 1. Percentage of referrals in focus group discussions in dimensions of political reasoning

 Children and adolescents as political actors 261

Figure 2. Percentage of referrals in children’s and adolescents’ focus group discussion regard-
ing the sub-categories for recognition of the community

episodically from Grade 1 disappear by Grade 6, when more elaborate discourses

on the political organization of society become more central. However, as might
be expected in even the most classic cognitive-developmental models, this is not a
clear-cut progression and there are groups where this evolution seems to be more
obvious than in others (see the results for grade 7, for instance). However, the
growth in political understanding that is apparent on older groups (13/14-year-
olds), with an increased consciousness of social and political issues and of their
own capacity to affirm their points of view and to reclaim a voice, is even more
evident when we consider the ways in which the participants construct the concept
of citizen and how they relate it to their daily life experiences.

Citizenship models
In this study, with the exception of the kindergarten children, all participants have
a conception of citizenship with which they are able to operate. Moreover, if we
consider the references regarding citizenship conceptions, it appears that, not only
have participants knowledge about citizenship, they are able to operate with the
concept to discuss rights and duties of people belonging to a community, such as
the island. They clearly depart from a universal status as defined by Lister et al.
(2003), assuming that all persons included in a community are citizens: people are
citizens from the moment they are on the island: ‘Being a citizen means we are a
person, we are a person of the island …’ (F., 8 years). A citizen ‘is a person who is
part of a community, a normal inhabitant; I think we are all citizens and have the
same rights… I don’t know how I can explain it, we are all different from each
other, but that [our individuality] makes us all a lot more citizens’ (T., 9 years),
meaning that the status of citizenship appear to be independent of age, gender,
professional or economic status — ‘We are all citizens in all life’s paths … we can
be poor, rich or famous but we are all citizens …’ (S., 9 years).
262 T.S. Dias and I. Menezes

However, children appear to favour a vision of citizenship that emphasizes par-

ticipation in the community not only related to work ‘… every citizen should have
work, each individual has his/her task …’ (F., 10 years) or ‘They have obligations
as a citizen in that city, on that island … and they must distribute jobs to be orga-
nized to receive other people.’ (G., 10), but also actively contributing to the orga-
nization of the community, ‘A citizen is a person who helps and makes things for
the island for example’ (F., 8 years), including political goals ‘I would like to be a
minister of education, it is very important for all children to go to school …’ (S.,
8 years).
Children from grade 3 (8/9 years) appear to have internalized the concept of
democracy and are able to operate with it, referring to negotiation processes and
to the election of representatives of the island: ‘We have to become candidates and
make a campaign and then we have elections.’ (S., 8 years). At this age children
have an awareness of social problems and refer to forms of social intervention, sug-
gesting initial concerns with social equality: ‘We could build an association for the
elderly … a home for abandoned children … poor people should also have a home
to live in.’ (R., 9 years). Furthermore, they also express apprehension about the
economic sustainability of decisions: ‘The decision that they should follow is the
one which is the best for the island and cheaper so that you spend less and after-
wards you will have more money for other things …’ (T., 9 years).
Children attending grade 3 see citizens as persons with rights and duties,
governed by laws: ‘I mean we respect all people on the island, we respect rules’
(T., 8 years), ‘[Everyone] has the same rights as everyone else and must obey the
rules …’ (M., 9 years). Examples of rights and duties include the right to speak
and be heard and valued; the right to share their opinion; and the duty to accept
different opinions: ‘We can arrange a meeting where everyone gives their opinion.’
(R., 8 years); or ‘Speaking of the President … we have to decide these things …’
(M., 9 years); or even ‘People who want to give their opinion wrote a paper and
sent it to the President or the Prime Minister, then the Prime Minister would tell
all citizens the options … and people would vote… it´s the same with all the opin-
ions, put them together, so that we can have the cooperation of all for the rest’
(R., 9 years).
In FGDs with preadolescents some fundamental social and political issues are
mentioned such as democracy, equality and social justice, minorities, environmen-
tal issues and respect for different life choices (cultural, political and religious).
They are fully aware that some social issues have to be discussed in the present to
plan for the future and they show some sense of personal responsibility as citizens.
As indicated by Haste and Hogan (2006) there seems to be a moral sensibility that
drives children to action and when they have space to be heard they can explain
their own concerns about wider issues of democracy, with a growing reference to
contradictions in daily life: ‘… I think it’s important to think about equal rights,
not all people have what they need to live … It is not just a matter of hunger, I
have a friend in a wheelchair and he told me that it is very difficult to walk [move]
in the street …’ (C., 12 years).
 Children and adolescents as political actors 263

Participants from grades 7 and 8, with 13/14-year-olds, refer to different forms

of civic and political participation, such as becoming a member of a political
group; the right to vote and to participate in charities; and social activities such as
volunteering. They also argue about the lack of opportunities for participation in
discussion and decision-making on key issues in their lives at school and demand
for spaces to express their own vision: ‘You know the guy who is Indian? He can’t
eat certain foods, I think in the school canteen should provide different food for
him.’ (D., 14 years); ‘Schools should have alternatives … But do they have [any]?’
(N., 13 years); ‘Look … that’s why I think it’s important that we give our opinion
…’ (A., 14 years).

Conclusion
Discourses about politics and citizenship by political actors-in-context
On the whole, the results of this study are in line with other research with children
and adolescents showing their capacity to express a personal view on the political
organization of societies even at a young age (e.g., Berti, 1988; Menezes,1998),
that undoubtedly appears to expand during adolescence, as advocated by (Adelson
& O´Neil 1966; Adelson, 1968). Interestingly enough, the fact that we used focus
groups — and not individual interviews — as a research method highlights even
more the ability of participants, even 5-year-olds, to organize themselves according
to democratic principles, negotiating space and defining strategies for action, and
operating concerted socio-political visions to make sense of citizen and community
needs, suggesting a vision of living in a society that reveals a true conception of
internalized democracy (Arnot, 2006) in close relationship with daily school expe-
riences (Dias & Menezes, 2013). Consistent with research in this field, these
visions become more complex, connected and particularized, both in cognitive and
political terms, as children grow older. Assuming that the quality of relationships
at school is crucial to personal growth and learning (Roffey, Tew, & Dunsmuir,
2010), 5-year old children transpose actively to the group some strategies and
skills that they have learned in the classroom when they were faced with the task
of building a country on the desert island (Dias & Menezes, 2013). The school
seems to work as a micro society that enables the development of political and
civic skills, with a positive climate which translates sharing and respect for others
(Haste & Hogan, 2006).
It is also relevant to note that the discussions resonate with some of the theoreti-
cal debates about citizenship, namely the tension between normative and sociologi-
cal definitions, between identity and belonging, between rights and duties, and
between equality and diversity (see for example Benhabib, 1999; Haste, 2004;
Kymlicka & Norman, 1995; Lister et al., 2003; Young, 1995). Participants seem
to favour a universal status of citizenship, assuming that ‘all the people on the
island’ are citizens, even if different groups should have special rights to ensure
equality. Another interesting observation is also that what makes us unique (our
264 T.S. Dias and I. Menezes

individuality) is also what makes us equal to others, citizens of the community —

Hannah Arendt (1995) would say that it is our radical and inevitable diversity and
pluralism that generates politics.
Additionally, children’s and adolescents’ references to citizenship as involving
voting (and elections) as well as the responsibility towards fellow citizens and par-
ticipation in the community, clearly resonate with Haste and Hogan’s (2006) tri-
partite vision of civic action: voting that appeals to formal and conventional
participation; helping in the community that includes a variety of direct action
towards other individuals; and ‘making one’s voice heard’ (Haste & Hogan, 2006,
p. 480) as the individual or collective exercise of influence. The vision expressed
by participants links typical participation forms of representative democracy, such
as elections, with the importance of helping people in the community and making
their voice heard — and feeling that this is not always the case in the school and
beyond. In fact, the discussions reveal that contrary to the lay discourses about
political apathy and disinterest, children and adolescents have a critical position
and demonstrate the ability to analyse issues that dominate the public agenda
when they are provided with moments for reflection and debate, and when they
perceive that their opinions are valued and listened to. As Benedicto and Morán
(2002) report, participants use their voices and the ability to analyse and propose
alternatives when they are convinced of their effectiveness — otherwise they
choose the option of detaching and taking refuge in their private interests and rela-
tions, abandoning the spaces of collective involvement.
As educational policies have recognized in the last decades, the school is a cen-
tral context for citizenship learning with potential for an exchange of experiences
in different spaces, for collaborative work in heterogeneous groups, … that might
turn the educational processes into a democratic experience characterized by
respect for diversity of opinions and the inclusion of cultural experiences in a mul-
ticultural perspective (Arnot, 2006). However, the operationalization of citizenship
education frequently rests on an instructive perspective, emphasizing information
about citizenship rights and responsibilities, much more than taking into account
children’s and adolescents’ visions of what it means to be an actual citizen in- and
out-of-school (Beane, 1990; Biesta & Lawy, 2006; Brooks & Holford, 2009;
McCowan, 2009; Ribeiro, Rodrigues, Caetano, Pais, & Menezes, 2012). There-
fore, by providing a context for collaboratively participating with their peers in
solving a political task, this study also contributes to an important discussion in
the field of citizenship education, namely regarding the importance and effective-
ness of different pedagogical strategies in political learning. Our results clearly sug-
gest that involving children and adolescents in a group activity where they have to
express their ideas, engage in dialogue, cooperate and negotiate to solve a collective
problem—how do we create a country on a recently discovered desert island?—
might well prove much more useful and effective as a learning device than learning
based on having adults telling children what democracy, politics and citizenship are.
 Children and adolescents as political actors 265

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