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Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. The Concept of Agency in Childhood Studies Chapter 3. Theorising Agency Chapter 4. The Development of Children⁰́₉s Agency Chapter 5. Children⁰́₉s Agency Within Families Chapter 6. Children⁰́₉s Agency in School and with Peers Chapter 7. Children⁰́₉s Agency in the Public Sphere: Rights and Participation Chapter 8. Agency and Diversity: Variation in the Expression of Agency by Children Chapter 9. A Theoretical Synthesis References Index

The marketization of higher education entails a radical reshaping of the educational relationship as one in which the lecturer is recast as a professional service worker, implicitly or explicitly tasked with ensuring the satisfaction of fee-paying students as sovereign consumers. What does an organizational discourse of high customer satisfaction mean for the emotional experiences of lecturers on the frontline? In this article, we conduct a psychosocial analysis of academics' experiences of interacting with students in a marketized higher education context. We illustrate how institutional imperatives readily align with lecturers' internalized professional duty of care for students who are discursively constructed as highly anxious and vulnerable. At the same time, changing power differentials wrought by marketization heighten the likelihood of emotional responses in the relationship that are intense, spontaneous, and sometimes involuntary – and thus appear replete with unconscious meanings. Informed by Freudian psychoanalysis, we illustrate how academics enact various defence mechanisms in response to unconscious feelings of dependence, subordination, vulnerability and resentment of the student as an authority figure. We conclude that organizational imperatives to 'corporately care' for students have the unintended consequence of generating acute ambivalence that drastically intensifies the psychological demands on teaching staff.

Imaginative pleasure through daydreaming has been theorized to be important in understanding the experience of desire and as a factor in escalating consumption. However, there is a risk this underplays the range of potentially immersive and intense experiences of daydreaming, prior to and independent of the purchase or use of marketplace commodities. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant diaries and projective techniques, this study brings empirical data to extant conceptual work on the consumer imagination to examine the variety of consequences of elaborate daydreaming for commodity acquisition. We suggest that it need not necessarily perpetuate or expand 'actual' consumption but may instead engender a longer, more reflective, pleasurable and meaningful experience from which purchase or acquisition may never materialize. Our study challenges accepted theories that associate daydreaming with consumerism or see it as an inevitable precursor to consumer disappointment, while shining a more positive light on the role of fantasizing in shaping consumers' decisions.

This article draws on a conceptual vocabulary developed in science and technology studies to advance a sociological theory of objects in marketing. Analysing a single advertising medium, it shows that marketing objects can exist simultaneously in multiple forms as physical artefacts, political decisions, legal entities and economic values. Armed with this understanding, the article explores the ability of actors to manipulate these realities in their favour and investigates how it is possible to turn public space on a city street into an advertising object. Using John Law's notion of fractional objects, the article proposes an analytic framework to open up new objects for critical intervention and reflection.

This paper draws on a conceptual vocabulary developed in science and technology studies to advance a sociological theory of objects in marketing. Analysing a single advertising medium, it shows that marketing objects can exist simultaneously in multiple forms as physical artefacts, political decisions, legal entities and economic values. Armed with this understanding, the paper explores the ability of actors to manipulate these realities in their favour and investigates how it is possible to turn public space on a city street into an advertising object. Using John Law's notion of fractional objects, the paper proposes an analytic framework to open up new objects for critical intervention and reflection.

ObjectiveTo examine what mothers expect of their romantic relationships and what prevents them from forming and maintaining relationships.BackgroundAlthough there has been research on mothers' attitudes toward and expectations of marriage, there has been limited examination of their dating. It is critical to understand why parents form romantic relationships and what might cause them to cycle in and out of relationships to understand stepfamily formation.MethodOn the basis of semistructured interviews with a convenience sample of 33 single or repartnered Irish mothers, we conducted a thematic analysis guided by a social exchange framework.ResultsMothers believed that being in a relationship would enable them to enact their preferred relationship roles, give them extra support, and provide a different gender role model for their child(ren). They found forming long‐term relationships difficult because of a lack of suitable partners, limited time and support, stepparents' possible negative influences on their child(ren), and their own personal characteristics. Unlike previous studies conducted in the United States, Irish mothers were not focused on the economic viability of partners or on economic benefits associated with repartnering.ConclusionsMothers believe that there are several rewards to forming and being in a relationship, but they face many impediments that may prevent them from forming long‐term relationships.ImplicationsPractitioners may find it useful to focus on tempering mothers' expectations of relationship benefits and on reducing mothers' personal costs when forming and maintaining relationships.

Psychoanalytic concepts and theory have long served studies of consumption, from exposing unconscious motives to elucidating contemporary consuming desire. Sharing with psychoanalysis an interest in symbolic meanings, anthropological approaches have also contributed to the study of contemporary consumption and social life. In this article, we draw on both Freudian psychoanalysis and Douglas's structural anthropology to examine the field of non-consumption or the 'choice' not to buy. Based on detailed interpretations of interview data, we argue that consuming less at the individual level is not always the result of purposeful acts of ideological, anti-consumption protest or the outward expression of countercultural sentiments. Rather, forms of non-consumption can have deeper psychological origins that are located in a view of consumerism as a threatening force and a potent source of toxic contamination to mind and body, 'dirt' in Douglas's conceptualization. We argue that this outlook prompts a constant vigilance and the deployment of different defensive measures, prohibitions and purification rituals akin to Freud's conceptualization of the obsessive–compulsive individual. In this way, our analysis seeks to illuminate the myriad of largely invisible ways in which some people 'choose' not to buy within an ostensibly consumer culture or dismiss the idea of such a choice altogether.

Background: There are few longitudinal studies of Irish children and, to date, no studies reporting long-term outcome for those with behavioural disorder in childhood. This paper describes psychological and educational outcomes for a group of Irish children initially assessed at age 11 years and re-examined 10 years later. The period during which the research was conducted coincided with a time of increasing wealth in Ireland and the consequent development of psychological and educational services. Aims: To follow up and assess psychological and educational outcomes for a group of young people aged 21 years, half of whom had high levels of behavioural problems at age 11. Method: Data were gathered at two time points for 97 children and their families. Childhood measures included psychological and behavioural functioning, IQ, family background and economic circumstances. Outcome measures assessed in young adulthood included psychological functioning, educational attainment and trouble with the law. Results: Behavioural deviance at age 11 was found to be highly predictive of negative outcomes in early adulthood including a greater likelihood of involvement in criminal activity and less educational success. The likelihood of educational failure increased with the accumulation of risk factors including economic disadvantage and low IQ. Conclusions: These findings, supported in other international studies, underline the importance of behavioural difficulties in childhood for adult outcome, even in an environment of greater service and educational opportunities and access.

In studies of consumption, social theories of practice foreground the purchasing and use of resources not for intrinsic pleasure but rather in the routine accomplishment of 'normal' ways of living. In this paper we argue that a key strength of theories of practice lies in their ability to expose questions of power in the construction of normality, but that this has been largely overlooked. Since practice theories are leveraged in understanding urgent questions of climate change, we use ethnographic data of a sustainable community in England to examine the normative dimension of sustainability. Using Michel Foucault's approach to practice, we elucidate the social technologies operating in the community that govern sustainable practices in the absence of a singular cultural authority. We illustrate how shared understanding guiding normative sustainable practice was negotiated and maintained through collective ethical work, the paramount importance of interpersonal harmony, and the continual formation of ethical subjects.

In studies of consumption, social theories of practice foreground the purchasing and use of resources not for intrinsic pleasure but rather in the routine accomplishment of "normal" ways of living. In this paper, we argue that a key strength of theories of practice lies in their ability to expose questions of power in the construction of normality, but that this has been largely overlooked. Since practice theories are leveraged in understanding urgent questions of climate change, we use ethnographic data of a sustainable community in England to examine the normative dimension of sustainability. Using Michel Foucault's approach to practice, we elucidate the social technologies operating in the community that govern sustainable practices in the absence of a singular cultural authority. We illustrate how shared understanding guiding normative sustainable practice was negotiated and maintained through collective ethical work, the paramount importance of interpersonal harmony, and the continual formation of ethical subjects.

Little research has considered the nature of parent‐child relationships in stable single‐parent households that have not undergone transitions such as divorce and repartnering. This study explored how single mothers and their children negotiated their relationships in a context where the mother has been parenting alone continuously from early in the child's life. Thirty‐eight children and adolescents and their mothers participated in qualitative semistructured interviews. Both mothers and children characterized their relationship as highly intense and exclusive. Perceived limitations in mothers' resources yielded opportunities for shifting dynamics of power and dependence where children adopted an ethic of care in their relationships with their mothers. In response to this, mothers worked to reaffirm clear distinctions between parent and child roles and protect against role boundaries becoming blurred by exercising their authority and managing children's exposure to household responsibilities. These findings provide insight into how mothers and children negotiated interdependence as they moved functionally between vertical and horizontal interactions in their relationship.