The structuration of agency that lies behind children’s accounts of their well-being in Australia is highlighted. The three forms of agency that are evidenced from the data – agency as competence, agency as self-determination and agency as practical action in everyday contexts – provide insights regarding the characteristics of social structure. The multidimensionality of agency appears in practical achievements, individual choices and everyday action that are all constituted intersubjectively. Theories dealing with the complex links between choice and reflexive monitoring allow better understanding of agency.

This paper addresses the well-being of children in Switzerland, Canada and Estonia, as they experienced the lockdown imposed by governments after the state of international public health emergency, declared by the World Health Organization on 30 January 2020. Suspension of school or starting with distance learning, cessation of extracurricular activities, closure of playgrounds, parks, shopping centres and loss of daily contacts with friends completely transformed children’s lives. The surveys conducted by the authors in individual ways, were all inspired by their membership to the Children’s Understandings of Well-Being network and involved the participation of 403 children aged 7–17 years old (229 girls and 174 boys). They present the emerging trends from the children’s narratives focusing on their experience of the lockdown in relation to family life, school life, contacts with friends, and in relation to space, time and self. During the lockdown leisure activities and hobbies, followed by life with friends and school life challenged relational well-being the most, while family life opened up new perspectives and generational solidarity. Staying at home and decreased physical activity impacted on the physical health of children, missing direct contacts with friends and teachers put social relations to test, fear of the virus decreased feeling safe and secure, and the lockdown restricted participation in society. The findings underline the relational nature of their well-being. More in-depth studies are needed to highlight the widening of inequalities and the balance between protection and participation of children.

In a previous article (Stoecklin, 2017), I considered the example of the “paradox of institutionalisation” (Stammers, 2013) occurring in the drafting of the General Comment on Children in Street Situations (UNCRC, 2016). The vision of children’s “living rights” as the outcome of a structured process translating specific claims into an institutionalised set of norms (Hanson and Nieuwenhuys, 2013) has been identified. Analysis of the labels used for “street children” underlines the transformability of signification, domination and legitimation in the theory of structuration (Giddens, 1979, 1984). In this article, a theory of situated agency is outlined. It provides a new framework to understand the institutionalisation of children’s rights as the dual structuration of subjects (children) and objects (rights) occuring in given contexts. This makes “rights acting children” emerge as an interdisciplinary concept.

The paper aims at developing new understandings of agency, or capacity to make a difference, which is a central issue in childhood studies. Sixteen speeches delivered by climate activist Greta Thunberg between 2018 and 2019 are analyzed. The findings reveal 5 core reflexive operations (objectification, personification, sanctification, unification and diversification) underpinning the speeches. This is conducive to the hypothesis that Greta’s audience and the replications of demonstrations for climate justice are bound to 5 transactional horizons (activities, relations, values, images of self and motivations) identified as the symbolic landscapes channeling the social interactions in climate activism. Transactional horizons form a structure of intelligible categories linked to sensatory experience. These vectors of agency twist perceptual consciousness into a hierarchized reflective consciousness. The dominant perspective of agency within structure is challenged by this emerging paradigm of agency through structure, whereby the two terms are seen as fluid and sedimented states. Future directions are identified for interdisciplinary research, contributing to heightened awareness of recursive processes that may impact climate policies.

The drafting of the General Comment (gc) on Children in Street Situations ( uncrc, 2016), whereby the sociological perspective (Lucchini, 1993, 1996, 2007; Stoecklin, 2000a, 2007) that informed this labelling becomes lost in translation, provides a convincing example of the ‘paradox of institutionalisation’ (Stammers, 2013). The vision of children’s “living rights” as the outcome of a structured process translating specific claims into an institutionalised set of norms (Hanson and Nieuwenhuys, 2013) is thus specified. Analysis of the labels used for “street children” underlines the transformability of signification, domination and legitimisation in the theory of structuration (Giddens, 1979, 1984).