Making agency matter: rethinking infant and toddler agency in educational discourse

Abstract

This article engages critically with the concept of agency in infant and toddler educational discourse. It is argued that agency, when conceptualised with emphasis on individuality and the autonomous self, poses a conceptual ‘dead end’ for those who are not-yet-in-language, such as babies and toddlers. In considering agency as an aspect of becoming that is inherent in all matter, the article seeks to explore new pathways for conceptualising agency in infant and toddler education. Methodologically, the article aims to generate complex questions and, following Nigel Thrift's call, ‘wild ideas’, rather than solutions by addressing the relationship between discourse and matter to open up new spaces for thinking and doing ‘agency’ in education, for babies and toddlers and beyond.

Keywords:

• early childhood
• post-human
• agency
• infants and toddlers
• zõë
• vibrant matter

Acknowledgements

Particular thanks to the children, their families and the educators who participated in the project. Thanks to Alison Jones for her comments on an earlier draft, and thanks also to the reviewers for their insightful comments.

Funding

The research project (Dalli et al., 2011) was funded by the New Zealand Teaching and Learning Research Initiative.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: The research project (Dalli et al., 2011) was funded by the New Zealand Teaching and Learning Research Initiative.