Sense of Competence and CLIPS children’s Experiences of the Policy Focus on Mathematics and English

Abstract

Chapter 7 focuses on the Sense of Competence. This is, a key theme in our study of a group of children who have been categorised systemically as lacking in competence in relation to two prioritised subjects: mathematics and English. In this chapter, we look first at the historical background to the focus on such narrow areas of competence in the primary-school curriculum and then on the wider influences leading to this curriculum narrowing. We review literature indicating how demotivating the two ‘core’ subjects may be to some children. We then provide verbatim quotations from our sample of 23 children to illustrate which factors particularly eroded their Sense of Competence in these two areas—which all the children had found tricky—and we compare these experiences to other areas of learning that the children were intentionally engaged with, such as nature study, art, computers and sport. We portray some troubling descriptions by the children of the anxiety, distress and fear that accompanied many of their experiences of mathematics and English at school. We conclude by pointing out how policy documents emphasising grades in mathematics and English often fail to take account of the children’s needs for wellbeing to accompany their school-work, which is only likely to be experienced when competence, autonomy and relatedness are all promoted on an ongoing basis.

Full text

Imagining Schooling as
a Positive Experience
Children’s Life-
Histories in
Primary Schools
Eleanore Hargreaves
Denise Buchanan · Laura Quick
PALGRAVE CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SCHOOLING,
TEACHERS AND TEACHING

Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling,
Teachers and Teaching
Series Editors
MartinMills
Institute of Education
University College London
London,UK
GlendaMcGregor
School of Education and Professional Stu
Grifth University
Mt Gravatt,Australia

This book series is concerned with thinking about how schooling can be
done differently and in ways that engage and inspire young people and
teachers. The book series takes as its premise that education should be an
exhilarating experience which leads to wonderment, new knowledges and
seeing the world from multiple perspectives and that education should
have impact beyond the classroom. It will include books that explore such
conceptions of education within the context of more socially just systems,
and more democratic societies. It seeks books that provoke debates about
new structures of schooling; teacher education programmes; the nature of
teachers’ work and teaching (pedagogy, curriculum and assessment).
While books in the series will provide a critique of the current grammar of
schooling they will also ‘imagine’– often based on empirical work– new
grammars. The series will help to shape an educational eld by providing
authors (both new and experienced) with an opportunity to demonstrate
that future practices of schooling/education do not need to be limited by
conventional wisdoms.

EleanoreHargreaves • DeniseBuchanan
LauraQuick
Children’s Life-
Histories in Primary
Schools
Imagining Schooling asaPositive Experience

ISSN 2662-2785 ISSN 2662-2793 (electronic)
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching
ISBN 978-3-031-69444-8 ISBN 978-3-031-69445-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2025. This book is an open access
publication.
Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the
Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the book’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specic statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect
to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional afliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
If disposing of this product, please recycle the paper.
EleanoreHargreaves
Institute of Education
University College London
London, UK
LauraQuick
Institute of Education
University College London
London, UK
DeniseBuchanan
Faculty of Education and Society
(Institute of Education)
University College London
London, UK
This work was supported by UCL.

Dedication to the children
This book is dedicated to all children who sometimes nd mathematics
and English in primary-school tricky.
And with special love and thanks to the 23 children whose life-histories
are contained in this book.

vii
Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools exposes the many ctions
around schooling in the twenty-rst century. We see children struggling to
come to terms with their positioning as low-attainers, whilst working
extremely hard to achieve a sense of themselves as ‘a good-enough’ learner.
Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools also tackles head-on the many
myths around agency. We see young people being highly agentic, working
extremely hard to develop a sense of themselves as competent learners. At
the same time, we are faced with the harsh realisation that many of them
are acting to little avail. Rather, as the book fearlessly claims in the face of
long-standing orthodoxies, schools are primarily reproductive rather than
transformative. But this is no simplistic binary analysis. Agency is concep-
tualised not as opposed to, but constitutive of structure. While there is a
recognition that all young people exercise a degree of agency, there is also
an appreciation that agency is very unequally distributed. As a result, for
those at the bottom of the steep educational hierarchy, agency and effort
rarely translate into the realisation of dreams, regardless of how many
entreaties these young people receive to reach for the stars. As the book
makes clear, in asserting agency for the individual at the cost of recognis-
ing embedded structures of power, what we are left with are decit models
of one sector of young people, as they fail to realise unattainable goals.
As the book fearlessly claims, schools can be very harsh environments
for those who lack the resources to succeed and be included in the select
group of educational ‘winners’. This book, then, is about education’s
‘losers’, a group, whose plight is given far too little attention. It reveals the
Foreword

viii FOREWORD
myriad ways in which the powerful competitive culture that saturates
English schooling enters powerfully into how pupils construct and negoti-
ate their identities. There is a potent affective current surging through
contemporary classrooms. It is tangible in the accounts of pupils like Ellie
who talks about feeling she is failing in everything to do with Maths and
has ‘dreaded mathematics her whole life’. The dread is also there in the
ever-present threat of punishment for poor work, which she describes as
‘scary, and nerve-wracking’. No wonder such a child would ‘like to stay
home and throw away school’.
Despite the attempts at subversion and resistance of children like Ellie,
more often we see fear, anxiety, humiliation and desperate attempts to
adapt to the strictures of the system, providing little scope for children
deemed to be low-attainers to thrive, ourish and demonstrate their
strengths. There has been far too little recognition of the micro- aggressions
and every-day cruelties of contemporary English schooling. Yet, our
hyper-competitive, metric-driven educational system generates a category
of stigmatised low-attainers, who are viewed as acceptable collateral dam-
age in the drive to push up educational standards.
It is this group, and their compelling narratives, that Children’s Life-
histories In Primary Schools focuses on, revealing the educational injuries
inicted on those who are not included among the ‘winners’. We are
shown the consequences of a high-stakes system for children who are
judged unsuccessful on the narrow criteria of achievement in Reading,
Writing and Arithmetic. Time and time again, we see the children’s skills
and talents in a plethora of different subject areas. Throughout their
accounts, there are myriad mentions of aptitude in computing, love of art
and music, prociency in PE, and the pleasures and gains that come
through socialising and playing with friends. But, at the same time, our
increasingly narrowly focused, academically orientated curriculum prevents
these children from demonstrating and developing their abilities in a wide
range of areas the English educational system no longer values.
In the 2020s, the 3Rs take up a growing proportion of young chil-
dren’s curriculum time when other subjects, vital for children’s sense of
wellbeing and enjoyment in education, have been severely cut back. They
now have less art, and less music, with even Ofsted (2021) bemoaning the
reduction of music teaching in primary schools. Children are also receiv-
ing so little physical education that research found that 90% of primary

ix FOREWORD
school children are no longer meeting the 30-minute moderate-to-
vigorous physical education threshold (Daly-Smith etal 2021). Moreover,
some children, in particular children in lower-attainment groups, are miss-
ing breaks and lunchtimes either as a punishment or in order to catch up
with their school work (Baines and Blatchford 2019). Yet, for some of the
children in this research, breaks are the only enjoyable aspect of their
schooling.
There is increasing concern about the low levels of wellbeing among
English school children (The Children’s Society 2022). Concerningly low
levels of wellbeing are evident throughout Children’s Life-histories In
Primary Schools. Gabriella, a Black British girl, comments poignantly:
[Low-attainers feel] sad ..., no-one cares. And they feel lonely… Because
they have no friends to stand up for them.
Another child they interviewed described ‘the walk of shame’ as she
moved from her Year 4 classroom to the ‘low-attainers’ Year 3 group,
while another denes herself as ‘brainless’. We also learn about Edith, a
Black British, pupil premium student who had been taught to believe that
the way to learn was to listen obediently. Edith lives in fear of achieving
poor marks. Achieving poor marks or just not getting the answers right
was a matter of painful concern because, as Edith reports, ‘it makes me feel
bad’. She describes being very worried about the frequent maths tests in
case she gets zero. These are particularly striking examples, but in many of
the quotes from the children, we see powerful feelings of futility, dejec-
tion, humiliation and shame. Most adults in England have little idea of the
extent to which English education has become more about punishment
than validation for increasing numbers of children and young people
(Reay 2022).
The authors raise important and timely questions about what happens
when students are not successful. But, just as importantly, it demonstrates
the ways in which class, race and SEND are at the heart of educational
practices. The children whose stories Children’s Life-histories In Primary
Schools tells are from ethnically diverse backgrounds, with many qualifying
for pupil premium, and having a range of educational needs. This is a
brave book that takes no hostages. It dives deep under the surface of the
aspirational culture of English schooling to uncover the costs for those

x FOREWORD
who lose out in ‘the winner takes all culture’ schooling has increasingly
become. In doing so, it raises vital questions about the purpose of the
English educational system, and the values that underpin it that we should
all be asking ourselves.
reFerences
Baines, E and Blatchford, P (2019) School break and lunch times and young
people’s social lives: A follow-up national study London: Nufeld Foundation.
Daly-Smith, A., Hobbs, M., Morris, J., Defeyter, M., Resaland, G., & McKenna,
J. (2021). Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in primary school children:
Inactive lessons are dominated by mathematics and English. International
Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(3), 1–14. https://
doi.org/10.3390/ijerph
Ofsted (2021) Research Review Series: Music
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research- review- series- music/
research- review- series- music#fn:8
Reay, D (2022) The slide to authoritarianism in English schools Forum 64,3:
The Children’s Society (2022) The Good Childhood Report London: The
Children’s Society.
University of Cambridge DianeReay
Cambridge, UK

xi
Self-portraits of children:
1. Abe
2. Harriet
3. Fin
4. Zeph
5. Gabriella
6. Michael
7. Mark
8. Jack
9. Laurie
10. Louise
11. Sam
12. Salah
13. Gemma
14. Clara
15. Jon
16. Edith
17. Eden
18. Samiya
19. Ellie
20. Musa
21. Rory
22. Santosh
23. Amin
List oF seLF-Portraits

xiii
We would like to acknowledge and thank all the children and teachers who
allowed us to have the interactions described in this book, including all the
teachers who allowed us to sit in and observe a child during their lesson.
We are also very grateful to colleagues who gave invaluable feedback on
various parts of the book: Gerry Lewis, Diane Reay, Andy Smart, Hugh
Starkey and John White. Thanks also to Jasmine Adelaide for her generous
help with the self-portraits.
This study would not have been possible without the nancial support
kindly provided by the Leverhulme Trust. All ethical procedures of British
Sociological Association have been closely followed in the pursuit of
research data.
acknowLedgments

xv
This book grapples with issues of social injustice among children attending
British primary-schools. It isolates one out of the many injustices aficting
these children: the injustice of being stigmatised because of their lower
than ‘age-level expectations’ in narrow tests of mathematics and English.
Through repeated, lengthy and active interviews with 23 such children
across primary schools in London and South East England, the authors
drew up the life-histories of these children, in detail, across ve years. The
team found that the children who had lower-than- expected attainment in
both mathematics and English tended to nd that their Sense of
Competence was damaged because they felt that they were treated as less
worthy than their higher-attaining peers. The situation was made worse by
‘attainment’ grouping according to these narrow denitions of compe-
tence and also by policy emphasis on performance rather than learning. As
predicted by Self- Determination Theory (Ryan and Deci, 2019), their
perceived lack of competence also led them to feel trapped, as unable to
achieve autonomy in school and it hampered their relationships—which in
turn reduced their Sense of Competence in a continuing downward spiral.
Overall, we concluded that their wellbeing was threatened by constant
reminders of their perceived relative lack of attainment, setting some of
them up for reduced ourishing in adult life. In these senses, we perceived
their current everyday school lives, as well as their potential future lives, to
be unjustly and negatively affected. Our ndings support a strong case for
promoting better parity of participation, facilitating greater wellbeing,
among primary school children (Nancy Fraser, 2022).
about the book

xvii
1 Life-history Methodology Used in the Children’s Life-
histories In Primary Schools (CLIPS) Study 1
2 Imagining Schooling as a Positive Experience 13
3 Social Justice as Parity of Participation: Fraser’s Theory 25
4 Wellbeing 39
5 Motivational Orientations: Watkins’ Theory with Ryan
and Deci’s Theories 49
6 The Life-Histories 63
7 Sense of Competence and CLIPS children’s Experiences
of the Policy Focus on Mathematics and English 153
8 Sense of Agency and Status-Subordination 173
contents

xviii
9 Relatedness for Wellbeing 197
10 Imagining Schooling as a Positive Experience:
Conclusions and Practical Recommendations 213
Index 225
CONTENTS

xix
3.1: Participation
3.2: Parity of participation
3.3: Children who experience misrecognition in primary education
4.1: Some practices that promote wellbeing according to
UNCRC (1989)
4.2: Ways of imagining wellbeing or ourishing in schooling
4.3: Benets related to wellbeing
5.1: Learning versus Performance
5.2: Impact of institutionalised patterns of cultural value on
children’s Orientations
5.3: Possible ways of approaching and mastering a task
6.1: Watkins’ Theory adapted and blended with Ryan and
Deci’s Theory
7.1: Supports for a child achieving a Sense of Competence
7.2: A more complete denition of Competence
7.4: The relationship between Sense of Competence, wellbeing
and social justice
8.1: Supports for a strong Sense of Agency among school-
children (Mills etal., 2016)
8.2: Important components of intentional engagement
8.3: A Sense of Agency is facilitated when people (including
school-children)
8.4: A Sense of Agency is achieved when people
List oF summaries

xx LIST OF SUMMARIES
8.5: Institutionalised patterns of cultural value in schooling that
seemed to disable the CLIPS children and led them to
experience status-subordination
9.1: Sense of Relatedness
10.1: Systemic factors that mitigated against children’s wellbeing
10.2: How Sense of Relatedness, Agency and Competence are
linked to intentional learning, wellbeing and parity of
participation

xxi
EleanoreHargreaves is Professor of Learning and Pedagogy at the UCL
Faculty of Education and Society (IoE), London University. Eleanore
worked as a primary school teacher from 1983 till 1988. She was then
employed by the National Foundation for Educational Research until
1997, researching and developing the earliest Key Stage 1 Standard
Assessment Tasks. Having completed her MA Ed and her PhD, she then
joined the Institute of Education as lecturer, teaching MA modules about
formative assessment and learning. She also undertook consultancies and
research projects abroad, focusing especially on Egypt. Eleanore’s UK
research began with a small project exploring the impact of teachers’
feedback on different children, which led to a particular interest in how
schools group by attainment and differentiate children as such. This ulti-
mately led to the ve-year longitudinal life-history study described in this
book. Eleanore intends to spend the forthcoming few years embedding in
practice the important messages that have emerged from this research.
Denise Buchanan works as Lecturer in Education at the Institute of
Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, London. After train-
ing in psychology and general nursing, Denise worked as a Further
Education teacher for many years, teaching psychology and health-related
topics. She also taught cookery to students who had mental health prob-
lems, and so her PhD research was carried out among these particular
students, in order to identify the ways in which formal adult learning could
benet their wellbeing. Her academic interests include social and health
about the authors

xxii ABOUT THE AUTHORS
inequalities, particularly in relation to mental health; the links between
wellbeing and learning; how marginalised learners of any age experience
formal learning; and the methodological and ethical issues that may arise
when carrying out qualitative research.
LauraQuick is an honorary research fellow at UCL and Visiting Lecturer
in Education at Roehampton University. After studying Social Anthro
pology and then qualifying as a primary school teacher, she worked in
primary and special education settings for several years and ran a sup-
port programme for parents of children with social, emotional and mental
health difculties. Her PhD, which focused on four of the children dis-
cussed in this book, won the Geoff Whitty Doctoral Thesis Prize and the
SAGE Student Research Methods Prize. Her academic interests involve
the relationship between pupils’ experiences of classrooms, classroom
practices and the role of schools in the reproduction of inequalities.

1© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_1
CHAPTER 1
Life-history Methodology Used
intheChildren’s Life-histories InPrimary
Schools (CLIPS) Study
IntroductIon
This book presents 23 life-histories of English primary-school children
and our commentary on them. We used life-history methodology, from an
interpretivist perspective, to provide the most holistic and vivid depictions
of the children’s experiences at school.
the tradItIons andBenefIts ofLIfe-hIstory research
Thomson (2007) suggests that the aim of life-history is:
To provide a compelling account of the individual, of how and why events
unfolded as they did and of the transformation of the individual over
time. (p.574)
In particular, we had the added aim of revealing aspects of children’s
school-lives that were socially unjust. This is in keeping with the life-
history tradition and Plummer’s (1983) suggestion that it evidences ‘the
concrete joys and suffering’ of one individual in a vivid way that other data
collection methods cannot. The life-history explores how the individual is
responding to a specic temporal and social context. We recognise that
both the child and the life-history researcher have their own ambiguities,

2
eccentricities, contradictions, humour and personality which inuence the
construction and contents of the life-histories.
Knowledge through life-history research, in contrast to traditional
research, is constructed by the researcher working together with the
researched person, in our case a child, as an active participant who pro-
vides unique insights and has agency over their life-history. Plummer
(1983, p.6) highlights the life-historian’s ‘compassion’ towards her par-
ticipants. The life-history is ultimately written by the compassionate
researcher (in our case the three authors of this book), but the participant
(or child) shapes its completion via their close relationship with the
researchers. Life-histories do not aim to generalise from an individual’s
experiences but rather to make these experiences relatable to other indi-
viduals. Readers of life-histories may then reect on the issues that emerge.
the PractIces ofLIfe-hIstory research
Plummer (1983) suggests that life-history researchers need to listen
deeply, extensively and openly, using prompts sparingly. They normally
revisit the participant on several occasions over months or years (in our
case, across four years). During the visits, they capture the participants’
words and actions, recognising that both life-historian and the participant
(child) will lter their understandings differently at different times. Even
when the life-history does not cover a participant’s whole life, as a history,
it provides a chronological framework for the sequencing of a section of
the participant’s life, as well as individual snap-shots of particular points in
time. The choice of time-period under study may relate to a particular
aspect of the participant’s life at that time or a specic era of policy history
(in our case, current schooling policies that prioritise testing in mathemat-
ics and English).
In schooling, most life-histories are carried out with adults who reect
back on specic aspects of schooling such as being a teacher (e.g. Goodson,
1991). A few such retrospective life-histories have also been constructed
of adolescents and/or students in Higher Education (e.g. Thomson etal.,
2018). Some life-historians also use other artefacts to embellish the life-
history account, such as school-records, pictures, observations, memory
books, photographs or diaries. They may even interview other people who
know the participant. The life-histories presented in this book, however,
are based wholly on the responses of the children, on a regular ongo-
ing basis.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

3
adaPtIng theLIfe-hIstory aPProach
forthecLIPs study
The CLIPS project emerged out of our worrying perception that specic
children were being marginalised in the current schooling system because
of their lower-attainment in tests of either mathematics or English, or
both. This concern had its early origins in the introduction of national
assessments following the 1988 Education Reform Act in England and
Wales. From this date onwards, children in England and Wales were cate-
gorised within schooling according to their test results. This was different
from during the 1970s and 1980s when other strengths and interests such
as in sport or music might have been given more weight. As a result, after
1988, most primary-classrooms divided children physically into groups
according to their mathematics/English attainment (Marks, 2013), which
had not happened since the 1950s/1960s. This led to the threat that
those on ‘lower’ tables or in ‘lower’ sets had subordinate status to other
children, purely on the basis of some tests.
Quantitative data studies across the past 30 years have repeatedly indi-
cated that those children in the lowest groups, when grouped according
to attainment, began to experience an additional lack of condence and
attain even lower grades than comparable children in other groups,
because of their designation as lower-attainers (Francis etal., 2019). These
negative effects persist and can increase as children advance through
schooling, potentially obstructing educational opportunities and thus
generating life-long social injustice (Boaler, 2005).
Our research team watched the 7-Up series (Apted, 1964) with great
interest, in which children from different social backgrounds were fol-
lowed through TV lm, being interviewed every seven years of their life
from age seven. Inspired by this, our team aimed to explore a different set
of children’s progression across the last four years of their primary-
schooling and into their secondary-schooling. We aimed to provide vivid
life-histories of 23 children as they progressed and developed across this
transformative era of their school-lives. We sought their immediate
responses to the social institution of schooling from within their designa-
tion as lower-attainers in Year 3, and revisit this across four years in order
to explore their ‘concrete joys and suffering’ in schooling, with the ulti-
mate purpose of tackling social injustice.
For this purpose, we recruited four primary schools in SE England,
three of which were themselves in disadvantaged communities (and all
1 LIFE-HISTORY METHODOLOGY USED IN THE CHILDREN’S…

4
highly rated by Ofsted). We invited their Year 3 (ages 7–8) teachers to
nominate six children, each of whom had been designated in the Year 3
class as not meeting age-level expectations in mathematics and/or English,
but did not have an Education Health and Care Plan (which would have
indicated medical diagnosis). From 2018 to 2022, we interviewed each of
these 23 children every term (one had dropped out), lmed them and
observed them briey in class (apart from one term in which Covid 19
prevented us from doing so).
LIfe-hIstory research wIthyoung chILdren
Although life-history research has a long-established tradition, there is no
xed way to do life-history research: ever y life-history will be different.
Lanford (2019) called for ‘an extension of life history strategies and a
recommitment to the documentation of [individuals’] lives and struggles’
(p.461). Life-history research tends to be more exible than traditional
approaches because each life-history must be adapted to the participant,
rather than tting a prescribed model. In many ways, in the CLIPS proj-
ect, we followed the guidance of Plummer (1983), Goodson and Sikes
(2001) and Thomson (2007) in relation to common practices of carrying
out life-history research. For example, we portrayed our participants as
agentic individuals, had compassion for participants and supported them
with a caring, respectful relationship. We also contextualised our life-
histories within the globally dominant educational policy of focus on test-
results in core subjects. Like most life-histories, our research methods
included repeated interviewing, and we also used observation and lm.
In keeping with the earliest life-histories, our purpose was to highlight
gaps in the exposure of social injustices within the schooling system.
Although most life-histories are retrospective and may include an indi-
vidual’s memories of childhood, very few have employed the life-history
approach to the concurrent lives of children, or within primary-schooling.
Given the long-standing and critical interest in ‘Life in School’
(Hammersley & Woods, 2020), the relatively recent demand for ‘pupil
voice’ (Fielding, 2004; Flutter & Ruddock, 2004), and the emphasis on
childhood as worthy of attention in its own right (Neale & Flowerdew,
2003), our life-histories sought to ll a gap and enhance our insights into
school-children’s emerging experiences and voices.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

5
adaPtIng LIfe-hIstory research tothecLIPs study
Our research used life-history study in some less usual ways:
1. The inclusion of primary-school children as participants;
2. The concurrent aspect of the life-history;
3. The child-only perspective, without information from others; and
4. The emphasis on active, child-centred activities as data collec-
tion tools.
The Inclusion ofPrimary-School Children asParticipants
Our participants were seven or eight-year-old school-children when we
began the CLIPS project. This seemed to be younger than other life-
history participants as we could nd no other life-histories with such
young children in school (although see Pollard and Filer’s ‘pupil careers’,
1999). Our own experiences of interviewing with young children, how-
ever, had suggested that these young children could be insightful and
forthcoming (see Gipps et al., 2016). Indeed, we were convinced that
without their contributions, attempts at improving the learning and social
justice of primary-aged children’s schooling was lacking.
The Concurrent Aspect oftheLife-History
Most longitudinal life-history studies consist of retrospective reections
on a person’s life (but see Thomson etal., 2018 for concurrent studies
with older children). Our life-histories, however, could be called concur-
rent of synchronous life-histories (although also containing elements of
retrospection) in that the CLIPS children’s life-histories were literally
unfolding under our eyes as we engaged with every child each term. This
was living history! The synchronous aspect of our study provided a par-
ticular immediacy to our ndings and attention to chronological change
that a purely retrospective account may not have provided so effectively.
However, it also meant that we, as life-historians, played a more dominant
role in making interpretations and representing continuity in the
life-histories.
1 LIFE-HISTORY METHODOLOGY USED IN THE CHILDREN’S…

6
The Child-Only Perspective, Without Information fromOthers
Some life-histories include information from other people in the partici-
pants’ lives such as teachers’ and parents’ comments on a child. After
much negotiation, our team decided to construct our life-histories purely
from the perspective of the child. We believed this needed to be done,
given the ubiquitous absence of the child’s view in research literature.
However, we did make one exception: we asked each child’s teacher for
Key Stage 1 attainment results (i.e. at age six/seven, teacher-assessed),
Year 3 test results (i.e. at age 7/8) and Key Stage 2 attainment results (i.e.
at age 10/11, teacher-assessed, due to COVID 19). We also asked the
teachers whether any child was on the Special Educational Needs Register
(indicating them as having a particular learning difculty such as dyslexia),
which a few children were. Other than these pieces of systemic informa-
tion, we tried to interpret the children’s experiences based only on what
we learnt during observation and interviews with the children themselves.
the emPhasIs onactIve, chILd-centred actIvItIes
anddata coLLectIon tooLs
Most interviews depend on questions and answers. However, young chil-
dren may not nd these to be the most accessible means for expressing
themselves. Indeed, using verbal responses at all was potentially disadvan-
tageous to some of the CLIPS children. However, to avoid all verbal data
was beyond our capacity and much of our data remained speech-based.
However, we sometimes did manage to avoid simple question-and-
answering which we substituted with activities, games, role-play, drawing
or photography. Given that our participants sometimes did not want to sit
still for a whole interview, we took playdough to our interview sessions.
From the second visit onwards, we encouraged children to play with the
playdough throughout the interview if they wanted; and many of them
did so throughout all subsequent interviews. We also provided a snack
where permissible to make the interviews feel more sociable and special.
We also tried to provide choices, emphasising the individual’s agency and
keeping the participants actively involved. We carried these data collection
activities out as shown in Table1.1.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

7
Table 1.1 CLIPS visits schedules and interview contents chart
CLIPS year Visits Activities School year
YEAR 1
AGE 7–8
VISIT01
(PAIRS OR
THREES)
General getting to know you conversations and questions, including about future
aspirations
Year 3 summer
term 2018
VISIT02 Drawing faces on outlines of low and high-attaining children; and how their teachers might
have responded.
Quote sort (agree/disagree/not sure) of cards showing comments about ‘being smart’
picked up in interview transcripts from previous inter views.
Year 4 winter term
2018
VISIT03 Making models of self, using art materials selected by the child.
Exploring how others describe self, using cut-out gures of parents, teachers, siblings and
friends.
Providing concentric circles and placing self and others to indicate closeness to certain
people.
Taking photos around school to indicate where particular emotions are experienced e.g.
boredom, excitement, happiness.
Describing best and worst aspects of school.
Year 4 spring term
2019
CLIPS YEAR 2
AGE 8–9
VISIT04 Telling an alien about tests.
Using a doll’s house to model a test-taking classroom.
Year 4 summer
term 2019
VISIT05
(PAIRS)
Quote sort of comments on cards regarding what teachers think about teaching them.
Video shown of a child being treated unfairly in school and children asked to comment as it
progressed.
Picture of ‘Maria’—high-attaining but poorly behaved child, triggering participants’
comments.
Feedback on the children’s CLIPS involvement.
Year 5 winter term
2019
VISIT06 Agency and choice—quotations about having choices. Children selected boxes labelled
never/sometimes/often/always/never where they placed put a gure of themselves.
Sentence starters on cards: e.g. ‘I learn best when…’
Quote sort about xed ability statements.
Retrospective school history (nursery to year 3), jumping from year to year.
Year 5 spring term
2020
VISIT07
Cancelled
N/A Year 5 summer
term 2020
Covid-19
(continued)
1 LIFE-HISTORY METHODOLOGY USED IN THE CHILDREN’S…

8
Table 1.1 (continued)
CLIPS YEAR 3
AGE 9–10
VISIT08
Covid-19
(not 6 BG)
Covid-19 Questions: drawings of each child at home inlockdown and returning to school.
Asked about feelings.
Sentence starters e.g. ‘On returning to school, I felt…’
Rating scale using colourful wooden counting frame regarding teachers’ view of their
schoolwork for them and other pupils (e.g. how many out of 10?)
Quick re questions regarding positive psychology in school.
Drawing of themselves in 10 years’ time.
Lids sorting activity to see how they ‘divide up’ children.
Year 6 winter term
2020
[No interviews in
one schoolbut
activities done in
VISIT09]
Moved to next
term
N/A Year 6 spring term
2021
CLIPS YEAR 4
AGE 10–11
VISIT09 Cloze story [lling in the word-gaps] regarding feelings about transition to secondar y
school and also loneliness.
Blob trees to illustrate their feelings about returning to school after lockdown.
Self-portrait using felt-tips for nal publication.
Year 6 summer
term 2021
VISIT10 Retrospective school life-history for schoolyears 4–7 and imagining beyond.
Role play between Year 6 teacher (played by the child) and Year 7 teacher (played by the
researcher, in dressing-up clothes), pondering how well the child would respond to
secondary-school.
Sorting lids for how to sort children.
Toy animal activity, acting out imaginings of new Year 7 class.
Questions on the purposes of education.
Year 6 summer
term 2021
CLIPS year Visits Activities School year
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

9
Secondary school VISIT11 Sentence completers: best and worst things about secondary-school.
Talking about favourite and least favourite aspects of new secondary-schools.
Rating scale of feelings in secondary-school, using coloured wooden counting blocks:
miserable = 1, very happy = 10.
Quote sort e.g. ‘I wish I was back at primary- school’
Role play—what do you do when you are upset or happy at school?
Year 7 winter term
2021
VISIT12 PowerPoint—preparing for secondary-school—to be sent to primary schools for future
pupils.
PowerPoint—advising a future child whether to be a research participant.
Timeline of important life events from age 0–12years old.
Exploring loneliness via reactions to a story.
Difcult situation—ll in the gaps (verbal cloze).
Feeling uncomfortable in school (verbal cloze).
Rating scale regarding having a voice, representing self, e.g., ‘If I am unhappy I know who
to talk to and they will change it’.
Year 7 spring term
2022
CLIPS YEAR 5
AGE 11–12
VISIT13 Questions regarding how getting on at secondary school.
Putting into order ofpriority theiraspirations (e.g. getting rich; getting high test scores;
looking after family).
Job aspirations conversation.
Sense of status?—would they be surprised if head teacher asks for their recommendations?
Selecting own motivational orientations: autonomy/control/impersonal.
Year 7 summer
term 2022
1 LIFE-HISTORY METHODOLOGY USED IN THE CHILDREN’S…

10
ethIcaL Issues
Being Explicit About Selection ofSample
As life-historians, we had particular ethical issues to address. In the CLIPS
study, our rst issue was selecting a sample of ‘lower-attaining’ children
without by default identifying our participants as subordinate. In our case,
we asked the class teachers to select children who did not have Education,
Health and Care Plans (indicating medical diagnosis) but attained below
national expectations on standardised tests in the so-called core subjects of
mathematics and English in Year 3 of schooling (aged seven/eight).
However, initially we told the children themselves that they had been
selected because we were interested in talking to children who found some
aspects of schooling difcult. Only as the project proceeded did we explain
the specics of their selection. This concern has remained key throughout
the project and relates to parents’ sensitivities as well as children’s.
Meaningful Consent
Another issue was our request for consent from seven-year-old children in
a study that would end when they were ve years older. We debated the
issue of how competent the children were to know in advance that they
would be happy about their participation in later years. This was particu-
larly related to our plans to lm the children. We tried to address this issue
by regularly checking that the children understood what the project was
about and that they were still happy to be lmed and have their narratives
recorded. Every term we reconrmed their commitment. However, we
did nd that they tended to forget all about the project between inter-
views and we often had to remind them about our purposes and plans.
Watching Children Suffer
We found it difcult when our participants described painful experiences
that we had no power to help with. We had promised the children com-
plete anonymity (except in the rare event of a safeguarding issue), which
meant that we had to refrain from intervening. On the other hand, the
children’s active engagement with the interviews (indicated by the fact
that we only lost one child out of 24 across 4 years) suggested that at least
they were nding some fullment in the interviews and their relationships
with the research team.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

11
references
Apted, M. (1964). The up series [documentary]. Granada Television.
Boaler, J. (2005). The ‘Psychological Prisons’ from which they never escaped: The
role of ability grouping in reproducing social class inequalities. Forum,
47(2), 125–134.
Francis, B., Taylor, B., & Tereshchenko, A. (2019). Reassessing ‘ability’ grouping:
Improving practice for equity and attainment. Routledge.
Fielding, M. (2004). Transformative approaches to student voice: Theoretical
underpinnings, recalcitrant realities. British Educational Research Journal,
30(2), 295–311.
Flutter, J., & Ruddock, J. (2004). Consulting pupils: What’s in it for schools?
Routledge.
Gipps, C., etal. (2016). What makes a good primary school teacher? Routledge.
Goodson, I. (1991). Sponsoring the teacher’s voice: Teachers’ lives and teacher
development. Cambridge Journal of Education, 21(1), 35–45. https://doi.
org/10.1080/0305764910210104
Goodson, I., & Sikes, P. (2001). Life history research in educational settings:
Learning from lives. Open University Press.
Hammersley, M., & Woods, P. (Eds.). (2020). Life in school: The sociology of pupil
culture. Routledge.
Lanford, M. (2019). Making sense of “Outsiderness”: How life history informs
the college experiences of “Nontraditional” students. Qualitative Inquiry,
25(5), 500–512.
Marks, R. (2013). ‘The blue table means you don’t have a clue’: The persistence
of xed-ability thinking and practices in primary mathematics in English
schools. For um, 55(1), 31–44. https://doi.org/10.2304/forum.2013.55.1.31
Neale, B., & Flowerdew, J. (2003). Time, texture and childhood: The contours of
longitudinal qualitative research. International Journal of Social Research
Methodology, 6(3), 189–199.
Plummer, K. (1983). Documents of life. George, Allen and Unwin.
Pollard, A., & Filer, A. (1999). The social world of pupil career: Strategic biographies
through primary school. A&C Black.
Thomson, R. (2007). The qualitative longitudinal case history: Practical, method-
ological and ethical reections. Social Policy and Society, 6(4), 571–582.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474746407003909
Thomson, R., Berriman, L., & Bragg, S. (2018). Researching everyday childhoods:
Time, technology and documentation in a digital age, 1-14. Bloomsbury
Publishing.
1 LIFE-HISTORY METHODOLOGY USED IN THE CHILDREN’S LIFE-HISTORIES…

12
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

13© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_2
CHAPTER 2
Imagining Schooling asaPositive Experience
IntroductIon: APosItIve schoolIng exPerIence
It’s stressful when I put my hand up and get it wrong. It’s a bit like I got
rejected. And then other people put their hand up and they get it right …
Everyone else is smarter than me. I don’t know mathematics and I don’t
know how to spell … Shouting at us doesn’t make it better. It just makes it
worse. Because then we start to hate them and we start to not come to the
school. [Harriet, TERM3]
When Harriet told us this, aged eight, she was not having a positive
schooling experience: evidence of her wellbeing was limited; she was per-
ceiving herself as less competent than her peers; but she felt she had no
means for changing this. She found the way mathematics and English
were taught unhelpful. She excelled in other ways in her life, but, from her
perspective, these strengths and interests were not recognised or valued
sufciently in the current schooling system.
Evidence collated by Clark etal. (2018) found that schools can play a
major positive role in supporting the wellbeing of a child and that, actually,
the best predictor of adult wellbeing is not qualications but one’s ‘emo-
tional health in childhood’ (p.21). This is a distinctly signicant statement
to make, in relation to Harriet’s life-history and the other life- histories we
present in this book. Evidence of wellbeing portrayed in the children’s life-
histories is likely to predict each child’s future wellbeing better than the

14
grades they achieve at GCSE (General Certicate of Secondary Education,
national tests taken at age 16) while it is the opposite message that we hear
being broadcast to the children—and to their teachers.
We have called this book Imagining schooling as a positive experience.
We imagine that schooling as a positive experience, rstly, would evidence
wellbeing (Ryan & Deci, 2019); and secondly, would support social jus-
tice as parity of participation (Fraser, 2008). Like other books in the series,
this book provides a critique of the current grammar of schooling and—
drawing directly on empirical data from children—also imagines new
grammars. Imagining is an action that demands use of our own agency as
we consider reectively an alternative normal. We also embrace and elabo-
rate on the imaginings of 23 children—including Harriet—who had been
designated by the system as lower-attainers in mathematics, English or
both, when they were seven-years-old. We explored whether and how this
designation seemed to inuence their experiences of schooling. We
explored whether and how they felt they were participating with parity in
intentional engaged school-learning. And we explored, if so, whether and
how this furthered their best interests within a positive culture.
Using the life-history research approach in our Children’s Life-histories
in Primary-Schools project (CLIPS), we engaged in interview activities
every term for 13 terms in which we investigated each child’s Sense of
Competence, Sense of Agency and Sense of Relatedness (Ryan & Deci,
2019) in schooling (see Chap. 4). We then compared these to their images
of schooling as a positive experience. We interrogated their life-histories to
guide us educators to better imagine an alternative normal—schooling as
a positive experience; and then to place this into the wider context of
social justice. We conceptualised agency and autonomous action as the
heart of children’s learning; also of their wellbeing; and of social justice.
We recognised each child’s life-history as an expression of ‘an agentic sub-
ject who can bring her rich capacities for life—as a desiring, creating, rela-
tional person—into her working life and organizational participation’
(Casey, 2006 cited in Etelapelto etal., 2013). (We were also constantly
aware that teachers often face the same injustices as children because of the
neo-liberal performativity of the wider systems—but that is another book.)
To support our processes of analysis, we drew on and linked three theo-
retical frameworks, two with their origins in the United States and one in
Britain. The US frameworks were both developed outside education—one
in the academic discipline of social psychology and one in political sci-
ence—but we have adapted them to elucidate the school-life-histories of
these 23 children. The rst is Nancy Fraser’s framework of social justice as
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

15
parity of participation (2008). The second is Richard Ryan and Edward
Deci’s Self-Determination Theory (2019) in which a Sense of Competence,
Agency and Relatedness are all considered essential for wellbeing. The
third theory, Chris Watkins’ (2010) Theory of Learning versus Performance
Orientations, also from social psychology, loosely links the two other the-
ories together by providing a contextual shell for Ryan and Deci’s theory,
positioning it within the performative governance described by Fraser as
heavily colouring the global political picture.
In terms of social justice, a socially just schooling system is one that
serves socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged children equally,
allowing all children to experience fullment in and respect for their
curriculum- related tasks; and also facilitating procedures whereby the system
itself can be critiqued by the children who use it. The children in our study
unanimously experienced a non-participatory model of school gover-
nance, in which rules were made for them rather than by them or with
them. Instances of the children providing critique or challenging class-
room rules or pedagogic customs were rare; and tended to meet with
sanction rather than positive response. But we believed that children who
found either or both of the two core subjects tricky—mathematics/
English—perhaps suffered more than others through their lack of partici-
pation in decision-making. Because our sample children tended to feel
alienated by the tunnel-vision focus on mathematics and English, it was
even more important for them to feel part of other decisions relating to
schooling such as its organisation: choice in subjects; seating; and teaching
approaches. Indeed, these children were sometimes barred from participa-
tion in the affordances which allowed their Sense of Agency (self- direction)
to be nurtured; where they could make choices and decisions to direct
their learning. There appeared to be very limited ‘fair and open processes
of deliberation, in which all can participate as peers’ (Fraser, 2008, p.29),
suggesting that lack of representation of their voices provided further evi-
dence of social injustice. This book provides one vehicle through which
their voices can be portrayed.
exPerIences ofstAtus-subordInAtIon
Andnon- PArtIcIPAtIon Among theclIPs chIldren:
nAncy frAser
Although operating outside the context of education, Nancy Fraser
described today’s global socio-political arena, as manifesting a ‘reduction
of equality to meritocracy’ (2018, p.14). By this, she implied that people
2 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE

16
proving their worth by their merits had become more important than
ensuring an egalitarian society. One particular benet we perceived from
adopting theoretical frameworks from outside education was that some-
times schooling can be seen as beyond the realm of social justice and
human rights. However, this negative idea of meritocracy is core to the
schooling system today and source of most aspects of injustice within that
system. A schooling-system that promotes meritocracy accords with a
world-view implying that some ‘deserving’ individuals from under-
represented groups can attain employment positions on a par with their
talented peers if they merit this through hard work and/or inherent talent
(Fraser, 2019, p.16). Fraser wrote that such meritocratic policies may
legitimise the ‘exclusionary vision of a just status order’ that leaves many
misrecognised—such as some of the children in the CLIPS study.
Our CLIPS children sometimes felt that they were accorded lower sta-
tus than their peers because of their designation at age seven of having a
lower performance of attainment in mathematics/English. Status-
subordination, or misrecognition, is identied as one aspect mitigating
against social justice within Nancy Fraser’s (2008) framework. The CLIPS
children sometimes talked of feeling inferior; feeling excluded; of feeling
other; or invisible (as Fraser predicted, 2008, p.24). These negative expe-
riences negatively affected many other opportunities to achieve agency for
engaged learning and participating. They described feeling humiliated and
trapped when they were compared to other children whose performances
in these narrow subjects (mathematics/English) were perceived as better.
Sometimes they were teased or bullied because of this, undermining their
participation in learning further. They felt especially humiliated when the
teacher publicly displayed their supposed lack of competence or repri-
manded them for it; and sometimes it meant they had to sit separately
from their peers. They even felt that the teachers preferred the higher-
performing children and gave them favours, discriminating against others
as full members of the class. A particular issue that they raised on many
occasions was the anger and alienation they felt when they had to stay in
during break-time or lunch-time to nish work that peers had nished
during class-time.
Some of the most disturbing stories told by our CLIPS sample indi-
cated intense anxiety or stress around actually doing mathematics/English
in class. They experienced nding work disabling, obstructing participa-
tion further. They expressed boredom, fear, anger and sometimes extreme
confusion, which denied them the opportunity to achieve mastery in their
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

17
work; and denied them the chance to take control of the situation. They
suffered especially when presented with tests of their performance, which
could alienate them further as they found them difcult and nerve-
wracking to participate in. Several children described not getting the help
they needed in the classroom. The outcome was that they sometimes
dreaded coming to school and, instead of participating in learning, kept
their eyes constantly on the clock to track home-time; and sought only
to get by.
WellbeIng Andthesense ofAgency: ryAn AnddecI
In the CLIPS project, we drew on Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s
(2019) denition of wellbeing, which includes ‘positive experience and
wellness’:
The spontaneous propensity of people to take interest in their inner and
outer worlds in an attempt to engage, interact, master, and under-
stand. (p.215)
Fundamental for evidencing wellbeing, Ryan and Deci theorised that
every child must possess a strong Sense of Competence, a strong Sense of
Agency (Autonomy) and a strong Sense of Relatedness. The core of these
was the Sense of Agency—facilitating self-determination—but all three
were essential.
We also subscribed to White’s (2011) related denition of wellbeing,
this time specically in schooling:
Autonomous, whole-hearted and successful engagement in worthwhile
activities and relationships … engaging now in worthwhile pursuits. (p.131)
White’s perspective puts importance on ‘making learning enjoyable and
not something to be endured for the sake of goods beyond it’. White also
imagines ‘hard work’ to be only as valuable as its effectiveness in facilitat-
ing wellbeing. Like Ryan and Deci, he emphasises that nurturing bene-
cial ‘dispositions’, Orientations, attitudes, approaches to work and life, are
necessary for wellbeing among school-children; as well as understanding
of specic knowledge such as within the disciplines of mathematics and
literacy.
2 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE

18
In this book, we examine the motivational Orientations (or disposi-
tions) that our 23 sample children develop when operating within the
current schooling system which emphasises performance in specic knowl-
edge over motivational Orientations towards learning (Watkins, 2010).
We note how, when disabling Orientations are supported by systemic per-
formative messages, these obstruct children’s ‘whole-hearted and success-
ful engagement’ and their ‘propensity to take interest’. The CLIPS
children tended to develop disabling Orientations which threatened to:
a) erode their overall Sense of Competence further;
b) undermine their Sense of Agency in taking control of their learning;
c) obstruct their Sense of Relatedness to others.
This tendency led them to focus on conformity and avoidance of pun-
ishments rather than whole-hearted and successful engagement in learn-
ing and schoolwork. In turn, these Orientations limited their overall
wellbeing, which ultimately limited their parity of participation.
focus onPerformAnce rAther thAn leArnIng
InAPerformAtIve system: chrIs WAtkIns
Chris Watkins (2010) contextualises such (diluted) schooling experiences
as belonging to a global move towards neo-liberal performativity in educa-
tion systems rather than the nurturing of children’s intentional learning.
By this, he means that performances in tests and other assessments are
systemically presented as the purpose for schooling, rather than an alter-
native purpose which bodes better for wellbeing and social justice. His
alternative purpose aligns with White’s perspective, that a benecial
schooling system would instead prioritise: children engaging now in worth-
while pursuits through which they direct their own construction of knowledge,
with others, to satisfy their interests and meet personal goals they value. At the
heart of this conception of valuable learning lies again the Sense of Agency
or what Watkins calls self-direction. This in turn aligns indirectly with
Fraser’s recognition and representation aspects of social justice in which
everyone has an equal and valued role in proactively participating. It also
aligns with the central role accorded to self-determination and Sense of
Agency by Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

19
It was the Education Reform Act of 1988 that rst systematised compe-
tition in performance as the purpose of schooling. Later in the 1990s, this
was narrowed to focus on performances in the so-called core subjects of
mathematics and English. The subsequent introduction of tests (nick-
named ‘SATs’), of some (measurable) aspects of just these two subjects,
led to disproportionate amounts of curriculum time being devoted to test-
preparation for performance in these tests. This started occurring to the
exclusion of an Orientation towards learning (i.e. engaging now in worth-
while pursuits, through construction of knowledge with others, to satisfy
interests and meet personal goals).
Another outcome of the focus on performance in tests was that chil-
dren became systemically categorised—and potentially stigmatised—
according to their individual performance in preparation for these narrow
tests. Government inspectors in the 1990s required categorisation of
primary- school pupils as high, middle or low-attainers in performances of
mathematics/English, potentially linking children’s worth directly to their
performance, regardless of what intentional learning they might have
engaged in. Key Stage 2 classrooms (aged 7–11 years) became divided
into attainment groups (often misnamed ‘ability groups’), for
mathematics/English-lessons particularly, and these extended into other
lessons too. While the directive for physical grouping by attainment has
not been reinforced among this age group recently by government (in
part, due to the recent critical research of Francis etal., 2019), the practice
of sorting by attainment still seems to be perceived by many teachers as
efcient and indeed as the only possible way to manage all pupils’ perfor-
mance at prescribed standards. However, as Marks (2013) noted, even in
a classroom where children are not physically grouped by attainment, chil-
dren may become discriminated against according to their performances,
within the teacher’s head, who in turn may treat children in destructively
differential ways.
These performative features of schooling threatened the positive
schooling experiences of children who were already nding lessons in
these core subjects uncomfortable. It was not surprising that these chil-
dren sometimes started to focus on avoidance, or approval, rather than
whole-hearted and successful engagement in school-work. The combina-
tion of the difculty of work, intense boredom, status-subordination and
lack of opportunity to change the situation made some children’s school-
lives in urgent need of improvement.
2 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE

20
outlIne ofthebook
In this chapter, we have explained our key concerns and our academic
points of reference. In Chap. 3, we explore Nancy Fraser’s conceptualisa-
tion of social justice as parity of participation, grappling with its applica-
tion to children in primary-school. In particular, we note her three-pronged
framework for social justice as including not only
a) distribution of resources but also
b) status recognition and
c) representation.
In the following Chap. 4, we investigate denitions of wellbeing and
their components, drawing on the framework of Ryan and Deci’s (2019)
Self-Determination Theory, and also the work of White (2011) and the
United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989).
We try to sketch out what the components of wellbeing might look like in
practice in a positive schooling context, assuming that a Sense of
a) Competence,
b) Agency (Autonomy) and
c) Relatedness
are all essential for wellbeing as suggested in Self-Determination
Theory. In Chap. 5 we contextualise our theoretical framework of Self-
Determination Theory within the work of Chris Watkins and his differen-
tiation between Learning and Performance Orientations. We also unpick
Ryan and Deci’s Causality Orientations Theory within Watkins’ distinc-
tion. We used this as a special way of categorising our sample children,
according to how much they focussed on Performance and how much on
Learning (agentically or intentionally) in their school-life-histories; and
what the consequences were. In particular, we adapt Ryan and Deci’s
terms to identify:
a) those children who have a weak Sense of Agency as having an Impersonal
Performance Orientation;
b) those with a Sense of Restricted Agency as having a Controlled
Performance Orientation and
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

21
c) children with a strong Sense of Agency as having an Autonomous
Learning Orientation.
Chapter 6 summarises these three Orientations and then presents our
actual life-histories, categorising these according to which Orientation
each child identied with.
Section 6.A presents the life-histories of those who agreed with this
statement: I try to make sure I don’t do badly at school. I don’t want to have
low grades and have people laugh at me. I take care to do my best and not get
into trouble or get a detention. This Impersonal Performance Orientation
was selected by 12/23 children.
Section 6.B presents the life-histories of those seven children who iden-
tied with the following: I like/dislike doing what I am told. I respect/dis-
like the teachers. I work hard to get rewards/don’t care about rewards
(Controlled Performance Orientation).
Section 6.C displays the life-histories of those four children with the
strongest Sense of Agency (Autonomy Learning Orientation) who signed
up to: I’m interested in exploring different and unusual things. I am also
interested in thinking about how things could be changed at school.
Chapter 7 presents the words of some of the children specically about
their experiences of status-subordination in relation to their Sense of
Competence. Chapter 8 then explores their relationship to mathematics
and English—the core curriculum subjects—in relation to their Sense of
Agency. Agency is explored as a concept too. Chapter 9 takes a closer look
at their Sense of Relatedness in schooling and how this inter-relates with
their Sense of Competence, Autonomy and overall wellbeing. Chapter 10
concludes the book with some imaginings and implications in relation to
children’s positive experience of schooling and social justice. In particular,
we tentatively propose recommendations for more socially just educational
policy and practice: that can make all children’s life-histories more positive
and more highly supportive of wellbeing and social justice.
[IMPORTANT NOTE: Throughout the book, a number in square
brackets following a quotation means that the quotation comes from an
interview during that term of the 13 term project. For example, [8] fol-
lowing a quotation means that the quotation came from TERM8 of the
project i.e. just over half way through the project when the children were
starting in Year 5 of their primary-schools.]
2 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE

22
references
Clark, A. E., Flèche, S., Layard, R., Powdthavee, N., & Ward, G. (2018). The
origins of happiness: The science of well-being over the life course. Princeton
University Press.
Etelapelto, A., Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., & Paloniemi, S. (2013). What is
agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational Research
Review, 10, 45–65.
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of justice. Polity Press.
Fraser, N. (2018). Recognition without ethics? In C.McKinnon & D.Castiglione
(Eds.), The culture of toleration in diverse societies (pp. 21–42). Manchester
University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137708.00011
Fraser, N. (2019). The old is dying and the new cannot be born. Verso.
Francis, B., Taylor, B., & Tereshchenko, A. (2019). Reassessing ‘ability’ grouping:
Improving practice for equity and attainment. Routledge.
Marks, R. (2013). ‘The blue table means you don’t have a clue’: The persistence
of xed-ability thinking and practices in primary mathematics in English
schools. For um, 55(1), 31–44. https://doi.org/10.2304/forum.2013.55.1.31
Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2019). Brick by brick: The origins, development, and future
of self-determination theory. In A.J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation sci-
ence (6) (pp. 111–156). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.
adms.2019.01.001
United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). (1989).
http://wunrn.org/reference/pdf/Convention_Rights_Child.PDF
Watkins, C. (2010). Learning, performance and improvement. Research Matters:
The Research Publication of the International Network for School
Improvement.
White, J. (2011). Exploring well-being in schools: A guide to making children’s lives
more fullling. Routledge.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

23
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
2 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE

25© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_3
CHAPTER 3
Social Justice asParity ofParticipation:
Fraser’s Theory
Socio-political context
In this book, we imagine what might constitute positive experience for our
cohort of 23 children. By drawing on their own portrayals of their school-
ing experiences from age 7 to age 12, we are enabled to start imagining
how schooling would look if all children had positive experiences there.
We bear in mind the socio-political conditions within which the children’s
schooling is positioned, to make a politically aware analysis of their por-
trayals. Fraser (2022) herself decries the global and systemic emphasis on
economic reproduction over and above social reproduction (i.e. prioritis-
ing economic wellbeing over human wellbeing). According to Brown and
James (2020), this prioritisation also lies at the heart of policy promotion
of ‘social mobility’ in England. The standard education policy formula for
the strategy of social mobility includes:
• widening educational access
=> leads to
• the opportunity for all to engage in self-responsibilised hard work
=> leads to
• increasing social mobility
=> leads to
• poverty reduction.

26
However, Brown and James (2020) suggest of this strategy that it
does not stand up to close scrutiny and may have unintended consequences
that serve to undermine the stated purpose of educational reform. (p.7)
According to Brown and James (2020, p.1), many aspects of recent
neo-liberal policy actually confound the possibility of social mobility,
rather than enhance it. For example, the recent practice of segregating
children according to attainment, from an early age, threatens to block
social mobility (Brown & James, 2020). They claim that the end result of
the above normal formula ensures that ‘individuals have an equal chance to
be unequal, regardless of how large the prizes offered to the winners’
(p.2). Giroux and Penna’s (1979) equation is pertinent here, between
marketised, competitive schooling systems and the unavoidable subordi-
nation of some: ‘The hidden message is one that supports [many people’s]
alienation’ (p.32; our emphasis). That is, where there is competition,
there are winners but also losers—who feel demoralised, humiliated and as
failures (Sandel, 2020). As Owens and de St Croix (2020) suggest, if indi-
viduals are told they fail because they do not persevere sufciently in hard
work at school, social inequalities come to be perceived as a fair result of
the natural variations in ‘talent’ and ‘effort’ between individuals, who
come to deserve their failures. The ction pertains to the fact that, within
the neoliberal competition of the ‘postwestphalian era’ (i.e. from the
1990s, as the welfare state was run down), only a ‘talented’ minority of
children from those outside traditionally privileged groups can gain social
mobility to the promised privilege via the most desirable school/university
places (Reay, 2020; Wilkinson & Picket, 2018) while the rest are trapped
as failures. Despite their compliant perseverance and hard work—that we
see the CLIPS children engage in—structures obstruct the majority of
these children from ever achieving this goal of social mobility. At the same
time, the global dominance of the values underpinning neoliberalism may
also obstruct them from even imagining alternative life goals or condi-
tions. In addition, funding has been cut from schools generally.
In his book The Tyranny of Meritocracy (2020), Sandel imagines a more
just society where meritocracy is reduced:
A society more successful than ours at providing upward mobility would
need to nd ways to enable those who do not rise, to ourish in place, and
to see themselves as members of a common project. Our failure to do so makes
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

27
life hard for those who lack meritocratic credentials and makes them doubt
that they belong. (p.224; our emphasis)
Indeed, large-scale longitudinal studies among others (e.g. Mowat,
2018; Parsons etal., 2016; Richardson etal., 2020) tend to indicate that
wealth, class, ethnicity (and gender) operate to advantage some groups
and disadvantage others in gaining the ever-diminishing employment
available and these variables thereby potentially obstruct ‘upward’ mobil-
ity. In England, the majority of young people remain in the same income
bracket as their parents across the life-span (as shown by Mowat, 2018).
Richardson et al. (2020) have shown that students from disadvantaged
backgrounds (in terms of parent occupation) are less likely to apply to
Russell Group universities (prestigious research-intensive institutions)
than socially advantaged students, even when they hold similar qualica-
tions. This reinforces the idea of what Owens and de St Croix (2020,
p.19) call the ‘cruel and cynical ction’ of social mobility. Actually, they
show, a student’s level of deprivation (IMD rank) is the predictor of the
class of nal university degree; and in terms of attaining the highest status
jobs, these go most often to middle-class white men who have attended an
elite university (as indicated by Parsons etal., 2016). This suggests that
schooling has made little difference to mobility.
Despite such statistics, in the 2018–2019 Social Mobility Commission
report for Britain, the government continued to claim:
Schools are an essential vehicle for improving social mobility. Disadvantaged
pupils start schooling behind their peers in terms of attainment, but good
schooling can increase their chances of getting a well-paid job in the
future. (2019)
This is a very different approach to the alternative prediction by Clark
etal. (2018), whose research evidenced that wellbeing in childhood was
the best predictor of wellbeing in adulthood (which may or may not impli-
cate a ‘well-paid job’). Unaware of Clark etal.’s research, many children
will potentially persevere during distressing academic experiences in
schooling, where their wellbeing might be compromised, only to discover
that their academic studies do not lead to the successful futures the system
has taught them to expect (Browman etal., 2017). Fraser (2008) claimed
that, in these ways, our global market-driven governmentality separates
and tracks individuals for the sake of efciency and risk prevention,
3 SOCIAL JUSTICE AS PARITY OF PARTICIPATION: FRASER’S THEORY

28
‘sorting the capable-and-competitive wheat from the incapable-and-non-
competitive chaff ’ (p.128) and thereby constructing different life courses
for each—some of which support wellbeing while others make it very
unlikely. Now, following the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment g-
ures among young people have increased globally and have almost dou-
bled in Britain compared to the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008
(YEUK, 2020). Within this context of job scarcity, social mobility is even
more likely to depend on social uidity (and ‘cultural capital’) rather than
exclusively ‘upward’ education. Therefore, those less-privileged children
who have made substantial investments of time, effort and money to gain
a college or university education may stand to be still disappointed. While
income and wealth inequalities cannot be eliminated by schools, their
inuences on schooling practices can be interrogated and exposed, which
is what we hope our life-histories will facilitate. And our life-histories
depict especially, ‘the great injustice of the smart and dumb’. As Sandel
quotes from Thomas Nagel:
When racial and sexual injustice have been reduced, we shall still be left with
the great injustice of the smart and dumb, who are so differently rewarded
for comparable effort. (Sandel, 2020, p.145–6; our emphasis)
parity ofparticipation
This book draws on Nancy Fraser’s (2008) conceptualisation of social jus-
tice as parity of participation, incorporating three inter-connected aspects:
• Parity in distribution of resources,
• Parity in recognition of worth and
• Parity in representation of voice.
Although parity of participation might be expected to lie at the heart of
schooling, by applying Fraser’s concept of social justice to schooling, it
becomes clear that in practice, schooling may systematically undermine
social justice as parity of participation (Cazden, 2012; Cribb & Gewirtz,
2003; Keddie, 2016; Lipman, 2008; Mills etal., 2016; Power & Frandji,
2010). On this basis, we have harnessed Fraser’s conceptualisation to con-
sider children’s experiences at school, focussing particularly on the recog-
nition of worth aspect—that is status-subordination, misrecognition or lack
of parity of status—because of its special relevance to children designated
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

29
by the system as lacking competence in some way. At the same time, the
book itself supports parity of representation, as it actually represents the
children’s own thoughts, feelings and actions. It provides one vehicle for
them to portray their perspectives to a wider audience and thereby have
the potential to enlighten the adults who are in a good position to improve
other children’s experiences. For parity of participation, children need to
be able to represent their needs and preferences and have these acted
upon. We focus in this book particularly on what Fraser calls the ‘institu-
tionalized patterns of cultural value’ embodied within neo-liberal perfor-
mativity and how these may indirectly obstruct children from having their
needs met. Human rights underpin all three aspects of Fraser’s conceptu-
alisation of social justice. This is not surprising, given that the UNCRC
(1989) emphasises that human rights are in place to protect the best inter-
ests of the child who needs protection and care for development of his or her
wellbeing.
We found that children designated as lower-attaining at age seven
tended to have less access to the higher status enjoyed by other children,
indicating a lack of parity in recognition. Because the schooling system
suggested the value of mathematics and English above all else, and because
the CLIPS children found one or both of these core subjects troublesome,
their strengths and interests in other areas did not seem to make up for
perceived difculties in one or both of the core subjects. Although the
children seem to have been repeatedly told that it was in their best inter-
ests to focus on mathematics (and to a lesser extent, English), in terms of
social justice, this emphasis was a misconception which tended to de-
emphasise the children’s wellbeing as a whole person. This was reected in
our particular investigations into their Sense of Competence, Sense of
Agency (Autonomy) and Sense of Relatedness, all of which needed to be
strong in order for positive experiences to ourish (Ryan & Deci, 2019)
and wellbeing to be promoted. And yet these were unlikely to be strong
when such a narrow curriculum focus was systemically valued.
parity ofparticipation aSanaim forSchooling
As explained above, the analysis framework for our research was Nancy
Fraser’s (2008) conceptualisation of social justice as parity of participa-
tion. Participation is a noun of action, stemming from the Latin partici-
pare, which denotes an individual sharing in, partaking of and contributing
to something:
3 SOCIAL JUSTICE AS PARITY OF PARTICIPATION: FRASER’S THEORY

30
Summary 3.1: Participation
An individual actively
• sharing in,
• partaking of and
• contributing to
a task, system, community, etc.
We have harnessed this conceptualisation to consider children’s experi-
ences at school: how wholeheartedly they share in, partake of and contrib-
ute to their own intentional learning. Nancy Fraser uses the words parity
of participation to refer to an adult sharing in, partaking of and contribut-
ing to society by having access to the resources to take an active and equal
part in social interaction with others in society; equal social status among
others; and equal access to political decision-making.
Summary 3.2: Parity of participation
An adult sharing in, partaking of and contributing to society by having
• access to the resources to take an active and equal part in social inter-
action with others in society,
• equal social status among others and
• equal access to political decision-making.
Associating wellbeing with participation is not a new approach. Other
authors draw out some crucial aspects of participation relating to wellbe-
ing. For example, according to the United Nations Development
Programme (2014), participation might imply citizens having equal
opportunities to join ‘actively in community life and be creative in an envi-
ronment of dignity and freedom’. Such active and creative participation
has been acclaimed as ‘crucial for health, wellbeing and longevity’ by
Marmot (2004, p.2). Shotter (1993) emphasises the ‘contributing’ aspect
of participation, arguing:
A sense of belonging is not built merely on the existence of a collectively
shared culture, but requires also the right to participate in the development
of the ‘living tradition’ or the reexive arguments of that society. (cited in
May, 2011, p.368)
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

31
These authors suggest that being part of the development of a living
tradition is central to participating, with individuals equally actively and
dynamically contributing. Lynch and Baker focus on the parity angle as
well as the recognition angle of participation, which they refer to as the
goal of equality of condition. They suggest this:
Involves the equal enabling and empowerment of individuals … It is also
about appreciating or accepting differences rather than merely tolerating
them. (2005, p.132; our emphasis)
Fraser suggests that full participation means parity of involvement of all
individuals, regardless of their (dis)ability, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or
social background.
the three pillarS ofparticipation
Firstly, parity of participation can be seen as the equal distribution of mate-
rial resources. This is the traditional conceptualisation of justice (e.g.
Rawls, 1999), on which Fraser then elaborated (2008, 2022). Traditionally,
this has meant distributing the wealth in society so that all sectors of soci-
ety live at an equally high standard, have access to the same facilities and
similar opportunities for gaining wealth and social esteem. This would
contrast to the current politico-economic situation which Fraser describes
as pillaging ‘the vast majority to enrich the top 1 per cent’ (2019, p.20).
In terms of schooling, wealth maldistribution might entail certain chil-
dren having exclusive access to the best teachers, the most inspiring classes,
the most lavishly equipped schools, the most expert private tutors.
Secondly, parity of participation includes the concept of parity in recog-
nition of status. Recognition can be inuenced by what Fraser calls ‘insti-
tutionalized patterns of cultural value’, denoting social structures which
constitute certain members of a group as less signicant and therefore as
misrecognised. Fraser wrote that when:
Institutionalized patterns of cultural value constitute some actors as inferior,
excluded, wholly other or simply invisible, hence as less than full partners in
social interaction, then we should speak of misrecognition and status-
subordination. (Fraser, 2008, p.24)
3 SOCIAL JUSTICE AS PARITY OF PARTICIPATION: FRASER’S THEORY

32
She went on to suggest:
Misrecognition is wrong because it constitutes a form of institutionalized
subordination—and thus, a serious violation of justice. Justice requires that
institutionalized patterns of cultural value express equal respect for all par-
ticipants and ensure equal opportunity for achieving social esteem . . . It
precludes institutionalized norms that systematically depreciate some catego-
ries of people and the qualities associated with them. (Fraser, 2008, p.26;
our emphasis)
This book provides many representations of CLIPS children’s experi-
ences of status-subordination, whereby they feel ‘inferior, excluded,
wholly other or simply invisible, hence as less than full partners in social
interaction’ (Fraser, 2008, p.24). We represent the words of the children,
expressing feelings of fear, anger and humiliation, reducing their opportu-
nities for wellbeing. A sense of low-status during schooling can linger
throughout adulthood, continuing to have a negative impact on wellbeing
(Clark etal., 2018; Southgate, 2003).
Fraser’s third pillar in parity of participation constitutes political voice
and representation, by which she means all sectors of society participating
in deciding how wealth is distributed and how status is dened. In adult
society, this might refer to citizens’ rights to express their political views
freely and to gain access to fair electoral voting systems. Representation
during schooling can be fullled by all children contributing to making
decisions about what and how they learn, through decision-making bodies
or through an ethos of open critique and action following pupil feedback
(Lundy, 2007). The absence of voice, constituting representational injus-
tice, may be apparent in the ways in which students, especially those from
marginalised backgrounds, can be summarily suspended from school,
given detentions and other forms of punishment without options to chal-
lenge those decisions or question who makes the rules.
Fraser’s tri-partite framework has had its critics. One criticism that is
particularly relevant to our research is that its attention to equality of care
is missing. Lynch (2012) previously emphasised, more explicitly than
Fraser, the importance of caring as a human capability meeting a basic
human need, although Fraser’s 2022 book does rectify this perceived gap:
While Fraser’s work is a highly sophisticated theoretical framework for map-
ping the problem of equality and social justice, it does not recognise the
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

33
affective domain of life as a discrete site of social practice … The issue of
inequality in access to the love, care and solidarity needed to support people
at such times is a highly signicant matter for egalitarians. Affective equality
is focused therefore on two major issues, securing equality in the distribu-
tion of the nurturing provided through love, care and solidarity relation-
ships and securing equality in the doing of emotional and other work
involved in creating love, care and solidarity relations. Affective inequality
occurs directly when people are deprived of the love, care and solidarity
(LCS) they need to survive and develop as human beings ... It also occurs …
when love, care and solidarity work is trivialised by omission from public
discourse.
Mills etal. (2016) draw on Lynch’s work to conclude that, in terms of
schooling, the affective sphere must be included in its own category when
we imagine a socially just schooling system, as this is concerned with the
quality of relationships available to students. They conclude:
‘Care’ needs to be taken in the provision of exible education to ensure that
students do not receive a watered down curriculum that fails to engage them
intellectually and that damages their sense of self-respect.
Our own perspective accords with these authors. However, in reading
Fraser, especially her 2022 book, we nd emphasis on these qualities as an
outcome her tri-partite emphasis. Care tends to be a result of the tripartite
structure being in place. We demonstrate this particularly in our writing
about relatedness (see Chap. 9).
recognition andmiSrecognition
Recognition implies people being respected as of equal social status across
all groups and individuals, regardless of how they identify themselves or
the groups with which they identify. In the schooling context, status-
subordination can manifest as some children constructing themselves as
less competent, more separate, different or not as visible as others, with
the result that their participation in social interaction is limited and oppor-
tunities for enhancing social esteem curtailed. Misrecognition will inu-
ence children’s capacity to benet from current schooling as well as
threaten their future wellbeing. Lewis (2009, p.259) explains how educa-
tional forms of recognition aim to redress cultural, symbolic and status
injustices and how by providing recognition through the schooling
3 SOCIAL JUSTICE AS PARITY OF PARTICIPATION: FRASER’S THEORY

34
system, schooling can avoid the emotional and psychological harms
caused, for example, by
non-recognition, the rendering of invisibility as a result of dominant cultural
forms; misrecognition, being seen as lacking value and as inferior; and disre-
spect, being maligned or disparaged in everyday interactions or
representations.
This misrecognition has special relevance to children designated as
lower-attaining in a system where performance of attainment (especially in
mathematics/English) has particular (excessive) cultural value. Practices
reecting this imbalance of cultural value include—most obviously—
school-children’s separation from others according to their prior attain-
ment in these subjects.
Keddie (2016, p. 115) described how targets within a performative
neo-liberal schooling system are embodied within ‘classroom ability set-
ting (streaming) and standardised tests’. She concludes: ‘these are the
elds of judgement that for these students seem to encapsulate and repre-
sent their worth and value’. Keddie believed that being designated in any
sense as a lower-attainer signied the child’s diminished worth and mis-
recognition as a good citizen within the current system—and sometimes
actually threatened children’s sense of ‘survival’ (2016, p. 113).
McGillicuddy and Devine (2020, p. 1) found that when researching
among 100 primary-school-children, those in lower-attainment groups
frequently used words such as ‘shame’, ‘upset’ and ‘inferiority’ which con-
trasted with the positive words expressed by the children in higher groups,
such as ‘pride’, ‘happiness’ and ‘condence’. In our CLIPS study, words
the children actually used for their discomforts included feeling:
• rejected,
• annoyed,
• sad,
• bullied,
• angry,
• embarrassed,
• lonely,
• isolated,
• frustrated,
• bored,
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

35
• nervous,
• stressed,
• really mad,
• upset,
• tired and sleepy.
However, Fraser’s concept of misrecognition should not be confused
with Bourdieu’s equally important but different conception of misrecog-
nition (James, 2015). Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of misrecognition
related to the fact that disadvantage across the whole schooling system is
not recognised or brought to people’s awareness. On the other hand,
Fraser’s theory, a ‘radical-democratic interpretation of the principle of
equal moral worth’ (James, 2015, p.98), refers to the individual’s feelings,
thoughts and perceptions of themselves as less worthy than others, as well as
others’ perceptions of these individuals as inferior. From Fraser’s perspec-
tive, the school-child is misrecognised when their strengths and interests
‘are either excluded, minimally assessed, or accorded a lower status within
a given subject when fully assessed’ (Lynch & Baker, 2005, p.139). In
other words, when mathematics and English are given a monopoly of
prestige, other strengths and interests can appear subordinated. These
ideas are summarised in Summary 3.3.
Summary 3.3: Children who experience misrecognition in primary education
• They construct themselves, and are constructed by others, as less
worthy, less connected, more different and less visible than others;
• how they identify themselves is not respected by all;
• the groups with which they identify are not respected by all;
• they experience unfair distribution of resources;
• they experience inadequate representational opportunities
=>which suggests
• they have diminished opportunity for achieving social esteem;
• they encounter systems, or common practices, that fail to confer
respect equally to all categories of people and the qualities associated
with them;
• their life and cultures are absent in school curricula
=>which suggests
• their participation in social interaction is obstructed;
• their common humanity is denied;
3 SOCIAL JUSTICE AS PARITY OF PARTICIPATION: FRASER’S THEORY

36
• they are inequitably disempowered
=>which suggests
recognitive social justice is denied.
referenceS
Browman, A.S., Destin, M., Carswell, K.L., & Svoboda, R.C. (2017). Perceptions
of socioeconomic mobility inuence academic persistence among low socioeco-
nomic status students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 72, 45–52.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.03.006
Brown, P., & James, D. (2020). Educational expansion, poverty reduction and
social mobility: Reframing the debate. International Journal of Educational
Research, 100(101537), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101537
Cazden, C. (2012). A framework for social justice in education. International
Journal of Educational Psychology, 1(3), 178–198. https://doi.org/10.4471/
ijep.2012.11
Clark, A., et al. (2018). The origins of happiness. Princeton University Press.
Cribb, A., & Gewirtz, S. (2003). Towards a sociology of just practices: An analysis
of plural conceptions of justice. In C.Vincent (Ed.), Social justice, education
and identity (pp.15–30). RoutledgeFalmer.
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of justice. Polity Press.
Fraser, N. (2019). The old is dying and the new cannot be born. Verso.
Fraser, N. (2022). Cannibal capitalism. Verso.
Giroux, H., & Penna, A. (1979). Social education in the classroom: The dynamics
of the hidden curriculum. Theory & Research in Social Education, 7(1), 21–42.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.1979.10506048
James, D. (2015). How Bourdieu bites back: Recognising misrecognition in edu-
cation and educational research. Cambridge Journal of Education, 45(1),
97–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2014.987644
Keddie, A. (2016). Children of the market: Performativity, neoliberal responsibili-
sation and the construction of student identities. Oxford Review of Education,
42(1), 108–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2016.1142865
Lewis, L. (2009). Politics of recognition: What can a human rights perspective
contribute to understanding users’ experiences of involvement in mental health
services? Social Policy & Society, 8(2), 257–274.
Lipman, P. (2008). Mixed-income schools and housing: Advancing the neoliberal
urban agenda. Journal of Education Policy, 23(2), 119–134.
Lundy, L. (2007). Voice’ is not enough: Conceptualising Article 12 of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research
Journal, 33(6), 927–942. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920701657033
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

37
Lynch, K. (2012). Affective equality as a key issue of justice: A comment on
Fraser’s 3-dimensional framework. Social Justice Series, 12(3), 45–64.
Lynch, K., & Baker, J. (2005). Equality in education: An equality of condition
perspective. Theory and Research in Education, 3(2), 131–164. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1477878505053298
Marmot, M. (2004). Status syndrome. Bloomsbury Publishing.
May, V. (2011). Self, belonging and social change. Sociology, 45(3), 363–378.
McGillicuddy, D., & Devine, D. (2020). ‘You feel ashamed that you are not in the
higher group ’—Children’s psychosocial response to ability grouping in pri-
mary school. British Educational Research Journal, 46(3), 553–573.
Mills, M., McGregor, G., Baroutsis, A., Te Riele, K., & Hayes, D. (2016).
Alternative education and social justice: Considering issues of affective and con-
tributive justice. Critical Studies in Education, 57(1), 100–115.
Mowat, J.G. (2018). Closing the attainment gap—a realistic proposition or an
elusive pipe-dream? Journal of Education Policy, 33(2), 299–321. https://doi.
org/10.1080/02680939.2017.1352033
Owens, J., & de St Croix, T. (2020). Engines of social mobility? Navigating meri-
tocratic education discourse in an unequal society. British Journal of Educational
Studies, 68(4), 403–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2019.1708863
Parsons, S., Green, F., Sullivan, A., & Wiggins, D. (2016). Higher Education and
occupational returns: Do returns vary according to students’ social origins? UCL
Centre for Longitudinal Studies.
Power, S., & Frandji, D. (2010). Education markets, the new politics of recogni-
tion and the increasing fatalism towards inequality. Journal of Education Policy,
25(3), 385–396.
Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice (Revised Edition). Harvard University Press.
Reay, D. (2020). The perils and penalties of meritocracy. The Political Quarterly,
91(2), 405–412. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467- 923X.12829
Richardson, J.T., Mittelmeier, J., & Rienties, B. (2020). The role of gender, social
class and ethnicity in participation and academic attainment in UK higher edu-
cation: An update. Oxford Review of Education, 46(3), 346–362. https://doi.
org/10.1080/03054985.2019.1702012
Ryan R., & Deci, E. (2019). Brick by brick. Elsevier inc.
Sandel, M. (2020). The tyranny of meritocracy. Penguin Books.
Shotter, J. (1993). Becoming someone. Sage.
Southgate, E. (2003). Remembering school: Mapping continuities in power, subjec-
tivity & emotion in stories of school life. Peter Lang.
United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). (1989).
http://wunrn.org/reference/pdf/Convention_Rights_Child.PDF
United Nations Development Programme. (2014). Annual report. https://www.
undp.org/publications/undp- annual- report- 2014
3 SOCIAL JUSTICE AS PARITY OF PARTICIPATION: FRASER’S THEORY

38
Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2018). The inner level: How more equal societies
reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everyone’s well-being. Penguin.
YEUK. (2020). Census-report. Accessed September 29, 2021, from https://www.
youthemployment.org.uk/dev/wp- content/uploads/2020/06/2020-
YEUK- Census- Report_FINAL.pdf
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

39© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_4
CHAPTER 4
Wellbeing
Defining Wellbeing
In this chapter, we explore how ‘positive experience’ may be interpreted,
with particular emphasis on imagining how school-children’s wellbeing
might be further promoted within the schooling system. We draw on
Ryan and Deci’s phrase ‘positive experience and wellness’ (2019, p.215)
to represent relevant aspects of school wellbeing. Wellbeing has become a
much overused word this century, making its interpretation diverse. Our
own interpretation of wellbeing, in relation to school-children, chimes
with White’s (2011) denition as follows:
Autonomous, whole-hearted and successful engagement in worthwhile
activities and relationships … engaging now in worthwhile pursuits. (p.131;
see Chap. 2)
White explains that both ‘dispositions’—that is, Orientations, attitudes,
approaches—and the understanding of specic knowledge are necessary
for wellbeing among school-children:
Education for wellbeing is built around acquiring personal qualities (dispo-
sitions) on the one hand and understanding on the other… Dispositions are
more important … school subjects [such as mathematics, English] are not

40
ends in themselves, but vehicles– and not the only ones– to attain further
purposes. (White, 2011, pp.131–5)
In the same vein, twentieth-century philosopher, John Macmurray,
placed relatedness at the heart of schooling for wellbeing. Fielding (2012)
explained:
We are, in Macmurray’s view, deeply and irrevocably relational beings whose
creative energies are best realised in and through our encounters with oth-
ers: as he said . . . ‘We need one another to be ourselves’ . . . We should
educate the emotions, place relationships and care at the heart of teaching
and learning. (p.654, citing Macmurray, 1961; our emphasis)
Stern (2012) elaborated further:
For Macmurray, it is the personal relationships that are the main purpose of
schooling . . . the purpose of the learning is not the subject itself, what is
taught is not arithmetic or history, but people. (p.732, citing Macmurray,
1946; our emphasis)
Wellbeing anDtheglobal Policy context: UncRc
An examination of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child (UNCRC, 1989—ratied in law by Britain) highlights particular
practices that are likely to lead to children’s wellbeing. The UNCRC spe-
cically emphasises that it is the child’s right—including when they are at
school—to have their best interests promoted and to receive ‘protection
and care as is necessary for his or her wellbeing’ and for the (positive)
‘development of the child’. Wellbeing implies here, therefore, that educa-
tors have the legal duty—on a day-by-day basis—to promote every child’s
best interests and development, within a culture of protection and care, while
the child attends school. One feature that is noticeable in the UNCRC (in
contrast to its absence in the current National Curriculum in England) is
the emphasis on leisure time, recreational time, the creative arts and per-
sonal development. For example, one way proposed for promoting well-
being is by providing ‘appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural,
artistic, recreational and leisure activity’, thus emphasising that the school-
ing system (along with other structures) needs to balance work with play
on one hand; and natural/mathematical sciences with creative arts, on the
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

41
other. In addition, children have the legal right to be protected during
schooling ‘from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse,
neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation’ (which
would include not being shouted at: Dube etal., 2023).
Schooling also needs to help develop each child’s ‘personality, talents
and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential’, including
encouraging their participation in cultural life and the arts. While some
rights may be supported more by parents than by schools, every child’s
strengths and interests, as well as knowledge acquisition, will be heavily
inuenced by institutionalised values they encounter at school too.
The child has a right to autonomy of thought, conscience, religion and
expressing themselves, whether at home or at school. This applies to chil-
dren with learning difculties or other disabilities as much as any other
children ‘in a manner conducive to the child’s achieving the fullest possi-
ble social integration and individual development, including his or her
cultural and spiritual development’.
Summary 4.1: Some practices that promote wellbeing according to
UNCRC (1989)
• Being protected and cared for
• Being developed in mental and physical strengths and interests
• Being given appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic,
recreational and leisure activities
• Being allowed freedom of thought, conscience, religion and express-
ing themselves.
These rights also form the backbone of Safeguarding Policies in the UK
(Baginsky, 2008), which stipulate that schools protect their students from
harm and have robust processes in place to do so.
Wellbeing anDthenational Policy context
White critiques John Wesley (1749) in whose school they did ‘not allow
any time for play on any day’ (cited in White, 2011, p.25). Unfortunately,
this quotation from 1749 has resonances with the school practices that the
Education Secretary in England was praising in a news brief in 2020, enti-
tled, ‘We’re going on a discipline drive in schools’. It endorsed practices in
schools such as where reading and writing exercises are conducted in
4 WELLBEING

42
silence in class, and pupils are given punishment ‘for things like forgetting
their pens or slouching in class’. Contrary to most suggested supports for
wellbeing, the Education Secretary proposed: ‘As part of our ambitious
plans to level up across the country, I want this kind of culture to be
the norm’ (https://www.goversusuk/government/news/education-
secretary- were- going- on- a- discipline- drive- in- schools). Forgetting pens
and slouching in class are likely to indicate the result of children not expe-
riencing the success of whole-hearted engagement at school—that the
schooling system has failed them in this respect. Schools do have the
potential to signicantly inuence—for better or worse—a child’s present
and future wellbeing by attending directly to children’s mental, physical
and social health, as well as their academic attainment. On the negative
side, when ‘discipline’ replaces care, schooling may lower a pupil’s Sense
of Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness and lead to stigma which will
compromise their wellbeing still more. At worst, schools have been
accused of being the means by which the inequalities that are inherent in
society generally are reproduced in subtle, unacknowledged ways
(Bourdieu, 1998).
Arguably, negative effects on wellbeing have escalated since schools in
England have increasingly been subjected to a performative culture of sur-
veillance and accountability through demands for public presentation of
attainment data, focusing on evidence of performance rather than learn-
ing. In a climate where high attainment in performances of mathematics
and English is given most prestige, it is not surprising that children who
do not perform ‘as expected’ in mathematics/English, evidence less well-
being during schooling compared to others. As there is an increased likeli-
hood that some lower-attaining children may also experience disadvantaged
home circumstances such as poverty, unemployment, debt and overcrowd-
ing (Marmot, 2004), these children are even more likely to experience
poor mental health and have their wellbeing compromised. White (2011)
pointed out the role that school curriculum could unfortunately play in
disrupting children’s wellbeing:
[Schools] may be steering them towards curriculum subjects they come to
hate, having chosen them not out of love but for future gain. (p.83)
However, in apparent contradiction, the 1999 education policy docu-
ment in England expressed the fundamental purposes of the English
National Curriculum specically as promoting wellbeing, as follows:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

43
As a route to the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, physical and mental devel-
opment, and thus the wellbeing, of the individual. (cited in White, 2011,
p.11; our emphasis)
Again in 2007, revised curriculum aims were ofcially named as sup-
porting young people to become ‘condent individuals who are able to
lead safe, healthy and fullling lives’ (Ibid., our emphasis) The Department
for Education released several further guidance documents more recently
on schools’ role in promoting children’s welfare. A 2014 DFE document
focused on promoting resilience and (good) mental health, as part of help-
ing children succeed at school (presumably ‘succeeding’ in terms of
‘expected’ academic outcomes). A 2018 DFE document used the words
‘mental health’ and ‘wellbeing’ to propose a whole school approach to
tailoring actions to specic needs, implying that a range of social or emo-
tional needs can be accommodated:
Schools have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and
wellbeing of children by developing whole school approaches tailored to
their particular needs, as well as considering the needs of individual pupils.
Later still, in 2022, they emphasised that children’s ‘welfare’ is every-
one’s responsibility:
Everyone who comes into contact with children and their families has a role
to play. In order to full this responsibility effectively, all practitioners should
make sure their approach is child centred. This means that they should con-
sider, at all times, what is in the best interests of the child. (DFE, p.45;
our emphasis)
Curriculum statements and policy guidance documents therefore
explicitly promise a policy goal in England of children’s overall wellbeing.
And yet, some research ndings—including our own—suggest that their
success is partial at best. Even back in 1994, when accountability measures
were less intense, Pollard etal. (1994) warned that the curriculum as a
‘planned intervention’ was proving inadequate to ‘harness the interest of
the children in support of the learning process’ (p.146; our emphasis).
Children therefore focused more on producing an outcome that would
gain sufcient approval, rather than engaging in a motivating experience
of learning. According to Wyse etal. (2008), their motivation to learn was
negatively affected by the experience of boredom, tasks’ ambiguity, the
4 WELLBEING

44
children’s perceived lack of competence and the perceived difculty of
work. To erode wellbeing further, schools have cut back on recreational
and creative activities which provided opportunities for social fun and
exploration (Neumann etal., 2020). Baines and Blatchford (2019) have
exemplied that school break-times and playtimes have been gradually
reducing in length, too.
Not surprisingly then, we have evidence of reduced wellbeing among
school-aged children over the past decades. According to a World Health
Organisation report on the ‘Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children’
(HBSC, 2016), English school-children today express less favourable
impressions of schooling than most of their European counterparts. Only
48% of English 11-year-olds say that they ‘like school a lot’ (against 74%
of Albanian children) and 30% say that they feel ‘pressured by school
work’ (against 9% in Sweden and 10% in the Netherlands). Furthermore,
recent international assessment scores show that although the United
Kingdom’s attainment scores for 15-year-olds have gone up, only 53% of
UK pupils reported being satised with their lives at home and at school,
compared to an international average of 67% of pupils. While ‘liking
school’ and being ‘satised’ are not the same as ‘wellbeing’, they would
contribute to its prevalence.
Self-DeteRmination theoRy anDWellbeing
Wellbeing frameworks derive from a range of disciplines, for example phi-
losophy (e.g. White, 2011), sociology (e.g. Lynch & Baker, 2005), social
psychology (e.g. Ryan & Deci, 2019) or economics (e.g. Fraser, 2022). In
keeping with a conceptualisation of social justice as parity of participation
(Fraser, 2008; see Chap. 3), we use the social psychological theory of self-
determination as a vehicle for unpicking some key, personal aspects of
children’s wellbeing in their everyday school lives within the context of
wellbeing and social justice more broadly. We accord authority to Ryan
and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory because it has been studied and
reinforced in schooling across many cultures, as well as in other social sites
more widely. Ryan and Deci (2019) claim the wide applicability of
their theory:
Self Determination Theory has embraced not only the ideal of coordinating
its tenets and ndings within a single theory, but also of integrating that
theory within the larger framework of the life sciences, an aim tting with its
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

45
organismic philosophical grounding .... Self Determination Theory has …
become a more general theory of human motivation, personality develop-
ment, and wellness. (p.113)
What is particularly appealing about Self-Determination Theory to our
study is its assumption of the key role of agency (essential to self-
determination) for wellbeing. Ryan and Deci also claim that only when a
child perceives their needs for all three—competence, autonomy and relat-
edness—to be met, will this lead to wellbeing. Their denition of wellbe-
ing includes healthy self-functioning, integrity and a general positive
self-concept (2019, p.117). They claim it is aligned to:
The spontaneous propensity of people to take interest in their inner and
outer worlds in an attempt to engage, interact, master, and understand.
(Ibid., p.215)
This propensity relates to the engaged interest in learning referred to
by White (2011) and may be fullled by the parity of participation focused
on by Fraser as the normative heart of social justice.
Summary 4.2: Ways of imagining wellbeing or ourishing in schooling
• ‘Autonomous, whole-hearted and successful engagement in worth-
while activities and relationships … engaging now in worth-
while pursuits’
• An integrated Sense of Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness
• Healthy self-functioning, integrity and a general positive self-concept
• ‘the spontaneous propensity of people to take interest in their inner
and outer worlds in an attempt to engage, interact, master, and
understand’.
Feelings that might accompany wellbeing include excitement, enjoy-
ment, calmness and contentedness. Such feelings can foster creativity,
imagination and exible styles of thinking which then lead to further
engagement and enjoyment (Helwig, 2006). For example, evidence of
wellbeing might be related to a child improving their time management,
suffering fewer distractions during learning, increasing in cognitive perfor-
mance, increasing in prosocial behaviour and beneting from improved
physical health—all of which again promote further engagement (Alivernini
etal., 2019, p.100).
4 WELLBEING

46
Summary 4.3: Benets related to wellbeing
• Good feelings: such as excitement, enjoyment, calmness and
contentedness
• Useful learning supports such as: creativity, imagination, suffering
fewer distractions, increasing cognitive performance and exible
styles of thinking
• Overall health: physical, emotional and social.
Helwig (2006) emphasised the undermining of wellbeing associated
with perceiving oneself to be controlled or coerced by others. Wellbeing is
especially undermined by the control of adults over children’s bodies,
appearance, friends, food and recreation—all of which are applicable in the
schooling context. It is with this background research that we approached
our study of 23 children’s day-to-day and long-term Sense of Competence,
Agency and Relatedness; which align with their wellbeing within school-
ing; and the parity of their participation therein.
RefeRenceS
Alivernini, F., Cavicchiolo, E., Manganelli, S., Chirico, A., & Lucidi, F. (2019).
Support for autonomy at school predicts immigrant adolescents’ psychological
well-being. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 21(4), 761–766.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903- 018- 0839- x
Baginsky, M. (2008). Safeguarding children and schools. Jessica Kingsley.
Baines, E., & Blatchford, P. (2019). Full report. School break and lunch times and
young people’s social lives: A follow-up national study. discovery.ucl.ac.uk
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of resistance. Policy Press.
Department for Education. (2014). Mental health and behaviour in schools. Her
Majesty’s Stationery Ofce.
Department for Education. (2018). Mental health and wellbeing provision in
schools. Her Majesty’s Stationery Ofce.
Dube, S., Li, E., Fiorini, G., Lin, C., Singh, N., Khami, K., McGowan, J., &
Fonagy, P. (2023). Childhood verbal abuse as a child maltreatment subtype: A
systematic review of the current evidence. Child Abuse & Neglect, 144(106394).
Fielding, M. (2012). Education as if people matter: John Macmurray, community
and the struggle for democracy. Oxford Review of Education, 38(6), 675–692.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2012.745044
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of justice. Polity Press.
Fraser, N. (2022). Cannibal capitalism. New York, USA: Verso.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

47
HBSC. (2016). Health behaviour in school-aged children. https://hbsc.org/
Helwig, C.C. (2006). The development of personal autonomy throughout cul-
tures. Cognitive Development, 21(4), 458–473.
Lynch, K., & Baker, J. (2005). Equality in education: An equality of condition
perspective. Theory and Research in Education, 3(2), 131–164. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1477878505053298
Marmot, M. (2004). Status syndrome. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Neumann, E., Gewirtz, S., Maguire, M., & Towers, E. (2020). Neoconservative
education policy and the case of the English Baccalaureate. Journal of
Curriculum Studies, 52(5), 702–719.
Pollard, A., Broadfoot, P., Croll, P., Osborn, M., & Abbott, D. (1994). Changing
English primary schools? The impact of the Education Reform Act at Key Stage
1. Cassell.
Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2019). Brick by brick: The origins, development, and future
of self-determination theory. In A.J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation science
(6) (pp.111–156). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.adms.2019.01.001
Stern, J. (2012). The personal world of schooling: John Macmurray and schools
as households. Oxford Review of Education, 38(6), 727–745. https://doi.
org/10.1080/03054985.2012.740586
United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). (1989).
http://wunrn.org/reference/pdf/Convention_Rights_Child.
PDF. child#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20UNCRC%3F,their%20race%2C%20
religion%20or%20abilities.
White, J. (2011). Exploring well-being in schools: A guide to making children’s lives
more fullling. Routledge.
Wyse, D., etal. (2008). The trajectory and impact of national reform: Curriculum
and Assessment in English primary schools. Research Survey 3/2. University of
Cambridge.
4 WELLBEING

48
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

49© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_5
CHAPTER 5
Motivational Orientations: Watkins’ Theory
withRyan andDeci’s Theories
IntroductIon: How cHIldren Are MotIvAted
toengAge
In the CLIPS project, we explored how the children were motivated at
school, and how their motivation inuenced their engagement with learn-
ing in school, across their life-histories. Watkins’ categorisation, which dis-
tinguishes between a Learning Orientation and a Performance Orientation,
provides an outer shell for Ryan and Deci’s Causality Orientations Theory;
and we draw on this nested model of the two theories.
These frameworks suggest that children would react to the schooling
system in particular, distinct ways, depending which Orientation they were
steered to develop towards school-work. Some children would respond to
school-work primarily by feeling dominated by anxiety about failure in
their performances; and punishments for failure. Others would focus on
control structures such as school rules and control gures such as teachers
who directed them to carry out their performances. These responses were
likely to interfere with wholehearted engagement in school-learning
because they aligned with the school-child’s sense that they had little or no
power to achieve a task or initiate a change.
Other children would react in an agentic way—whereby they were
likely to reect on their environment and make a conscious choice about
how to respond to school-work most benecially. These children were

50
those striving explicitly towards learning and growth. They enjoyed moti-
vation driven by their Sense of Agency in achieving their own learning
goals, as well as a Sense of Competence to achieve them. The outcome was
likely to be whole-hearted engagement in intentional learning.
leArnIng versus PerforMAnce orIentAtIon
Watkins (2010) provides an all-encompassing shell to accommodate Ryan
and Deci’s three Orientations, a shell which places schooling rmly within
the political rather than psychological realm by emphasising that it is the
schooling system that triggers children’s Orientations: one is not born
with an Orientation but develops it via inuences from one’s environ-
ments, for example, the schooling environment. Watkins’ theoretical shell
provides two broad Orientations which apply specically to schooling situ-
ations: Learning Orientation and Performance Orientation; which are
loosely based on Deci’s distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motiva-
tion (1975):
1. Being intrinsically motivated (or having a Learning Orientation),
means a learner gets satisfaction and personal pleasure from the
activity itself without receiving an external reward for completing it.
This satisfaction derives from an internal process of self- rewarding
during which a Sense of Competence and a strong Sense of
Agency emerge.
2. Extrinsic motivation (or having a Performance Orientation) in con-
trast, derives from the anticipation of receiving extrinsic rewards
outside and beyond the self, for instance money, prizes, feedback.
One’s Sense of both one’s own Competence and one’s own Agency
are thereby eroded.
The point that Watkins is keen to emphasise is that schooling can pro-
mote or limit children’s Sense of Competence and Sense of Agency by
systemically emphasising external factors rather than internally relevant
ones. In the current era which stresses neo-liberal performativity—i.e.
outcomes over processes, and prior attainment over current engage-
ment—individual schools will need to work hard to nurture a Learning
Orientation over a Performance one. To use Ball’s (2003) words, by per-
formativity we generally mean: ‘A technology, a culture and a mode of
regulation that employs judgements, comparisons and displays as means of
incentive, control, attrition and change based on rewards and sanctions
(both material and symbolic)’ (p.216).
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

51
In our life-histories, for example, the Performance Orientation (reect-
ing weak or Restricted Sense of Agency) is exemplied by Clara, who
explained:
It’s like someone telling me to do something and I don’t want to do it
because it’s boring– but I have to do it because if I don’t do it I would get
in trouble. [4]
In other words, Clara has no inherent interest in her task and no con-
ception of how it might be relevant to herself. For Eden, teachers were
intolerably controlling:
They’re annoying and I don’t get my way… And they tell me what
to do! [10]
Eden’s emphasis here is on the strict policing aspect of the teacher’s
role. In the CLIPS project, we noticed that many of the children feared
teachers who shouted; so they adapted their behaviour in ways they hoped
would avoid being shouted at, even if this meant curtailing their own
growth. That is, instead of investing their energies in engagement with
learning focused on mastering understanding, some children sought
rewards and praise for doing what the teacher instructed and worked hard
to avoid punishment—but without feeling free to engage intentionally.
Instead, children spent their energies on devising ingenious ways to avoid
punishments. Eden admitted that he pretended to work:
You pretend you’re doing work, because when you do that she [teacher]
thinks, ‘Oh you don’t need detention! You’re doing your work!’ [3]
Abe explained how he managed to talk in class, which is what he
wanted to do:
Sometimes I’m talking but pretend I’m concentrating and I’m not. [The
teacher], he’s looking at his computer and he’s writing, so he doesn’t know. [2]
In these cases, it is being seen to be doing the right thing that counts (i.e.
performing), rather than ‘autonomous, whole-hearted and successful
engagement in worthwhile activities and relationships … engaging now in
worthwhile pursuits’ (i.e. intentional learning) (White, 2011, p.131). Some
of the punishments the children spent time avoiding were immediate, such
5 MOTIVATIONAL ORIENTATIONS: WATKINS’ THEORY WITH RYAN…

52
as being shouted at, getting a detention. Others were longer term disasters
which they believed were looming over their futures: such as not nding a
satisfactory job in adulthood and therefore having to live in poverty. As
Michael told us, if you don’t do well in school, ‘Your life will be ruined!’
These more amorphous fears—often disseminated via a ‘cruel and cynical
ction’ (Owens & de St Croix, 2020, p.19)—may have led to children feel-
ing even more powerless to have impact either on their attainment or on
their wider situation. All they could do, then, was to do as they were told
and avoid punishment. Perhaps a little Sense of Agency could be achieved in
designing creative ways to trick the teacher (Etelapelto etal., 2013).
tensIons Between leArnIng AndPerforMAnce
It is crucial to clarify what we mean by ‘learning’, to help distinguish it
from performance. To do this we turn to Watkins etal. (2007, p.19) who
have brought together the denitions of many others when they suggest
that effective learning is:
• An activity of construction (demanding Competence)
• Handled with, or in the context, of others (demanding Relatedness)
• Driven by the learner (demanding Agency)
• Monitored and reviewed by the learner for the effectiveness of their
approaches and strategies in relation to their goals and context
(demanding Competence and Agency).
Therefore, a Learning Orientation entails the child emphasising learning
goals, which are driving intentional engagement or a whole-hearted willing-
ness to act. They have a concern to ‘improve’ performance by going through
processes of engaged learning. This contrasts with the Performance
Orientation, whereby the child is emphasising the end point—their perfor-
mance, a focus which can undermine agency leading to helplessness, compli-
ance and avoidance. The child’s concern is primarily to ‘prove’ performance.
Summary 5.1: Learning Versus Performance
Learning is:
• an activity of construction (demanding Competence)
• handled with, or in the context of, others (demanding Relatedness)
• driven by the learner (demanding Agency)
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

53
• monitored and reviewed by the learner for the effectiveness of their
approaches and strategies in relation to their goals and context
(demanding Competence and Agency).
Motivational Orientations can be:
a) Learning Orientation: the child emphasising learning goals, which are
driving intentional engagement or a whole-hearted willingness to act
=> A concern to ‘improve’ performance
Contrasts with
b) Performance Orientation: the child emphasising performance, within the
context of neo-liberal performativity, which can undermine agency lead-
ing to helplessness, compliance and avoidance
=> A concern to ‘prove’ performance.
Carol Dweck (2017) is known as author of Growth Mindset. This is
closely aligned to Watkins’ Learning Orientation. She despairs of schools
emphasising performance over learning: ‘What are the events or situations
that take us to a place of judgement rather than to a place of development?!’
(Our emphasis). She goes on to ask:
Great contributions to society are born of curiosity and deep understanding.
If students no longer recognize and value deep learning, where will the
great contributions of the future come from? (p.220).
Dweck and colleagues considered striving towards ‘deep learning’ to be
important because, they believed:
Enjoyment of challenge and willingness to sustain engagement with difcult
tasks . . . maximise attainments in the long run … Of course, individuals
need to be able to gauge when tasks should be avoided or abandoned. (Dweck
& Leggett, 1988, p.257)
One issue that has arisen out of the focus on a Learning Orientation (or
Growth Mindset) is that it contradicts the very essence of performative
systemic schooling goals. These promote measured performance and
5 MOTIVATIONAL ORIENTATIONS: WATKINS’ THEORY WITH RYAN…

54
attainment hierarchies, within which there is little scope to nourish growth
and learning. When invited to embrace a Learning Orientation, children
are likely to default to adopting the Performance Orientation instead, if
‘institutionalized patterns of cultural value’ support measured perfor-
mance and attainment hierarchies. This latter set of cultural values can
dominate, encouraging children as it does to gain favourable judgements
about their competence by proving it to others and emphasising extrinsic
motivations over which the child has no control.
Summary 5.2: Impact of institutionalised patterns of cultural value on chil-
dren’s Orientations
1. Valuing intentional learning, focusing on growing and learning
=> Leads to
Strong Sense of Agency, intentional engagement towards owned goals,
whole-hearted willingness to act
• Leads to Learning Orientation = belief in personalised goals, uid
strengths and interests
• Leads to individuals seeking to improve their competence through
learning—prior attainment is not relevant.
2. Valuing measured performance, focusing on judgements, comparisons
and displays as means of incentive, control, attrition and change based
on rewards and sanctions
=> Leads to
Weak Sense of Agency, ‘helpless’ pattern of learning ‘characterized by
an avoidance of challenge and a deterioration of performance in the
face of obstacles’
• Leads to Performance Orientation = belief in xed goals, xed norms
• Leads to Individuals seeking to prove their competence—prior attain-
ment is highlighted.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

55
If personal strengths and interests were valued by the system, learners
would be less likely to worry about their prior attainment as they tackle a
task. On the other hand, when prescribed performance goals are pro-
moted, because these specically highlight attainment and prior perfor-
mance, they can lead lower-attaining children to feel helpless (low-agency,
low-competence) rather than in control of their mastery (high-agency,
high-competence). This leads to wasted learning opportunities:
The great majority of children in the evaluation-oriented condition [i.e.
Performance Orientation] sacriced altogether the opportunity for new
learning that involved a display of errors or confusion. (Dweck & Leggett,
1988, p.259)
That is, when lower-attaining primary-school children are presented
with the kind of school-work tasks distinctive of a neo-liberal performativ-
ity culture (i.e. involving measurements, comparisons, rewards, sanctions;
see Ball, 2003), they are more likely than their higher-attaining peers to
adopt a helpless or non-agentic approach. This may entail clinging to rules,
norms and rewards; or feeling fear and focusing mainly on avoiding failure
and punishments. This is because the performative system reinforces the
idea of children positioned on a descending scale of measured perfor-
mances; and also comes to represent their descending value to the school.
This way of perceiving the system is one of our key motivations for writing
this book.
tHe IMPlIcAtIons ofleArnIng orIentAtIon
A Learning Orientation is reected when a child perseveres in engaging
with a challenging task, rather than giving up too soon. But persevering
does not only mean sitting, working hard, exerting effort to solve a task at
their desk for a long time, even when they are stuck or confused. It means
creatively exploring all possible ways of approaching and mastering it.
Possible ways of approaching and mastering an academic task might
involve, for example, receiving help from a range of different people, hav-
ing access to different resources, sitting in a new place, sitting with a dif-
ferent partner, taking a break, concentrating more intensely, or deciding
to stop working on a particular task for the time being.
5 MOTIVATIONAL ORIENTATIONS: WATKINS’ THEORY WITH RYAN…

56
Summary 5.3: Possible ways of approaching and mastering a task
• Receiving help from a range of different people
• Having access to different resources
• Sitting in a new place
• Sitting with a different partner
• Taking a break
• Concentrating more intensely
• Simply keeping trying or
• Deciding to stop working on a particular task
The child with a Learning Orientation perseveres by focussing on what
they can do if they harness all possible resources: rather than what they
believe they cannot do because they are stuck. However, this is where a
‘cruel and cynical ction’ is at play because the child may end up exacer-
bating their sense of failure, as they work hard and make effort: but it does
not lead to success! It does not lead to success because their hard work is
executed within neo-liberal discourses of individualised performance dis-
guised as learning; hard work done by the individual—but in isolation; in
an environment of conformity; without the child’s freedom to explore a
range of supports; and without the freedom to make mistakes.
clIPs cHIldren’s MotIvAtIonAl orIentAtIons
Nearly all the children whose life-histories are portrayed in this book had
been designated as ‘below age- expectations’ in both mathematics and
English at age seven. Where this designation had led the child to feel sub-
ordinated (especially due to being designated as ‘lower’ in both subjects),
their overall Sense of Competence was most negatively affected (e.g. see
Gemma’s and Jack’s life-histories as examples, Chap. 6). Where the child
perceived their competence to be high in one valued area, such as either in
English or in mathematics, their overall Sense of Competence seemed to
be sustained. However, our sample illustrates that, when the child per-
ceived their competence to be low in both the core subjects, it was much
harder for them to sustain a strong Sense of Competence overall.
Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory suggests that satisfaction
of a person’s need for autonomy/agency entails them participating in
intentional engagement in learning and enjoying a ‘positive experience’
(2019, p.219); ultimately boosting their wellbeing. (Note that we are
sometimes using the words agency and autonomy interchangeably, despite
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

57
their theoretical differences). Their participation is affected by how and
where they attribute their successful actions to be caused—through their
own agency or from others’ control. School-children may well have a dif-
ferent Orientation in a different situation such as at home or in other
outside school situations. For example, a child who feels lacking in auton-
omy at school and adopts a Performance Orientation may show a strong
Sense of Autonomy (Agency) in relation to their mother’s dog-walking
business (see Ellie’s life-history, Chap. 6.B).
Autonomous Learning Orientation/strong Sense of Agency Those who pri-
marily sustain a Learning Orientation (Ryan and Deci’s Autonomous
Orientation) perceive that they can achieve the agency to succeed; and
also initiate change to their own school-work. The Autonomous Learning
Orientation was demonstrated, for example, when Rory explicitly
explained to us during interview that to be successful as a person, one
should ‘Think what’s right for yourself. Don’t copy other people’ [3]. In
a schooling system which evidences high levels of wellbeing and where
parity of participation dominates, we might expect to nd that all children
hold the Autonomous Learning Orientation. This would mean having
their Sense of Agency systemically promoted and supported (Chirkov,
2009; Jang etal., 2012). Across a range of cultures:
Autonomy support from teachers and parents has been associated with . . .
high academic outcomes, better psychological wellbeing, few problem
behaviours, high self-esteem, less dropping out, and strong persistence in
educational settings. (p.257)
From an institutional point of view, we add that teachers and parents
cannot provide this support adequately without themselves also enjoying
systemic support for learning over performance.
Controlled Performance Orientation/Sense of Restricted
Agency Children with a Controlled Performance Orientation perceive
that the reason they have little control over their own trajectories in the
schooling system is because they are controlled by other people in author-
ity or directly by the external structures of the schooling system. In other
words, they believe their actions to be externally controlled rather than
occurring out of self-directed intention (via agency) on a day-to-day basis.
Having a Controlled Performance Orientation is particularly associated
5 MOTIVATIONAL ORIENTATIONS: WATKINS’ THEORY WITH RYAN…

58
with seeking to be praised for achieving these externally-set goals and
working hard to achieve them. For example, the Controlled Performance
Orientation may be reected in Abe’s description of aiming to impress his
head-teacher rather than focussing on the learning itself. Children in the
CLIPS project with the Controlled Performance Orientation were the
most likely to put emphasis on attaining recognitions or rewards as extrin-
sic motivators. Rewards included such symbols as: badges, golden tickets,
certicates and digital ‘dojo’ points. On the other hand, some children—
such as Eden—expressed their belief about being controlled by resisting
authority and external controls. However, this does not seem to be a dis-
play of an Autonomous Learning Orientation because the belief remained
that goals were achieved or thwarted because of external controls rather
than to through one’s own decisions and/or actions.
Impersonal Performance Orientation implying weak Sense of
Agency The Impersonal Performance Orientation is perhaps the hardest
of the three Orientations to grasp and the least helpful for a school-child
to adopt. It is signicant that this was the Orientation that the largest
group of our sample identied with, inside the structures of schooling (12
out of 23 children). Children with this Orientation perceived little causal
connection between what happened to them at school and their own deci-
sions and actions: with this Orientation, events seem to happen randomly
because of opaque structures at play in the schooling system. Having this
Orientation is associated with trying to avoid tricky learning situations,
rather than grappling with them. For example, an Impersonal Performance
Orientation was reected in Mark’s decision to nish his work quickly,
regardless of how well it was done, fearing he would be kept in otherwise
at playtime. In such a situation, his fear of being kept in at break-time was
limiting his capacity for engagement in learning. This can be seen as the
pursuit of an ‘avoidance goal’ ((Ryan & Deci, 2019, p.157) and was asso-
ciated with low expectation of success in achieving goals because of the
perception that one has little power either to succeed in this situation; or
to initiate change in the situation.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

59
generAl PAtterns oforIentAtIon AMong
tHeclIPs cHIldren
Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory also theorises that a Sense of
Agency is essential but not sufcient for wellbeing. Children also need to
experience a Sense of Competence. However, the children in our study
were specically selected because they had been designated as having low-
attainment in mathematics and/or English, leading to some assuming that
they also had low-competence—thereby immediately putting their wellbe-
ing under threat, according to Self-Determination Theory. We found that
indeed, three of those four children who indicated having an Autonomous
Learning Orientation (4/23) had only been designated ‘lower-attaining’
in one of the core subjects at age 7/8—while most of the children (17/23)
were designated ‘lower-attaining’ in both core subjects. The fourth
Autonomous Learning Orientation child had soon been categorised as
reaching age-related expectations in both subjects. The experiences
depicted by these four Autonomous children were indisputably more posi-
tive than for most of the other children.
The third aspect of school-life that contributes to wellbeing is a Sense
of Relatedness. Sometimes, the construction of someone as having low-
competence itself could obstruct a strong Sense of Relatedness. In this
sense, the children designated as lower-attaining, or as having lower-com-
petence, had a double threat to their Sense of Agency and ultimately their
wellbeing. Very few children felt capable of taking actions that made their
situation better in relation to mathematics/English, other than withdraw-
ing physically or emotionally from it. However, some CLIPS children sus-
tained very positive relationships with their peers and when this happened,
this could support their Sense of Competence, despite their lack of positiv-
ity about mathematics/English tests.
Generally, however, the weak Sense of Autonomy (Agency) described
by 19/23 CLIPS children led to most children’s investment in Performance
Orientations, suggesting that as part of the schooling system, they rarely
participated in ‘autonomous, whole-hearted and successful engagement in
worthwhile activities and relationships’, engaging now at school in pursuits
they experienced as worthwhile (White, 2011, p.131). The result was that
they tried their best to do as they were told, sometimes with great distress
5 MOTIVATIONAL ORIENTATIONS: WATKINS’ THEORY WITH RYAN…

60
or anxiety, hoping to gain approval or at least avoid punishments. Much
energy must have been put into their attempts to scrape by—when it
sometimes seemed impossible and intractable. Their cries for help and for
clarication were sometimes silenced by school rules and controls. As
Dweck wrote in 2017: ‘Somewhere along the line, [the child’s] intelli-
gence became disconnected from [their] schooling’ (p.59).
references
Ball, S.J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of
Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268093
022000043065
Chirkov, V.I. (2009). A cross-cultural analysis of autonomy in education: A self-
determination theory perspective. Theory and Research in Education,
7(2), 253–262.
Deci, E.L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. Plenum.
Dweck, C. (2017). Mindset-updated edition: Changing the way you think to full
your potential. Hachette.
Dweck, C.S., & Leggett, E.L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation
and personality. Psychological Review, 95(2), 256–273.
Etelapelto, A., Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., & Paloniemi, S. (2013). What is
agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational Research
Review, 10, 45–65.
Jang, H., Kim, E.J., & Reeve, J. (2012). Longitudinal test of self-determination
theory’s motivation mediation model in a naturally occurring classroom con-
text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(4), 1175–1188.
Owens, J., & de St Croix, T. (2020). Engines of social mobility? Navigating
meritocratic education discourse in an unequal society. British Journal of
Educational Studies, 68(4), 403–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/0007100
5.2019.1708863
Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2019). Brick by brick: The origins, development, and future
of self-determination theory. In A.J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation sci-
ence (6) (pp. 111–156). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.adms.
2019.01.001
Watkins, C. (2010). Learning, performance and improvement. Research Matters:
The Research Publication of the International Network for School
Improvement.
Watkins, C., Carnell, E., & Lodge, C. (2007). Effective learning in classrooms.
Routledge.
White, J. (2011). Exploring well-being in schools: A guide to making children’s lives
more fullling. Routledge.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

61
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
5 MOTIVATIONAL ORIENTATIONS: WATKINS’ THEORY WITH RYAN…

63© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_6
CHAPTER 6
The Life-Histories
IntroductIon: thethree orIentatIons
The life-histories of children designated at age seven as ‘below-age-
expectations’ in mathematics/English are important because these chil-
dren face obstacles that other children do not. Most crucially, as Watkins
(2010) and Ryan and Deci (2019) pointed out (see Chap. 5), when these
children are expected to meet the kind of goals distinctive of a neo-liberal
performativity culture, they are more likely than their peers to adopt a help-
less and non- engaged approach, because such goals draw attention to per-
formances and competition, highlighting instances of poor prior
attainment. Highlighting failure rather than promise is likely to lead these
children in particular to cling to rules, norms and rewards; or feeling fear
and focusing mainly on avoiding failure and punishments.
Features associated with the three Orientations described in Chap. 5
can be summarised as follows:
Performance Orientation: (A) Impersonal Performance
Orientation/Weak Sense ofAgency
In schooling, the Impersonal Performance Orientation/weak Sense of
Agency is associated with procrastination, denial of internal conicts and
the putting off of decisions and actions (Deci & Ryan, 2012). Some

64
children in this category pursue ‘avoidance goals’ (Ryan et al., 2001,
p.157), avoiding challenge because of their low expectation of success
due to feeling little power to change the situation. Of the ve children in
our study who seemed to reject schooling by the end, two chose this
Orientation. In a general sense (not only at school), an Impersonal
Orientation/weak Sense of Agency features social anxiety, public self-
consciousness, self-derogation, a sense of powerlessness and alienation and
lower self-esteem (Deci & Ryan, 1985).
Performance Orientation: (B) Controlled Performance
Orientation/Sense ofRestricted Agency
This Orientation is associated with commitment to prescribed goals, and
with conscientiousness. It can drive the child to attain the system’s goals,
but this might be at the cost of their own Sense of Agency. Children with
the Controlled Performance Orientation were most likely to put emphasis
on attaining recognitions or rewards as extrinsic motivators. Children with
this Orientation tended to cheat more, as an easy way to attain approval
for doing the right thing, without needing to engage in learning (Deci &
Ryan, 2012). On the other hand, some children expressed their belief
about being controlled by resisting authority and external controls and
thwarting reward systems. Of the ve children in our study who seemed
to reject schooling by the end, three chose this Orientation.
Learning Orientation: (C) Autonomous Learning Orientation/
Strong Sense ofAgency
This Orientation supports persistence, exible thinking, social involve-
ment and benign relationships (Deci & Ryan, 2012). Those with this
Orientation tend to have condence in their academic attainment and
good overall levels of engagement and participation. According to Deci
and Ryan (2012), children with this Orientation experience lower levels of
boredom; they focus on interest and challenge at work and are more likely
to be autonomy-supportive of others.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

65
Summary 6.1: Watkins’ Theory Adapted and Blended with Ryan and
Deci’s Theory
Performance Orientation
1. Impersonal Performance Orientation—weak Sense of Agency
2. Controlled Performance Orientation—Sense of Restricted Agency
Learning Orientation
1. Autonomous Learning Orientation—strong Sense of Agency.
It was signicant perhaps, that in our study, three of the four children who
chose the Autonomous Learning Orientation (all from one school) had
been designated as attaining below age-expectation in either mathematics
or English but not both. We had wondered why these strong autonomy
children all came from the same school, but this seems to be part of the
explanation. If so, it indicates that their Sense of Competence was proba-
bly higher than for children who were designated as below-age- expectations
in both subjects. Those who chose the Controlled Performance Orientation
had all been designated as below-age-expectations in both core subjects.
The implication is a strong correlation between a Sense of Competence
and a Sense of Agency; and this is especially important when we take into
account that Sense of Agency is key to wellbeing.
selectIng anorIentatIon
In order to identify which Orientation a child subscribed to, we sum-
marised the three Orientations using language suitable for children. We
asked them to identify which of the following three was most like them.
The children in all cases chose the Orientation that we as researchers
would also have identied for them. They had to choose among:
Performance-oriented:
A. I try to make sure I don’t do badly at school. I don’t want to have low
grades and have people laugh at me. I take care to do my best and not
get into trouble or get a detention. (Impersonal Performance
Orientation/weak Sense of Agency—selected by 12/23 children)
B. I like/dislike doing what I am told. I respect/dislike the teachers. I
work hard to get rewards/don’t care about rewards. (Controlled
Performance Orientation/Sense of Restricted Agency—selected by
7/23 children)
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

66
Learning-oriented:
C. I’m interested in exploring different and unusual things. I am also
interested in thinking about how things could be changed at school.
(Autonomy Orientation/strong Sense of Agency—selected by
4/23 children)
[IMPORTANT NOTE: For ethical reasons, we have chosen new
pseudonyms for the children, in this book. This means that they do not
tally with names used in some published journal articles.]
lIfe-hIstorIes ofchIldren wIthaPerformance
orIentatIon at school
A.Impersonal Performance Orientation/Weak Sense ofAgency
Child
1. Abe
2. Harriet
3. Fin
4. Zeph
5. Gabriella
6. Michael
7. Mark
8. Jack
9. Laurie
10. Louise
11. Sam
12. Salah
Impersonal Performance Orientation/Weak Sense of Agency—Selected by
12/23 Children
I try to make sure I don’t do badly at school. I don’t want to have low
grades and have people laugh at me. I take care to do my best and not get
into trouble or get a detention.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

67
abe’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

68
Self-portrait 1: Abe
Abe was a British boy with dual heritage (Black African and Spanish),
who came to the UK when he was seven years old and joined Jayden
primary- school. Abe enjoyed helping others, at home or at school. Abe
loved many aspects of primary-school, and after the COVID-19 school
closures, he said: ‘I always miss school … School’s my second home’ [8].
Abe said that he was ‘friends with everyone’ [13]. Abe spoke of his class-
room being a place where he felt safe. He explained:
They [his peers] take care of me. When I’m upset, they come to me, and I
love it because they’re so nice to me [3].
Abe was especially interested in music, particularly drumming and singing:
‘Music is basically my life—I love music’ [6]. He also enjoyed working on
computers; and art; and in secondary-school his favourite subjects included
history; and Physical Education, such as badminton and hockey.
However, he experienced challenges. In our rst interview, Abe said:
I hate in English writing, because sometimes they distract me, and I get very
nervous, and I break the pencil. [1]
English was an additional language for Abe, and as our project began, his
English level was assessed as being well below age-related expectations. By
the end of primary-school, this had progressed to being only below
expected levels in English. In mathematics, Abe’s level was described as
below the expected level when he began the project. In TERM 3, he
described his frustration with mathematics:
Sometimes I get confused [in mathematics], and I don’t like it a lot. So, I
don’t like feel that I’m very good at mathematics. It’s very annoying. [3]
As a result of these discomforts, Abe was put into intervention groups for
both coresubjects. He explained his objections to missing out on fun, and
his favourite—music—when he went to support groups:
I want to stay in my class. Like I want to still do things in my class and have
fun. Also, I think sometimes that [theintervention] group misses music and
I’m like not comfortable with that. [6]
Abe spoke of feeling upset when he was compared unfavourably to some-
one else. One teacher had said to himduring mathematics, ‘Look how
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

69
Jamila can do more than you and she’s from another country’. For Abe,
this was ‘not okay’:
I’m from another country too, and I can mainly do it, but I nd things hard.
Abe spoke of the pain he felt in a mathematics tests:
I tried and tried so badly. But I tried so hard because I was nervous and I
was like shaking. [5]
Abe had revealed in his earlier interviews that he felt fearful in the class-
room when not achieving good grades. He did his utmost to avoid this
failure, as he saw it, by trying to ‘work hard’ [4]. He confessed:
Sometimes when I haven’t nished my work, my teacher says, ‘Abe! I’m
very disappointed at you because you haven’t nished your work’ and some-
times I feel upset. [2]
Later on in secondary-school, he said:
I went down from 56 to 38 this time [in English]... I was upset … [My
mum] has a parents evening today. I’m actually really, really scared… [The
teacher might tell her] that I failed my test, that I’m not doing good
work. [12]
Abe seemed to have internalised the institutional patterns of cultural value
when he claimed that, if he did badly, it was his job to avoid it. He had no
inclination to critique the curriculum or the teachers, even when he found
it painful:
Teachers are here to learn with children, not to play with them only. When
they shout it’s only for us to learn … I learn when they shout at me, because
I don’t do it again. [2]
When Abe was later asked what he had felt when the end of primary-
school SATS tests were cancelled, he said: ‘Happy. Because– I don’t like
tests, I really don’t’ [10].
When Abe was asked in his last year of primary-school how he felt dur-
ing his mathematics classes, he was still negative: ‘Bored and tired’ [9] and
unfortunately, his secondary-school mathematics experiences were also, as
he put it: ‘Bad’ [12]. Abe displayed a Performance Orientation, rather
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

70
than a Learning Orientation when spoke of wanting to do well at his
school-work to gain approval:
I want to get higher marks … and be very clever at mathematics and English
so I can impress my teacher and my mum and everyone in my family. [2]
He also believed he should maintain a positive and hopeful attitude to his
work, even when he had worked really hard to no avail. He seemed to be
attempting to minimise his emotional pain, by repeating positive psychol-
ogy afrmations and pushing away his difcult feelings. Abe explained his
attempts to put on a brave face:
We did it like ve times and then people keep forgetting, and the teacher was
like screaming. I was like: … That’s okay if they scream at me. But when he
screams, they make tears come out. [5]
As typical of a Performance Orientation, a lot of Abe’s emotional energy
appeared to be spent trying to please his teachers. When asked what a
‘child who scored low marks’ would be thinking, he explained: ‘He’s like
thinking what he has to do to impress the teacher and everything’ [2].
Nonetheless, concentration was a challenge in itself, for which he also
blamed himself, even though he could see that the environment was not
supporting his preferred ways of learning:
A lot of times I go to the board and the teacher says to me like, ‘Do this Abe
to see if you’re concentrating’—and every time that I go to the board and I
don’t know it’s because I’m not concentrating. [4]
Abe seemed to be inuenced by schooling messages about the importance
of concentrating and working hard in class ultimately to get a ‘good’ job:
‘It’s about getting a good job, trying to get good grades. If you don’t
work hard, you get bad grades’ [6], trapping him into an impossible situ-
ation whereby he felt set up to fail in the long-term. In secondary-school,
he was still nding concentration difcult. He told us:
My head of year… she’s told me that I need to focus more, and that like [if]
I want to pass and do good and everything, then I have to focus. [13]
On the positive side, by the end of Abe’s rst year at secondary-school,
although his mathematics level remained below expected levels, his English
scores had improved to the so-called expected level for his age.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

71
harrIet’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

72
Self-portrait 2: Harriet
Harriet was a White British girl, born in January 2010, who attended
Sunnyelds primary-school. She described herself as a quiet, modest per-
son who was not ‘posh’ [10] and did not want to be particularly rich or
‘smart’. She told us that—more than school-work or test scores—she val-
ued friendships and particularly enjoyed it when she made new and more
friends in secondary-school compared to primary. At the end of TERM13
[age 12], she told us:
I don’t like the lessons but I like seeing my friends at school … they’re prob-
ably the only reason I decide to go to school. [13]
She also portrayed the importance of sitting next to people in class that
she felt comfortable with. Humour was particularly important in her
school-life. She suggested: ‘I just care about making people laugh’ [9] and
she praised teachers she found ‘funny’. However, throughout her life-
history, she expressed negative feelings about school other than her Sense
of Relatedness: ‘I’m not that much of a person who likes school’ [8]. She
claimed that lessons were boring, saying: ‘I usually nearly fall asleep in
class’ [9]. She dreaded returning to school after Lockdown because of the
long, boring lessons. She expressed the insight that if lessons were too bor-
ing, it was very difcult to learn or even want to learn; so she tended to just
try and get by without getting into trouble. This was indicative of her
Performance Orientation in whereby she mainly wished to avoid trouble.
Throughout her school-life-history she described a love of and talent in
art: ‘I really, really like art … Because I’m a very good artist’ [TERM1, age
8]. In TERM4 [age 9], she explained how relatively unimportant other
subjects were to her:
If I was the headmistress then I would just say that [children] could do one
piece of art [each morning] and then go home and miss out all the other
subjects in the school day.
Increasingly, she mentioned liking Physical Education, and decreas-
ingly, English. In primary-school she had become intentionally engaged in
writing stories: ‘We write stories sometimes, and that’s what I really like …
It feels like when you read them you’re in a different world’; and she toyed
then with the idea of being a journalist in adulthood. But she stopped
enjoying English-lessons at secondary-school where writing stories rarely
happened. In the earlier years of her life-history, she described enjoying
reading books too,such as Ratburger and Fantastic Mr Fox, plus comic
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

73
strips from the local library such as Spiderman. Later she stopped reading
books at home for enjoyment, perhaps because reading for enjoyment was
not emphasised at secondaryschool. And she had never liked mathematics.
In TERM3 [age 9], Harriet conded that she felt less ‘smart’ than oth-
ers and she blamed herself for forgetting things:
Other people put their hand up and they get it right … [I feel] sad and
embarrassed … Because if they’re in the same year group, like in the same
mathematics group as me, then they probably know more than I do …
Because I don’t know mathematics and I don’t know how to spell words
properly… even though I already know them, because I keep forgetting. [3]
Then she sometimes felt angry when she had to stay in at breaktime to
catch up on her work: ‘Because you could just do it in the afternoon, not
take someone’s break away’ [3].
Harriet had recognised feeling inferior by her teacher’s negative reac-
tion to her writing at primary-school: ‘When I write something in literacy,
like when it’s all laid out perfectly they normally go ‘One [pause] summer
[pause]’ … [while] they read other people’s like this [speaking uently]-
‘One sunny day in Africa’. And then mine!—they just do it awkwardly and
weird … [to show that I] need to lay it out more correctly’ [1]. She was
acutely aware that, for her, school life was sometimes more difcult than
for other children but she claimed she had a weak Sense of Agency and a
weak Sense of Competence, and believed that she could not control that:
‘I writ as much as all the other people did, but I still got a 3 plus… [so I
feel] mad– I don’t really like my English teacher… some of the stuff on
the paper, I didn’t really understand what she wrote’ [12].
Regarding mathematics, she commented in TERM4 [age 9]: ‘Well I
don’t really like the mathematics work that they give us now, because I’m
in [with] the people who struggle with mathematics, and it’s still quite hard’
[4]. In one interview [8], she sadly described herself as both ‘brainless’
and ‘confused’. When we asked her how condent she felt at the start of
TERM11, rst TERM in secondary-school, she expressed fears of failure:
‘We were doing mathematics tests this week, and I wasn’t condent with
them … [I was afraid] that everyone else in the class would be done before
me and I would be the only one left’ [11]. She described her lack of Sense
of Competence and lack of Sense of Agency: ‘I don’t know what the
teacher is talking about … In mathematics I just sit there day-dreaming’
[9]. She explained the need for teachers to talk less fast so that she would
become less ‘stressed’ [11]. She perceptively suggested that doing more
art at school would get her mind ‘off of all the stress in the work’ [6].
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

74
Despite accompanying negative feelings, she appreciated being in special
groups for mathematics in which the participants—like herself—‘don’t
understand much’. This was because she feared that mathematics in the
main group would be too hard. However, she described the tactics she took
to avoid trouble rather than engage wholeheartedly: ‘I pretend to concen-
trate in class so I don’t get told off, because normally I get told off’ [1].
Harriet’s fearfulness was apparent in various spheres, which under-
mined her Sense of Agency. She told us: ‘I don’t want to talk in front of
the whole entire class… If I get asked to do something I’ll just sit there
quiet and wait until the teacher asks for another person’ [6]. And she told
us: ‘I go into the classroom and do what the teacher wants me to do’ [6].
In secondary-school, she followed the many new rules; and she was
shocked when she still got penalised for forgetting a couple of things.
Indeed, her denition of ‘successful’ was to ‘Get everything right and
you’re not being told off ’ [3]. This was a reection of her Impersonal
Performance Orientation where she did not feel she could change her situ-
ation as it seemed to be randomly controlled by systemic features.
Harriet was aware of the future importance of GCSE exams and claimed:
‘I’m just scared to do them because—What if I don’t get it right?’ [11].
However, she did not seem to feel overly pressured by the need to perform
highly in current or future exams. She seemed to be more concerned with
avoiding immediate humiliations and punishments at school and with sus-
taining her precious friendships. Indeed, she seemed in some ways to con-
ate good behaviour with being ‘smart’ whereby she identied a peer who
had considerable learning difculties as 10/10 in smartness because ‘he
tries his best in his work’ [8]. This perhaps reinforced her sense of confu-
sion. She did not show an overly self-responsibilised orientation, being
often more anxious to navigate successfully present threats such as punish-
ments or lost friendships. Her energy was therefore evidently engaged
mainly not in formal learning so much as in avoidance; which was in keep-
ing with her self-identied Impersonal Performance Orientation.
Harriet’s life-history journey did not undulate greatly. She started off as
a ‘mathematics hater’ [1] and nished off similarly, as she had no reasons
for expecting things to change (‘I’ll probably hate it even more [at
secondary- school]’ [9]). She was in groups that provided special support
for mathematics through most of her school-life-history, but she tended to
be glad of this as it was less taxing, and perhaps most importantly for
Harriet, in Year 7 [aged 11–12], she was in a class with some good friends
which made it less boring for her. Her passion for art was sustained
throughout, asher valuing of humour and friendships continued to blos-
som and ourish.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

75
fIn’s school lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

76
Self-portrait 3: Fin
Fin was a White British boy attending Sunnyelds school, born in
Winter 2009. He described himself as a ‘normal’ person, neither better
nor worse than others [11], someone who enjoyed sleeping in late, eating
chocolate, running in the woods, playing with his dog and watching
nature programmes on TV [7]. Fin was a child with a wide range of inter-
ests in which he eagerly engaged and for which he displayed great curiosity
and reection. For example, he was highly informed about and intrigued
particularly by the natural world, as well as archaeology, the World Wars,
Science, even Brexit [6–9]. Despite his in-depth knowledge about ani-
mals, he regretted that he had not ‘had a topic about animals’ at school [6].
Fin emphasised his happy-go-lucky approach to life which was focused
rmly on his friendships, including with his much beloved dog whom he
acquired during Lockdown 2020. His request was for longer playtimes as
he was someone who was ‘good at playing’ [8, 10]. Friendships with peers
played an essential supporting role in his life-history, which were men-
tioned every interview; and were the rst aspect he mentioned when
describing his excitement about his transfer to secondary-school. He had
a long-standing friend [2, 3, 6, etc.] whom he had met at pre-school, then
been separated from in Year 3 [aged 7–8], and then reunited with in Year
5 [aged 9–10]. Sharing diagnoses of ADHD and dyslexia, Fin found great
comfort and fullment through this friendship which appeared more
important to him than anything else at school. When we asked Fin to
highlight the most important moments in his whole school life [12] he
singled out meeting this friend and getting his dog as the most important
moments, along with meeting a particularly great teacher in Year 6 [aged
10–11]. Although he did not enjoy other aspects of schooling such as
writing lessons, he was delighted when Lockdown was over because it
meant he could see his friends again at school.
Fin struggled with his writing throughout his school life-history. At
one stage during Years 4 and 5, he referred to himself as ‘dumb’ as he did
not know enough about the ‘right’ topics; and later he called himself ‘not
very interesting’ [13]. Reecting his Performance Orientation, he longed
for his friends to say that he was really smart and believed that this would
make him more popular [13]. He told us about one teacher: ‘She didn’t
think my work was very good … So she ripped it up and threw it in the
bin … It doesn’t really help my condence’. At this stage in his school life-
history, he felt that the teachers did not pay him enough attention or even
notice that he was there: ‘Because most of them just sort of walk straight
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

77
past… because they know they can’t read my handwriting… they don’t
talk to me much’. As a result, he described his classroom seat being at the
edge of the classroom where he could neither see very well nor be seen.
Fin was not an angry or volatile person. However, his calm demeanour
sometimes concealed some less calm responses. When asked whether Fin
believed teachers thought he was ‘dumb’, he told us, ‘They just want to
be paid’. It was not until Year 6 [aged 10–11] when he had a very special
teacher, that he experienced being really helped to improve rather than
being judged negatively. This seemed to transform his experience of
schooling in a lasting, positive way.
Fin clearly believed that school was the way to future success [1]. He
was afraid that not getting a ‘good education’ would mean he would not
get a job he would enjoy. He therefore avoided trouble and persevered in
order to get the ‘right education’ [6]. However, he displayed a lot of fear
and anxiety throughout his life-history, perhaps because of this threat he
saw to a happy future work-life. He told us he was scared of being told off,
even though this very rarely happened. When he did get told off, he said
it was because ‘I’m not doing enough work … Because I don’t get it’. He
was afraid of giving the wrong answer and would ‘freeze’ if a teacher asked
him a question. Even if a question or reprimand was addressed to a peer,
he would ‘panic’. Managing these negative emotions cost him emotional
effort that might otherwise have been directed towards his keen interests
in learning about the world more widely.
Fin was one of a handful of children (four) in our study who seemed to
be thriving at the end of the project, having overcome signicant obstacles
along the way. He rated his general satisfaction with school as 8 or 9/10in
Year 7 [aged 11–12]. From the start, he had tended to consider himself
better at mathematics than at English and by the end of Year 6 [aged
10–11] he felt very competent in mathematics, perhaps partly thanks to
having a private tutor at home. By the start of secondary-school, he rated
his overall competence as 7/10 [11] and was hoping he might be in the
top set for mathematics (although in the event this was not the case for
either mathematics or English). He continued to value his friendships
highly and to look forward to a future in which he could engage more
deeply in understanding the natural world.
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

78
ZePh’s lIfe- hIstory
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

79
Self-portrait 4: Zeph
Zeph was a White, dual-heritage British, summer-born boy who
attended Sunnyelds primary-school. He was generally positive about his
school experiences, taking a matter-of-fact and very accepting approach to
schooling and attainment and claiming, ‘I’m happy all the time’ [8] and ‘I
think school is okay honestly! I don’t think we should change anything’
[12]. His passion was animals, especially frogs and tortoises, about which
he was so knowledgeable that he could claim: ‘People call me the “animal
dictionary”’ [11] and ‘I’m known as the person that knows a lot about
animals’ [13]. At the start of the project, he assessed himself as follows:
‘I’m intelligent about animals but not on every other thing’ [3]. He loved
to talk; and engaged with curiosity in conversations about many varied
topics. Particularly, he loved to talk about his frogs and tortoises and when
asked about the most important events in his life, he mentioned getting
his rst two frogs; and the birth of a tortoise. He brought frogs into many
of his school subjects, for example, depicting frogs wearing different his-
torical costumes. Over his 11 interviews, the words ‘frog’ or ‘frogs’ were
mentioned 183 times. He very much wished that schools would provide
lessons about animals which, he said, very rarely happened.
Although he told us that ‘I’m not interested in people, I’m interested
in animals’ [1], Zeph valued his friends highly, gaining more friends in
Year 4 [aged 8–9] than in Year 3 [aged 7–8] and more again in Year 7
[aged 11–12]. He kept a small circle of good friends close to himself. He
missed his friends very much in Lockdown and told us: ‘When I knew I
was returning to school this term, I felt extremely happy, like the world
has like—like just ended but just like came back’ [8].
Although he put a positive spin on most things, Zeph did not usually
feel comfortable during mathematics lessons which he described as being
not ‘really fun at all’ [12]. Despite feeling much more condent in math-
ematics after gaining help from a relative during Lockdown, he continued
to have negative experiences of mathematics lessons. For example, he used
the word ‘painful’: ‘You don’t even know what you’re doing and you
don’t, like it doesn’t go in your brain … Like the stuff we did rst, like—
we did place value rst, but um then it got harder and harder and harder,
and then it went all into fractions and decimals! That was really painful’
[13]. Zeph was surprised to hear that he had been categorised in Year 3
[aged 7–8] as ‘below age expectations’ in mathematics, exclaiming: ‘They
never said “Oh! Do you want some extra help?” Because I remember they
used to shout at me’ [13]. He also relayed how his friend Terry and others
laughed at him sometimes if he did not know the right answer: ‘[Terry]
kept like saying like impossible mathematics, like “Do you know what pi
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

80
means?” I was like “No” and he was like “You’re so dumb” … I don’t
even know what pi means yet because he’s in a higher mathematics group’
[9]. He described mathematics tests as horrible. He looked back longingly
at his pre-school experiences where school was fun because there were no
mathematics tests:
Because like it’s so hard, like you um—I don’t understand it that much, and
the teacher can’t explain what it is … You have to do it yourself … And you
just have to think everything, it’s like so hard. I don’t understand it all. [6]
Zeph did appreciate that teachers tried to make lessons fun, but he
realised: ‘In mathematics you can’t really do that because if you made it
more fun it would still be boring’ [3]. He found some aspects of English
tiresome too but developed strong reading skills that allowed him to enjoy
reading Harry Potter and other novels, at least at school and sometimes at
home too.
Zeph seemed to t the description of ‘Performance Orientation’ classi-
cally, and indeed the Impersonal Performance Orientation/weak Sense of
Agency specically. By Year 7 [aged 11–12], he explained that he was not
really bothered about getting engaged in intentional learning, but just
wanted to get by: ‘I mean I’m not really interested in learning that much …
Don’t think I really want to try that much. I want to just get—get decent
grades’ [13]. As a reection of his Impersonal Performance Orientation/
weak Sense of Agency—the Sense that he had little control over his situa-
tion—he seemed to put a lot of hard work into avoiding being in trouble
and in fact dened a successful person as someone who did not get told
off. He dened the whole point of learning at school as ‘so you do your
exams correctly’ [6] and for ‘house points’ rather than for intentional
engaged learning. His focus on getting things right rather than creative
learning was reected in a desire he expressed:
I wish like I was a prince of like the United Kingdom so every time I go to
school like the manager would come with me behind and tell me all the
answers. [5]
When asked whether a ctional character should introduce tests to chil-
dren on Mars, he advised against it: ‘Because you might get in trouble if
you do it wrong’ [4]. Perhaps if animal or nature studies had been on the
curriculum, he would have put his energies into these to good effect.
Zeph did feel under some pressure to do well enough in mathematics,
as he mentioned several times that he believed mathematics was the most
important subject for future success. However, he was not able to explain
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

81
why this was true. This tendency was noticeable for Zeph, suggesting a
conformist attitude overall without questioning institutionalised patterns
of cultural value. For example, when put into ‘lowest’ sets for mathemat-
ics, he could say: ‘But it doesn’t mean I’m bad or anything … It just
means I’m a lower level and it’s ne’ [11]. One might hypothesise that it
cost him additional energy to convince himself that these claims were true,
energy that could otherwise have been diverted towards learning.
Zeph certainly adhered to the belief that anyone could be successful if
they worked hard, listened to the teacher and concentrated well in class,
despite the fact that these strategies had not always proved effective for
him: he himself was someone who listened and concentrated well in class
but did not necessarily ‘succeed’ in mathematics. However, he was
rewarded for being obedient, reinforcing the idea that obedience was
more important than learning, for example saying: ‘I did get a house point
for sitting silently’ [6]. In secondary-school, detentions seemed to be
given out easily, something that Zeph avoided at all costs. Indeed, he
related on three separate occasions the episode during which a primary-
school teacher had unfairly given him a detention for something he had
not done; which clearly left a scar on his memory. [It was sadly noticeable
that other children at the same primary-school also had horried stories to
tell about this same teacher.]
However, on a positive note, in Year 6 [aged 10–11], at the end of
primary-school, Zeph was feeling positive about his mathematics attain-
ment, claiming:
I used to be like really low in the class but now I’m top … I didn’t like
mathematics when I was younger, but now with mathematics it’s so fun.
Probably like the second best thing I do at school. [8]
Indeed, he assessed his mathematics attainment as overall 2/10 before
Lockdown and 10/10 after Lockdown, thanks to having had help from a
relative during Lockdown. However, once in secondary-school, the dislike
of mathematics he started out with in Year 3 [aged 7–8] seemed to set
back in again in Year 7 [aged 11–12], when he told us:
No one really likes mathematics … Someone says ‘Mathematics’ and then
someone else is like ‘I love mathematics’ and there’s this person ‘Are you on
alcohol?’ [11]
However, his extreme love of and curiosity about the nature gave him
a whole world of condence of his own, one which schools in future will
perhaps embrace more appreciatively.
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

82
gabrIella’s lIfe- hIstory
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

83
Self-portrait 5: Gabriella
Gabriella was a Black British girl, born in April 2010 and attending
Sandown Academy. She described herself as funny, creative, playful and
very nice. Most noticeably, she expressed a strong love between herself
and her family members [3]. She was interested in people giving each
other ‘positive energy’ [13] and had a wealth of interests and talents, many
of which persisted throughout her life-history. She was quite passionate
about art, music, dance, science, swimming and in particular—from age 8
onwards—reading and writing. She read ction at home for fun, including
the books of Raoul Dahl and Dick King-Smith. She told us that reading
could be calming:
Sometimes I do reading when like I’m mad or upset. Like there’s some-
body maybe at school I’ve had an argument [with]—I just read. And then
somehow it just makes me—it makes me very like happy [8].
Alternatively, she said, ‘I just write how I feel in a diary’. This was
because she also loved writing, both in and out of school—her daily diary
or other stories. Her mother had a baby during the project and, in addi-
tion to her passions for art, reading and writing, she enjoyed feeling grown
up by caring for the baby [8,9]. However, she was clear at the start and
end of the project that she was not looking for fame but hoped to get by
(in keeping with her Performance Orientation). In contradiction to much
rhetoric on Social Mobility, she said:
What I want to do is just have a job and not be successful. … I just want
to … keep going to get paid. Because I just want to carry on with my life
and have a good time [1].
Gabriella had an exceptional capacity for reecting back on her past life.
For example, once in secondary-school, she could report back that she
‘used to always talk and make funny jokes’ in class at primary-school, but
she recognised that now she was more sensible and more focused on her
school-work. She explained:
Before I just hated learning like, I just disliked it so much. If my mum forced
me to do my homework I’m like ‘I don’t want to do homework’. [9]
Nonetheless, she described how in secondary-school, when she showed
her ‘resting’ face in the classroom, her teacher mistook this sometimes for
showing ‘attitude’ and she sometimes was reprimanded. She also gradually
indicated awareness of racial issues and sometimes perceived being treated
less positively than her white peers. She was particularly positive when her
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

84
teacher was ‘the same colour as me’ [8, 12]. She had some uctuation in her
peer friendships due to changing schools at the end of Year 2 (before the
project began). Year 3 [aged 7–8] seemed a little lonely as she felt shy and
did not know many people yet [2]. However, on return to her original
school in Year 5 [aged 9–10] and then at secondary-school, she surprised
herself by nding that she was very popular, sometimes too popular for com-
fort. She explained that she was fundamentally not a very sociable person,
but she had successfully learnt how to socialise and make friends [11–13].
Like many of the CLIPS children, Gabriella perceived a close link between
bad behaviour and bad learning [6]. This meant she might worry about
being reprimanded for both. A phrase she often used was ‘Stand up for
me!’, which she required from parents, friends and teachers. Gabriella’s
phrase ‘standing up for myself’ perhaps indicated the energy she felt she
needed to exert—beyond, and sometimes instead of, engagement in school-
learning—in order to survive at school. She described the angr y teachers
whom she feared who might ‘rip out the piece of work’ they did not like,
making her poor performance very obvious. Gabriella admitted to having to
pretend to understand sometimes, to avoid embarrassment [2]. Therefore,
she tended to rate herself as ‘not one of the smart people in my class’ [2].
Gabriella’s designation by the schooling system as ‘below age expecta-
tions’ in mathematics and English were made very obvious to Gabriella
and everyone else. This may have reinforced her Impersonal Performance
Orientation/weak Sense of Agency driven by fear and avoidance. In math-
ematics lessons, she described feeling stressed and worried [3]. She
explained: ‘Because when I put my hand up in mathematics that I know
what the answer is, it’s really stressful because I got it wrong … I feel a bit
embarrassed’ [2]. At the end of Year 7 [aged 11–12], Gabriella predicted
that she would be in one of the lowest attainment sets in Year 8. However,
she saw some hope in this: ‘If you’re in a really bad set then that means
you would get more—like you learn more, and you get educated more, so
you will nd—you start to nd stuff easy’ [13].
However, mainly, being depicted as ‘below expectations’ led Gabriella
to fear tests in mathematics and English greatly, to feel very stressed about
them and to hate them [4]. While she sometimes described intentional
engagement in learning (especially at home), her motivation at school
often seemed to be to avoid punishment: ‘I did do my work because if I
don’t do my work then I will get in trouble’ [6]. She talked a lot about
avoiding detentions in secondary-school; and emphasised high marks in
tests as a most important aspect of her schooling [13]. These characteris-
tics reected a Performance Orientation rather than a Learning Orientation.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

85
For example, she described how teachers kept directing children to lis-
ten hard in class, ‘so you can pass your GCSEs and go to college then
university’. She noted to us astutely, ‘I think they want to scare us into
listening’ [11]. Despite hating mathematics lessons, she told us her belief,
perhaps with anxiety:
Mathematics is really good and it helps you. … you will be able to get
into a workplace properly … If I don’t know [mathematics], I won’t get a
job and I’ll be homeless and I’ll have to live with my mum or daddy [6].
However, when she tried to explain how mathematics would help her
into employment, she referred to practical tasks such as reading bills.
Gabriella claimed to believe: ‘You can do anything if you put your mind
to it’. In fact, she complained that she kept hearing this claim from teach-
ers: ‘They just want us to believe in it and do like your work and just put
your mind to it. But yeah I do that all the time, I don’t have to be told …
[I grasp that] all I have to do is just listen and understand’ [8]. This was
in keeping with a time when she was kept in over break for not completing
her work in primary-school, where she blamed herself: ‘I felt sad and I
thought like I should concentrate more’. Indeed, she perceived that hard
work was how one moved from the lower attainment set to the upper set.
When this did not happen, it still did not shake her belief that hard work
was the key.
However, as researchers, we could also perceive Gabriella’s tendencies
towards a Learning [Autonomous] Orientation too as she sometimes indi-
cated a Strong Sense of Agency. As explained above, Gabriella became
competent in reecting back critically on her own behaviours. She also
showed genuine excitement about learning certain subjects, especially at
home but occasionally at school too. For example, in Year 6 [aged 10–11]
she claimed: ‘It’s quite exciting to learn, I think learning is very, very fun’.
At the end of the CLIPS project, Gabriella was still hoping to attend
university, perhaps after attending an FE college, following GCSEs in
which she strove towards success. Her struggles with mathematics contin-
ued throughout. However, her relationship with English had originally
been very positive, despite being designated as ‘below age expectations’.
Unfortunately, in Year 7 [aged 11–12] she faced a very strict English
teacher (whom she said was ‘rude’) whereby she became less keen on
English, at least temporarily. However, she faced her future with ‘positive
energy’, which she did bravely, cheerfully, knowing that things might not
be easy but, as much as possible, she would continue ‘standing up for
herself’ and looking ahead to her adult life when she would be independent.
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

86
mIchael’s lIfe- hIstory
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

87
Self-portrait 6: Michael
Michael was a Black British boy who described himself as follows:
‘Happy... a really positive person’ [3] and ‘very kind … Sometimes bossy
but very kind’ [8]. Michael was popular and his friendships important to
him, proud that ‘everyone’s my friend, literally’ [2] and that friends were
‘always nice to me’ [2]. He believed his popularity was partly the result of
his efforts to be happy, as, he said:
If you’re just feeling sad and down and all that … no one’s your friend
and … if you’re happy like you can be, like you have friends then all the time
[6] … ‘I’m the class clown … like, I’m really good at jokes … and the people
just laugh. [4]
He also felt he benetted academically from these positive relationships,
telling us: ‘Sometimes I get bad at mathematics, but then if I sit next to
[my friend] I get better and better because she’s helping me’ [3] and: ‘If I
have a hard question like 60 times 14 for example, I’m like ‘Oh no, I for-
got’ and then someone might like help me … until I get the hang of it’ [6].
In contrast to his sense of his social leadership, Michael described his
academic position as follows: ‘I’m like in the middle, and being in the
middle is okay, and being in the middle’s like fun’ [5]. He explained this
by contrasting himself with those both ‘below’ him and ‘above’ him. He
did not sit on the ‘support table’, with people who ‘are not learning that
much’ [2] and reassured himself that others got lower marks. Nor was he
one of the ‘top’ people, described as follows: ‘They’re like mathematics
genius[es], like they’re like the mathematics gods, and like the mathemat-
ics angels’ [5]. In fact it was better, he persuaded himself, to be ‘middling’
than ‘top’, as ‘top’ people could be ‘spoiled’ and ‘selsh’ [6].
However, despite his claim that he was ‘in the middle’, Michael was
often uncondent about his academic competence, reecting fear and
confusion. He explained: ‘Sometimes I get a bit confused about the work’
[3] and ‘I do make mistakes, so many mistakes’ [5]. He felt this showed
him in a poor light in classroom practices, telling us, for example: ‘Whoever
has that good writing they get a handwriting pen … None of [us]—Jamila
and Sam, neither me too—we don’t have a handwriting pen’ [8]. He was
also anxious about getting told off for poor work, explaining bitterly:
‘When you do like too much mistakes [the teacher] rips out your page,
scrunch it up, and put it in the recycling bin and [you] start a new one’ [5].
Indeed, Michael’s fear of falling to the bottom of the class was evident
throughout his school-life-history. When asked what he would feel if he
were at the bottom he explained:
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

88
I would be sad, disappointed. I don’t know, all those words that are bad. I
would be like disappointed. But lucky I’m in the middle. [5]
Low-marks pupils, he felt, were stigmatised: ‘Friends, they might bully
him … They will say that he’s a dumb person … [they] will say “Oh you’re
bad at mathematics, oh you’re bad at English” … “Oh you’re not smart,
you don’t even know what’s 1 plus 1”’ [2]. These comments illustrated
his constant fear of falling into the ‘low-marks’ category because of his
weak Sense of Agency and Competence, which led him to believe that he
could not do anything to help the situation. Michael believed that aca-
demic failure could blight the future, telling us that if you don’t learn in
school: ‘Your life is ruined, and [if] like you don’t learn, like nothing’s
going to happen … like you can’t go to the job anymore... then what are
they going to do for their life?’ [1], and he often commented, sounding
anxious, that ‘the future awaits’ [13]. Michael’s fear of falling to the bot-
tom of the class and the impacts this might have on his future took a sig-
nicant amount of his energy away from more fruitful learning engagement
and concerned him greatly, especially as he felt powerless—lacking both
Agency and Competence—to change the situation.
Michael’s academic condence, never strong, took a serious hit over
Lockdown. He said he had little engagement with online learning over the
lockdowns and worried about returning to the classroom, explaining: ‘I
felt like I would be down because I haven’t learnt any school things’ [8].
However, he was relieved to nd school ‘just normal’ [9] on return, and
in fact his academic condence seemed to grow during Year 6 [aged
10–11] and into secondary-school. He described this change as his brain
coming back to him: ‘I feel like a success because like—I don’t feel the
same as primary-school—primary-school I like felt like I’ve been a fail-
ure … but for some reason out of nowhere I just get all my intelligence
back… when I started secondary-school my brain just came back’ [12].
Socially, however, Michael found the shift to secondary more difcult. He
seemed to miss his high social status at primary-school, saying of leaving his
primary-school friends: ‘I didn’t cry, but like I just miss them’ [11]. At times
this lack of relatedness seemed to blight his increased competence at second-
ary-school as it had perhaps become his key prop to compensate for his per-
ceived low Competence. He exclaimed: ‘I just don’t like secondary... I just
wanted every one of my friends to come here’ [11]. By the end of Year 7
[aged 11–12], he was nding an additional, different discomfort—long
hours of controlled concentration: ‘Now in secondary-school when you start
to develop it’s just like—like you have to sit on a desk, do some work for
like—like longer time than primary and like you just sit all day’ [13].
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

89
mark’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

90
Self-portrait 7: Mark
Mark was a White British boy, born in March 2010, attending
Sunnyelds school. He described himself as kind, brave, small, happy,
always hungry, good at drawing, good at outdoor ball games and very
skilled at computer gaming (‘I was born by being good at computer
games’ [6]). Always striving to be kind and positive, he described his
primary- school in a positive light, explaining: ‘It is a good school and you
can learn a lot of things’ [10]. He was much more critical of
secondary-school.
His ‘wonderful friends’ [8] were especially important to Mark who
punctuated his school-life-history according to special friends he had
made along the journey. Indeed, he told us that the best thing about his
new secondary-school was having more friends whereby, by the end of
TERM13, he could call himself: ‘Already kind of popular in school’ [13].
He had earlier described the hardest aspect of primary-schooling as: ‘When
someone like says I can’t play’ [3], indicating once again the important
role of his Sense of Relatedness for thriving at school.
In terms of academic school subjects, Mark proclaimed a continuous
enjoyment of mathematics even when it was hard. He was particularly
motivated by a Year 6 [aged 10–11] teacher telling him he was a ‘mathe-
matician’. He told us that he had a good imagination and enjoyed the
stories aspect of learning English, although reading and writing continued
to be frustratingly difcult for him throughout.
Mark made great efforts not to let himself become upset or angry, even
when he felt frustrated, fearful or humiliated. When discussing his rela-
tively low-attainment in reading and writing, he advised:
Like for me I’m really not that good at PE, but I am good at mathematics …
Some people are good at something, some people are absolutely horrible at
something … just be yourself. [11]
He claimed that he did not really get annoyed by other people at school,
although, like others in the CLIPS project, he objected when they were
noisy. However, what might be evident here is the tendency of those with
an Impersonal Performance Orientation/weak Sense of Agency, to down-
play conicts and difcult situations. A great pressure for Mark, leading to
even greater diverted effort on his part, was his apparent belief that it
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

91
was not acceptable to show discontent at school, and particularly not
acceptableto express anger publicly. We were struck by his not infrequent
mentioning of ‘keeping down’ his negative feelings and ‘getting used to’
them: ‘I actually just keep it down, like super-down inside me’ [9]. When
we asked him if frustrating aspects of school made him feel angry after-
wards, he replied as follows: ‘Yeah denitely … Uh, I mostly just play
Fortnite [later on, at home]. Uh I mostly just take my anger out on people
online … then I’m just sort of killing people’ [12]. He had been told that
he had ‘anger issues’ [11] and to relieve these at school, he had been
taught to take deep breaths, but even this he did not do ‘out loud’ [11].
He told us: ‘I normally just scream into my arm and just forget about it’
[9], pushing his bad feelings down. This pushing down must have cost
him a lot of effort which might have been channelled more fruitfully.
Additionally, provisions could have been made for him to reduce triggers
for his anger.
So we ascertained that Mark did have confusing, distressing times—
mainly due to his low Sense of Competence—over which he seemed to
feel that all he could do was keep doing what he was told, drawing classi-
cally on the Impersonal Performance Orientation. For example, during
writing lessons, he explained:
Normally I don’t know what to write or how to explain it or something …
So whenever my teacher says like you need to write a whole paragraph,
then—and I’m a slow writer—so it’s kind of stressful for me. [9]
In mathematics with a particular teacher in Year 3 [aged 8–9], he nar-
rated: ‘Like although she was saying like “You have to do this and that” I
kind of got confused and didn’t know what I was doing … There was too
much stuff in my head at once and I couldn’t work things out’ (starts cry-
ing) [10]. During class discussions on the classroom carpet, he reected
his low Sense of Competence by explaining that the teacher rarely asked
him questions: ‘Because I don’t know the answers… I really don’t know’
[5]. When doing tests, he described how: ‘The children might be frus-
trated … A little bit. Actually a lot … because they might be stuck and they
don’t understand’ [4]. By the end of primary-school, Mark was ‘fright-
ened’ [10] about getting bullied at secondary-school and worried that he
would get too much ‘super-hard’ homework (‘I’m not a fan of homework’
[5]) with too much writing. What Mark said he would have liked again
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

92
indicates his low Sense of Agency over his situation. He wanted more help
in class, easier work, and a teacher who would, for example, do the follow-
ing: ‘Like shorten the sentence … like shorten it up so we understand …
like understand what she’s saying’ [6].
Mark again displayed his low Sense of Competence by telling us calmly:
‘For me I’m bad at mostly everything’ [11]. He had reconciled himself to
the idea that he did not mind being ‘the lowest, highest … all I want to do
is just learn’ [13]. He seemed much more pressured by the need to avoid
punishments and humiliation. We never noted a ‘whole-hearted engage-
ment’ in school learning; only when it came to online video-games at
home. Rather, Mark seemed to conate the concept of conformity, hard
work, performance and learning. In his mind, it seemed that obedience
led to approval and perhaps conformity in the classroom was also hard
work itself—for Mark. This led him to put great efforts into being obedi-
ent, law-abiding and polite, making him a favourite with many teachers
but potentially siphoning off valuable energies from whole-hearted
engagement in learning.
From earliest interviews, Mark displayed a preference for mathematics
over reading and writing, declaring of himself: ‘I’m kind of a mathematics
person’ [11]. He explained that mathematics was the most interesting
school subject: ‘It’s much easier … Because you just need to do numbers
instead of just writing a lot of sentences’ [6]. In Year 6 [aged 10–11], he
perceived: ‘I’m pretty like good [at mathematics]. I’m in the middle’ [9].
Reading and writing were a different matter. Although Mark made steady
progress in these, across his school-life-history, he was never fully comfort-
able with them, potentially making all other subjects except mathematics
more frustrating. However, by Year 6 [aged 10–11], he was reading cer-
tain books at school and at home. Writing had started off by hurting his
hand and he struggled to keep his letters on the line. He reected, even in
secondary-school, however: ‘Other people write really fast still’ [11] and
he admitted that he still hated writing ‘a little bit’ [12]. His new friend-
ships in secondary-school, who accompanied him in the same (lowest)
sets, seemed to compensate for some frustrations and Mark seemed assured
in our nal interview with him that so long as he was with his friends, he
would be happy.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

93
Jack’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

94
Self-portrait 8: Jack
Jack was a White British, summer-born boy who attended Sandown
Academy. Jack described himself as ‘funny sometimes’ [1] a bit ‘cheeky’
and ‘lazy’ [10] and not very ‘mature’ [11]. He told us several times over
the years that sports and leisure times were most important to him: for
example, he would have liked a bigger playground, shorter lesson-times
and longer break-times at school, in which to enjoy playing sports with his
friends—mainly other boys. He told us: ‘I don’t like people when they’re
silly in PE, because obviously it’s my favourite lesson’ [11]. He did not
play for a school football team, however, as he found any such pressure
stressful.
Jack told us that he delighted in making other people happy and that if
he won a million pounds, he would give half of it away to charity. He also
expressed an egalitarian attitude, possibly as a way to reconcile himself to
his low Sense of Competence: ‘Because I don’t like being better than
people, I just like to be like in the middle, like the same’ [11]. Jack
explained how lacking in a Sense of Agency he felt, in relation to his
performance:
Some days I’m like smart and some days I’m not … [Some days] my brain
has ash-banged … It like crumbles up and once I’m trying to gure out a
question it just goes blank. [11]
He also displayed his poor Sense of Agency by explaining that he was at
a disadvantage compared to his peers, but that he could not do anything
about this: ‘It’s harder for me because normally other people like practise
24/seven with their mums and dads… [but] I’m not a practice person’
[8]. He also believed that, based on his experience, tests were ‘not really
my thing’ [1]. Tests caused him a lot of stress and indeed this was made
worse by being humiliated by low scores: ‘[I] got laughed at, like “Ha ha,
he’s an idiot”’ [13]. However, what seemed to matter more than being
laughed at was whether he was with his friends in the classroom. His Sense
of Relatedness was threatened however, when he was separated from
friends in his special group for literacy at primary-school. And he recog-
nised with indignation that at secondary-school, the teachers do not ‘even
know who my friends are!’ [12].
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

95
At primary-school, it seemed to erode Jack’s Sense of Competence and
condence that he never managed to get his name in the Achievement
Book despite admitting: ‘I’m trying like extra hard now’ [8]. He also
seemed misrecognised when he worked really hard but his work was not
perceived as good enough: ‘Handwriting—they [the teachers] think it’s
messy—and after you just do all that work they just rip it up for nothing’
[8]. Jack therefore described himself at school as ‘happy and sad’ [3] but
often bored by lessons. He explained how painful he found boredom,
which led him to feel: ‘I don’t want to ever go back to that school again’
[5]. He told us of one brave and agentic instance in the classroom:
I actually said, “Can I go and explore because this is too boring!” and
[as a punishment] I was made to stay in for lunch and breaktime [1].
He explained that one cause for his boredom was weak Sense of
Agency—his confusion and lack of control—added to his low Sense of
Competence: ‘I don’t understand and no one helps me’ [2]. He also
reected insightfully on another cause, one not always noted by policy-
makers: ‘Whenever I’m not happy, it’s hard for me to like work … I just
stop doing my work’ [6]. As someone with an Impersonal Performance
Orientation, he told us he would get through lessons by sleeping; or dis-
tracting himself by writing on his hand; or ddling with things under his
desk. A third reason he voiced for boredom, seemed to be curriculum
content he could not relate to, that did not align with his personal strengths
or interests: ‘They just give me loads of stuff I don’t like … like compre-
hension sheets’ [12]. He found this stressful: ‘My head gets hot’ [4] ‘and
you sometimes blow your fuse’ [2].
His lack of ‘whole-hearted engagement’ was therefore completely
unsurprising. Jack described himself as:
Not one of the smart people in my class … because when there’s an easy
question people just keep on confusing me … when people are talking so
loud I can’t think so then I get it wrong [2].
At times he actually welcomed being punished by being sent out of
class, saying ‘Thank God! because I’m out of the classroom’ [12] so that
now his ‘brain can relax’ [4]. This indicates a high level of stress or distress
in class. His pleasure at being sent out of class tallied with his Impersonal
Performance Orientation/weak Sense of Agency, as did his frequent
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

96
physical absences from school. He did not seem to take pleasure in address-
ing difcult challenges in terms of school-work perhaps because so many
tasks were too challenging for him. When asked how he would feel if he
knew he would be in top sets for all subjects in two years’ time, he replied:
‘Not really delightful … because that means it’s much harder questions’
[13]. Indeed, at times Jack was happy to be a little devious in order to
avoid trouble. In one lesson, he was praised for nishing reading his book
while in fact, he told us: ‘There was not enough time. I couldn’t nish it
properly. So I just skipped three pages’ [1].
Like most of the children, Jack seemed to believe that good grades at
primary-school led to good grades in secondary which led to a good future
job. Although it did not work for him, he had been assured that the route
to good grades was supposed to be through concentration and persever-
ance: ‘If you persevere you will be better and you will probably be the top
person in the class… Yes! Because if you don’t focus, you’re going to be
like low grades … it means like you’ve just gave up’ [6]. Sometimes it
seemed that Jack had given up, when school-life seemed especially out of
his control. He noted at the end of the project: ‘I’m not really that smart …
I can be good at any lesson—but I wouldn’t try’ [13]. Partly, his boredom
and dislike of the learning content and environment zapped his motiva-
tion: ‘I don’t work hard on mathematics… Because I don’t really like it’
[4] (although by the end of the project he was less negative about math-
ematics). Regarding writing, he commented: ‘I’m not really good at writ-
ing [but…] in like Year 5 [aged 9–10] it was boring writing and that lot’
[8]. In TERM1, Jack’s test attainment in mathematics and English was
categorised as below age expectations, which is why he was selected for the
CLIPS project. By the end of TERM13, he was well below age expecta-
tions in the same subjects. In summary, Jack tended not to nd school-
work to be relevant, manageable or interesting for him—apart from
Physical Education—which made intentional engagement extra challeng-
ing for him leading him to avoiding it whenever possible.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

97
laurIe’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

98
Self-portrait 9: Laurie
Laurie was a dual-heritage (Black-White) British, autumn-born, boy
who attended Jayden Primary-school. He described himself as funny,
polite, sometimes loud and not particularly hard-working. He told us at
the start of the project: ‘I’m the best goalie in my class’ [1]. He achieved
this football skill through practice: ‘Every single day—I was doing this
since I was little—every single day when I came from school I used to get
my ball and practise goalkeeper’ [3]. Like many others in the CLIPS sam-
ple, he selected food tech, computing and design/technology as preferred
subjects at secondary-school.
Laurie tended to be positive about his whole school-life-history, for
example, telling us: ‘[My teacher is] teaching me good stuff!’ [6]; and
‘The lessons are really good’ [13]. He could scarcely express any desired
improvements in relation to his schooling and had looked forward with
excitement to secondary-school, explaining positively: ‘It’s a new begin-
ning!’ [12] It seemed that Laurie recognised his Sense of Relatedness as a
key trigger for enjoying school. He described how, even though they
might distract him a bit, he learnt better when sitting near friends: ‘It
would just be a better environment’ [12]. Although he was a bit worried
about making new friends at secondary-school, he soon had a good group
of friends around him. He himself hoped to grow up into a ‘kind’ and
‘friendly’ person [10] as well as caring for his family.
‘Mathematics isn’t really my strong point’ [4] Laurie told us, although
this realisation seemed to come gradually as primary-school proceeded.
However, he never expressed a low Sense of his own Competence, even
when he did badly in class. For example, he explained after receiving his
test-score: ‘I got six out of 20 … I wasn’t that angry—but I knew that I
could do better’ [5]. He frequently mentioned being ‘mad’ at himself for
making a mistake or not knowing something [2]. Yet he seemed to avoid
indicating that others were more competent than he was; for example, he
described a peer as follows: ‘Callum—always thinks he’s good at every-
thing … He even said it to my face … So like he’s a bit too condent’. Like
many of the CLIPS children, he preferred to think of himself as in the
middle: ‘Because I feel like I’m smart, but like (pause) I could still get
smarter’ [11]. He believed the myth that anyone could succeed if they
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

99
practised hard: ‘Because we’re all going to learn the same thing at some
point’ [6]. Yet Laurie recognised that teachers gave the approval he craved
to the child who ‘listens and can get the most answers right’ [5], indicat-
ing that this child was not always himself.
Laurie demonstrated a Performance Orientation (Impersonal/weak
Sense of Agency) as he tended to work his way through school avoiding
trouble, avoiding low marks but without investing great energies into
‘work’ such as mathematics, English, RE, languages. He was quite driven
by recognition that GCSE exams (which would happen four years after the
end of this project) were high prole: ‘Because like if you get like high
marks you’ll go to like a good college’ [13]. Laurie believed the myth that
good grades meant getting a good job in adulthood. And he blamed indi-
viduals themselves if they did not do well, rather than blaming the system:
‘They don’t practise, they don’t work hard enough’ [8]. His remedy for
the low-attaining child was direct: ‘He has to go to detention. And he
needs more discipline’ [1]. Yet for himself, he seemed to believe that he
could work just hard enough to get by in mathematics and writing-based
subjects to allow him to enjoy the real attractions of school: friends, foot-
ball, parties, making food. Looking back over his primary-school life-
history, he maintained that school was mainly ‘happy’ but a little bit
‘boring’ [9]. The best thing about primary-school was his: ‘friends’; and
the worst thing was ‘Tests and the work’ [9]. He seemed to avoid negative
aspects of school and avoid even talking about these—although a few
times he was explicit that it was mathematics lessons that were particularly
‘boring’ [9].
It is intriguing to note that Laurie’s Sense of Competence in the guise
of personal condence, and reduction of shyness, seemed to increase
across his school-life-history. For example, in secondary-school he claimed:
‘Obviously like—I feel more condent now than I was in primary’ [11].
His attainment relative to age had not decreased since age seven (accord-
ing to systemic measures) and indeed, his English attainment grades had
improved. He is a classic example of someone whose positivity about life
and whose sociable nature carried him through the potentially difcult
aspects of school-life albeit not through ‘whole-hearted engagement’.
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

100
louIse’s lIfe- hIstory
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

101
Self-portrait 10: Louise
Louise was an Asian heritage British girl, born in June 2010. Throughout
her life-history, her main interest was art as she explained: ‘I like painting
and I sometimes paint with pointillism’ [1]. Louise thrived on her friend-
ships at school and as the project began, she said that her best moments in
school were: ‘Playing with friends … and going on the slides’ [1]. Indeed,
in reecting back over her earliest years in school, all of her memories
revolved around playing [4]. During the rst four years of the project,
Louise found her English-lessons easier than mathematics and was consis-
tently assessed as reaching age-expected levels for English. However, her
actual enjoyment in English dipped during secondary-school due to the
100-minute lessons as she said: ‘The [English] work is kind of hard … and
the lessons are so long’ [13]. The trajectory of Louise’s mathematics com-
petence was mixed as it improved in Year 4 [aged 8–9] and then dipped in
Year 6 [aged 10–11]. However, the surprise for Louise was that in second-
ary-school she found mathematics to be: ‘quite easy sometimes’ [11] and
indeed, her attainment at the end of the project was above age- level expec-
tations for mathematics.
When we rst met Louise, she was in the mathematics intervention
group due to being assessed as being below the expected level for mathe-
matics. She explained that the reason for pupils being in the intervention
groups was: ‘Because they like don’t understand the question some-
times … The teacher helps you if you’re stuck’. During the Lockdown, she
had found the online learning difcult as she could not depend on the
teacher’s help: ‘It was kind of hard because you don’t kind of understand
what the teacher means … and they can’t answer your questions’ [9].
Louise was very clear that the things that helped her most to learn were:
‘Getting help from my partner… When the classroom is quiet. And when
the teacher comes to me’ [6], suggesting that her Sense of Agency might
not have been strong—as indicated by her Impersonal Performance
Orientation.
However, Louise believed that practice led to success. When discussing
an imaginary child who got high marks in their test, she reasoned that the
child would say: ‘I practised a lot … and I’m very happy’ [2]. Conversely,
she said that the child with low marks would be thinking ‘I didn’t revise a
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

102
lot, or like practise a lot at home’ [2]. Working at home was another big
part of what Louise believed could lead to success. These beliefs both
emphasised the responsibility of the learner and their family, rather than
the schooling system.
Louise’s Performance Orientation and her low Sense of Agency were
fuelled by her fear of humiliation: When we observed Louise in class, she
explained why she had not put her hand up: ‘I was afraid the children
would laugh at me [if I made a mistake]’ [3]. Louise’s fears, about not
wanting to be laughed at or getting into trouble, meant that the move to
secondary-school was something Louise said she felt ‘scared and nervous’
about [9] and, although part of this was worrying about being able to
make new friends, Louise was also fearful: ‘Because there’s older people in
secondary … the work might be too hard … and I won’t know the teach-
ers’ [9]. After two terms there, she reected back with more condence
and an evidently stronger Sense of Competence: ‘I thought I would be
like the lowest in the class and not like the highest, like other people …
but I’m in the middle’ [13]. Another strong fear that Louise had once she
reached secondary-school was of being given a detention, as she said:
‘Because you have like big punishments if you do like something bad, or if
you do like the littlest thing, you still get a punishment for it’ [12]. Possibly
it was these specic fears that contributed to Louise concluding at the end
of our study that she missed her primary-school.
Louise’s anxiety also centred around her performance in school tests.
When asked if school would have been different had she always attained
highly in tests, she reected: ‘I think I would have enjoyed school more
than I used to … I would have been less anxious’ [13]. Nonetheless,
despite these fears Louise at times displayed a Learning Orientation. When
asked if she would prefer to be home-schooled, she explained: ‘No, I
won’t see my friends and I’m not learning something new … and I want
to learn more Spanish’ [10].
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

103
sam’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

104
Self-portrait 11: Sam
Sam, an August-born dual heritage White British and Black Caribbean
boy, moved to Jayden Primary-school in Year 3 [aged 7] having been
unhappy at his previous school. Sam loved football, playing it regularly
both in and out of school, and described himself as: ‘A sporty person, so I
try to be as active as possible … I basically try to spend as much time as I
can when I’m outside trying to play football so I can get better’ [4]. He
said: ‘I was the best goalie in my old school’ [1]. His success in football
had helped to boost his Sense of Competence; and his sense that he had
made this happen—his Agency.
Sam’s Impersonal Performance Orientation was promoted by his belief
in needing to work hard at school and never receive sanction ‘cards’ for
poor behaviour: ‘I’m a card free zone’ [1]. And yet his efforts did not
seem to serve his Sense of Competence or indeed his overall perception of
having a positive experience at school. Partly because Sam often found the
classroom too ‘loud’ [9], his favourite spot was a secluded corner in the
library hidden between two tall folding boards where he could read a
favourite book, telling us: ‘It’s like a magical place’ (3). It was no surprise,
then, that Sam preferred learning at home during Lockdown, and he drew
a picture of himself contentedly working at his quiet kitchen table every
morning with his computer and mum to help. Sam was delighted when
KS2 SATs were cancelled due to Lockdown, making what he described as:
‘a very smug and happy face’ [9]. He perceived that the cancellation of
SATs would benet his performance in his two least favourite topics: ‘I
would be so stressed and think about it so much, I would underperform...
[we’re] recapping stuff in mathematics lessons [now] … so I’m under-
standing a bit more … mathematics and SPaG’ (9).
Sam could feel very anxious about performing less well than others in
class. He described lucidly how he felt he had neither Competence nor
Agency and how frightening this was:
Sometimes I have ideas and then they just pop out of my brain and then I’m
like (imitates panting) and I’m just breathing in and out deeply, in through
my nose and out … like um [pause] “I have a good one. Oh what was it
again? Oh yeah it was that”. So it was basically I mainly forget it, forget what
it is. [3]
Part of what made him anxious was not knowing what work he would
be given and whether he would be able to do it. He felt he had no Agency
over what happened to him at school, nor could he even predict it:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

105
I was wondering what we were going to do, and I was wondering if it would
be hard or easy for the English lesson... The mathematics sometimes is just
really hard … Like sometimes it’s so hard like, and like—‘stop! it’s so dif-
cult’—sometimes I’m like that... it might be easy for other people, but it
might be just like “Oh, it’s so hard” for me... I’m just so angry and sad at
the same time. [2]
He worried about how his teachers viewed him, suspecting that his Year
3 [aged 7–8] teacher might think: ‘That I sometimes just go in a dream
world’ [1]. He mentioned a few times how little control he felt over his
concentration in the classroom as it currently operated. He was also scared
that his Year 3and Year5 teacher would say: ‘Sam needs extra help with
his spelling’ [2]. His fear was that this teacher would get very angry—even
though he could not help himself: ‘He just gets annoyed that I can’t spell
really easy words’ [5]. Not surprisingly, Sam found this distressing and it
added to the pressure he was already experiencing. He blamed himself
rather than the way schooling was organised and told us it ‘makes me feel
disappointed in myself’ [5].
Tests were what Sam feared most throughout his life-history: ‘[Year 1
was] good. There was one thing I hated though—spelling tests … [We
also] had spelling tests in Year 2 and if you didn’t get more than ve—or
something—right, you missed your break’ [4]. Even worse, he described
his humiliation when his Year 3/5 teacher read test scores out aloud,
drawing attention explicitly to comparison of attainment between peers.
Sam wanted his teacher to: ‘Not shout out other people’s scores because
it makes me feel really sad, embarrassed … Like he shouts it out in the
whole- to the whole class’ [5].
Sam certainly put a great amount of effort into schooling, but not into
intentional engagement in learning: rather, his efforts seemed fuelled to a
large degree by fear of being compared negatively to others. This compari-
son highlighted to him his poor Sense of Agency as, despite his hard work,
success was out of his reach. He explained the lack of coherence he felt
emotionally: ‘My life is a jigsaw and then I keep, I basically, I miss out bits.
It’s like a story and then it’s missing a page’ [5]. He seemed to consider
himself as lacking some vital piece of himself that was necessary to activate
Competence at school. At the same time, he continued to blame himself.
On the positive side, although Sam felt ‘nervous’ [10] about going to
secondary-school, he preferred it because it offered him the opportunity
to explore fresh areas of interest, such as acting, making music and sport.
By the end of Year 7 [age 11–12], he was no longer designated by his
school as below age-expectations in mathematics or English, in contrast to
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

106
salah’s lIfe- hIstory
when the project started. His rationale was that: ‘I just think secondary-
school is a lot better... [we have] proper PE teachers, proper teachers... I
just feel like I can understand it more’ [11].
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

107
Self-portrait 12: Salah
Salah was a British boy with dual heritage (Hispanic-Asian) born in
March 2010. In addition to attending Brandon Grove school, being a
particularly active person, he also attended sports practices several times a
weekoutside school. Salah explained in Year 3 [aged 8–9] how the static
nature of the classroom did not suit his preferences: ‘I don’t like being in
the class … Because you have to sit on the carpet or on the chair, I want
to stand up and play something, or like run’ [3].
Salah described himself as: ‘Kind, sporty, gentle, fun, shy’ [1] and pri-
oritised ‘being a good, loyal friend and making other people happy’ [13].
Salah could be sociable and appreciated his strong Sense of Relatedness.
He played outdoor and online games with friends and maintained the
same strong friendships throughout his life-history. Salah told us in his
new secondary-school:
Whenever I’m happy [in school], that’s when I’m with my friends … and I
just have a good conversation with them. [11]
Salah enjoyed a strong Sense of Relatedness with most of his teachers
too. He said: ‘The best thing about returning to school after the rst
Lockdown was, seeing my teachers and my friends’ [9]. When asked what
helped his learning most, he said of his teacher: ‘Mr. Morris made me
laugh. He just made school better’ [10]. Salah also attended after-school
Qur’an classes but he did not seem to enjoy these so much.
When we rst met Salah, he was most vocal about his discomfort in
mathematics lessons. His biggest worry about moving into Year 4 [aged
8–9] was as follows: ‘Mathematics, because in Year 4 you get harder and
harder mathematics’ [3]. At this stage, Salah was in a mathematics inter-
vention group which, he explained: ‘Makes me concentrate’ [1]. This
group included fun games and Salah’s class teacher taught this group on a
rotational basis. The group was rejigged regularly according to need,
which might explain how he exhibited no embarrassment about being in
this group. Later, however, Salah paid for outside school help, presumably
lacking a Sense of Competence in the schooling environment [3]. Yet,
despite this, in Year 5 [aged 9–10] he said that his life was ‘getting worser’
[5] due to the pressure of mathematics tests. He explained the weak Sense
of Competence and low Sense of Agency—as well as isolation compared
to other children—he experienced in mathematics classes:
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

108
Half the time I just don’t know what the teacher’s saying. I’m just like con-
fused because I don’t listen very much in mathematics, and I think I’m the
only one who doesn’t know anything. [9]
At the end of primary-school, Salah’s formal attainment in mathematics/
English was assessed as working well below the expected level for mathe-
matics, which indicated a decline since Year 3, and he now said: ‘I hate
mathematics’ [9]. When asked how his teacher would rate him in terms of
this school-work, he estimated that although pre-Lockdown he would
have been rated as 7/10 by his teacher, by the end of primary-school, it
would have dropped to 5/10 [10].
Salah displayed a classic Impersonal Performance Orientation/weak
Sense of Agency in that he tried to avoid difculty because grappling with
the problem seemed too hard. When a test was threatened, he wanted to
avoid it completely: ‘I might not come [to school] … I might hide in the
toilets’ [1]. He continued: ‘I’m scared that if I get it [the test] wrong, then
I’ll get in big trouble. Today I got 7 out of 30in my mathematics test and
I started crying’ [1]. In secondary-school he explicitly voiced his fear of
status subordination based on low attainment:
I’m not the best at school but I try my hardest at school. And I don’t want
to have low grades as well and I don’t want people to laugh at me. [13]
Salah also told us that he had ‘anger issues’ [4] at home and in school and
although he had supportive mentors, his anger issues in secondary-school
led to him being given detentions. Not only did these detentions upset
him but they also appeared to be interfering with his whole-hearted
engagement in learning. For example, in our last interview of the project,
he told us that he had just nished being excluded completely from his
class by being kept in the school’s ‘isolation’ room for eight consecutive
school days—because he had had a ght with someone who was insulting
his older brother. This meant that he had to do his school-work alone, on
a computer, presumably damaging his Sense of Relatedness as well as
Agency and seemingly obstructing his attainment. So, although in his rst
term at secondary-school he felt that his mathematics was going all right,
this had changed by the end of the school year because he had been out of
class so much: ‘I feel like [learning mathematics] was quite hard because I
wasn’t like learning from the teacher’ [13]. By the end of his rst year at
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

109
secondary-school, his mathematics level was reported to be below the age-
related expected level.
Salah’s Sense of having little Agency over his attainment was indicated
when he put disbelieving words into the mouth of an imaginary child who
gained low marks on a test: ‘Why am I getting all of these bad marks?’. His
imagined solution was that someone should coerce him to engage: ‘The
teacher could make me do more work. That will help me to get a better
result’ [2]. He believed the myth that he needed good results to get a
good job, but like the other children, could not explain the link apart from
via writing an application form and adding up sums:
Like for a job application, you have to type it up and you need good gram-
mar … And if you work as a cashier you’re going to need to do your math-
ematics if you don’t have a calculator or anything. [10]
Like many of the CLIPS children, Salah said he was unable to concentrate
sufciently in class due to the other pupils distracting him. But even at
home during Lockdown, he did not engage intentionally in much
school-work:
Because during Lockdown, I just didn’t want to do my work, as I just got
lazy. I forgot a lot of my times tables.
Although Salah often felt that he had little Agency over what happened to
his attainment, in other areas he expressed more Competence. When
asked if he would feel able to give advice to his head teacher on how to
improve their school, he replied: ‘I would be quite excited because I think
I can give her good ideas to like help her with the school’ [13]. Similarly,
when asked whether it was rude to disagree with a teacher he was not
afraid to say: ‘No, because if a teacher’s saying something that you think
you don’t agree with, you can say “Miss, I disagree because –” … it’s not
rude, you’re just giving your opinion to the teacher’ [11].
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

110
b.lIfe-hIstorIes ofchIldren wIthaPerformance
orIentatIon at school
Controlled Orientation/Sense ofRestricted Agency
Controlled Performance Orientation/Sense ofRestricted Agency—
Selected by 7/23 Children
I like/dislike doing what I am told. I respect/dislike the teachers. I work
hard to get rewards/don’t care about rewards.
Child
13. Gemma
14. Clara
15. Jon
16. Edith
17. Eden
18. Samiya
19. Ellie
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

111
gemma’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

112
Self-portrait 13: Gemma
Gemma was a White British summer-born girl who attended Sunnyelds
school. Gemma described herself as funny, loveable, chatty and imagina-
tive. Throughout her primary-school years she enjoyed a wealth of hob-
bies and strengths, as well as a great care for other people. She was a
well-behaved pupil in primary-school who made a huge effort to be posi-
tive. Her friendships were fairly uid but she craved a strong Sense of
Relatedness; she was anxious to be popular and told us that ‘my friends
support me’ [4] and that this helped her learning. However, she was aware
of being a Gemini star-sign, which she said meant that she could go a bit
‘crazy’ and lose her temper sometimes.
Reviewing her primary-school life-history from secondary-school,
Gemma told us that in Year 4 [aged 8–9] her Sense of Competence had
been knocked: ‘I was obviously in Year 4 and I was in the Year 3 mathe-
matics class with a load of Year 3s’. She found mathematics tricky through-
out her school life-history and was given extra support for mathematics by
the school, always singling her out as a bit different, a bit less Competent.
She described getting bullied at times. As well as having a weak Sense of
Competence with mathematics, she also wished that her handwriting was
better as sometimes people laughed at her handwriting too, eroding her
Sense of Competence further. It was made obvious that she struggled with
her school-work ‘a bit more’ [5] than others. For example, she described
the classroom practice whereby her friends got their ‘pen licence’ while
Gemma’s handwriting was not considered ready [4]. This division of
pupils according to attainment affected her Sense of Relatedness with
teachers too, as she perceived that teachers preferred the children who
tended to get things right because they demanded less effort than people
like her who less often got things right [5]. In addition, the system further
highlighted her lack of Competence by stipulating that she only take out
‘kid books’ from the library (for ‘infants’) because she was not as compe-
tent in reading as others—even though, as she admitted, she had no
Agency over this:
I would love to read better, like be able to just read any words like other
people in my class. But I guess I can’t, so I’ve got to accept that.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

113
On top of feeling singled out sometimes because she was perceived to
lack Competence in mathematics/English, she told us that sometimes she
did not get enough help [6]. Still at the end of Year 6 [aged 10–11], she
was explicitly asking for ‘more help in general’ [10] in these two particular
areas, suggesting that she had given up hope that she herself could over-
come her difculties.
In the rst few years of the project, Gemma made a huge effort not to
criticise school nor to express discontent about school-life. At one point,
she told us that she liked all subjects and was never bored. She denied feel-
ing stressed about getting things wrong and told us: ‘I like hard work,
because I like challenging things’ [3]. In other words, she seemed to try
to turn potentially negative experiences into good opportunities, demon-
strating her desire to conform to school norms, reecting her Controlled
Performance Orientation. However, in the middle of Year 7 [aged 11–12]
she indicated a different response to schooling than she had shown in pri-
mary, which still focused on controls but which shifted her response to
resisting them: ‘I hate mathematics so much… We had a test today and I
didn’t even start it. … I didn’t want to do it. … I don’t care’. She went on
to predict: ‘I know I’m going to be in the bottom set, because I don’t do
any work in mathematics. … Because I don’t care about tests’.
Gemma described a weak Sense of Competence throughout her life-
history. In Year 4 [aged 8–9], Gemma was in a group among younger,
Year 3 [aged 7–8] students, and yet she described it as ‘very hard still’.
When asked about her attainment in mathematics in Year 6 [aged 10–11]
she claimed: ‘bad’. Gemma told us that it was in Year 5 [aged 9–10] that
she started to have frequent ‘panic’ attacks in class when she felt com-
pletely trapped, completely devoid of Agency, as she could not work out
her mathematics. She explained:
Sometimes like bad voices come in my head and my head starts spinning. …
Sometimes when I can’t do my work. [10]
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

114
These attacks continued into Year 6 [aged 10–11] at which point she
told her parents. Perhaps these precipitated her gradually changing orien-
tation to schooling as her Sense of Agency became weaker and her Sense
of Competence was rock bottom. It was as she neared secondary-school,
that she began to demonstrate a particular resistance to controls. She
expressed anger towards her teachers. At the end of Year 6 [aged 10–11],
in a role-play, she indicated herself running away from school, explaining:
‘I do not like school’. In a different role-play in Year 6 [aged 10–11], she
showed herself to be angry with the teacher for wanting to keep her in for
further mathematics practice at break; and angry with those of her peers
who did not complain [10]. By the start of Year 7 [aged 11–12], she could
say, ‘I hate most of my lessons, they’re very boring’.
Gemma herself told us that she had changed a lot since the project
began in Year 3 [aged 7–8]. It seems that Gemma’s focus on being con-
trolled (i.e. her Controlled Performance Orientation/Sense of Restricted
Agency) swung across her school life-history from being dominant in con-
trolling her behaviour and reinforcing her conformity; to driving her to
become outright rebellious. In Year 7 [aged 11–12], during one interview
she explained that she was ‘on report’, which meant that every teacher had
to sign that she had behaved well enough in class on that particular day.
She told us about storming out of lessons without permission (‘I wasn’t
going to be in the lesson if the teacher gives me [punishments] for no
reason!’); and of attempting to control her mathematics teacher, exclaim-
ing to him in class ‘I’m not a dog!’ when he asked her to ‘Sit!’ [12]. She
made the very interesting comment, that secondary-school teachers just
wanted her to be a ‘goody two-shoes’—which had very much been her
preferred model for her own behaviour in primary-school: where she
would sit quietly and work hard consistently, demanding perhaps a lot of
effort to overcome her painful feelings or experiences. The above com-
ments suggest that Gemma exerted great emotional energy in resisting:
rstly, negative feelings and secondly, teachers whom she perceived to be
controlling.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

115
clara’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

116
Self-portrait 14: Clara
Clara was a dual heritage White British and Black African girl who
attended Jayden Primary-school. She said she enjoyed school because ‘I
get to see all my friends. I like to learn and have fun’ [4]. Clara described
herself as ‘a happy, always excitable and happy person’ [3] and felt it was
important to help others be the same. She explained: ‘I would like to make
other people happy because if I don’t make them happy then I will just be
upset and down’ [13]. Staying happy and positive was important to Clara,
albeit very demanding of her energies. She had a repertoire of techniques
for conquering negative emotions. She described one as follows:
I meditate when I’m angry and mad … I cross my feet, I have to. First I
pray, and then when I’ve nished praying, I meditate just quiet for like two
minutes. [4]
She applied these techniques to many aspects of her life, explaining:
You can believe in yourself no matter what. Say like I was in a race and then
so like I was the slowest... I would tell myself: ‘Believe in myself, believe in
myself. Come on! I can do it. At least I can go in the race and have
some fun. [8]
Clara described herself as a hard-working and successful student. She
was always keen to tell us how well-behaved and high-attaining she was;
how she was not one of the ‘bad people’ [3] who ‘muck around’ [2].
Rather, she was ‘always getting high marks’ and nished her work ‘really
quick’ [2], because: ‘I do all my work perfect and like I feel a success’ [11].
At the end of primary-school, she described her Year 6 [aged 10–11]
teacher’s opinion of her as follows:
She’s a very mature child. She gets good grades. She’s very good at mathe-
matics. I think she can pass on everything. Maybe she’s going to do very
good on secondary-school and she’s going to pass on all her tests no matter
what. [10]
Although such responses suggest that she was keen to present herself as
well-behaved and successful, when asked less directly about attainment,
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

117
Clara sometimes revealed a weak Sense of Competence and a low Sense of
Agency. We wondered whether she was presenting herself as Competent
to disguise what was actually a weak Sense of her own Competence and
Agency. Caught off guard when we placed an agree/disagree card down
on the table with the words ‘it’s stressful when I put my hand up and I get
it wrong’ she blurted out ‘Yes!’, before quickly qualifying it with ‘Oh wait,
oh, no no, no I don’t get it wrong’ [2]. Also, during a play-based activity
when thetoy animal she had chosen to represent herself was told they had
a test in their least favourite subject, they stormed out of the room, shout-
ing: ‘No!... I don’t want to do it!... I’m going out, bye!... It’s not fair
because everyone gets what they want and not me!’ [4]. When asked in
Year 7 [aged 11–12] about the Year 8 attainment-set placements coming
up, she showed an awareness of the panic a low-set placement could pro-
duce. She explained of someone who lacked a strong Sense of their own
Competence: ‘Maybe you was like panicking like, [thinking] … ‘If I was
in a bad set I’m going to get bad grades, I’m going to be bad in school,
I’m going to be bad, I’m going to be bad’. Contrasting this person with
another who did have a strong Sense of Competence, she explained: ‘[If]
you found out your grades and you’re in the top sets you can just be all
calm and let it all out, instead of bunching it all up in yourself and then
getting angry’ [13].
Clara explained her Controlled Performance Orientation as follows:
Because I’m very like helpful, so if I got told to do something I would do it
straight away... I really, I respect the teachers. Like if you go around the
school to my teachers and say who’s the most respectful, they’ll—maybe
they’ll say my name. [13]
She also seemed proud that she worked for extrinsic rewards rather
than personally fullling learning goals, explaining: ‘I really do, because
we get like rewards, like there’s a couple of credit notes—I’ve had ten so
far and I had an ice-cream’. She told us you received these rewards for
‘trying your best, going above and beyond, being exemplary, prepared,
truthful, perfect’ [13]. Clara never directly criticised school and struggled
to suggest how it could be improved [10]. She even defended being given
a detention for forgetting her homework, explaining: ‘It’s fair because if
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

118
you get a detention you will change like your ways and like how you
behave’ [11]. She was equally committed to the trafc light behaviour
chart in her primary-school classroom, telling me it felt ‘embarrassing’
when she got moved down it and saying: ‘When this happens … I need to
make a change and put it up’ [3]. Because Clara viewed school success as
up to the pupil, the result of hard work, she felt teachers were justied at
being angry at poor marks and the schooling system was not to blame. She
described the teacher as feeling towards a ‘low marks’ child: ‘Really really
really mad … I’m so mad at this child because he, she, is supposed to be
doing harder!’ Indeed, Clara took this responsibility to achieve school suc-
cess very seriously, in keeping with her Controlled Performance
Orientation. She explained, with implicit reference to Dweck’s Growth
Mindset: ‘You can just practise. Say like in your free time you can just
practise mathematics, say like you do like fractions and like algebra or like
your times tables and stuff like that’ [12]. We have interpreted Clara’s
descriptions of herself as a successful pupil as driven by this sense of respon-
sibility; and the accompanying personal shame that was signalled by any
school failure. The effort Clara put into presenting herself as successful,
appearing to consider it shameful to be otherwise, seemed to take a huge
amount of her energy away from a more whole-hearted engagement in her
learning.
Secondary-school was initially difcult for Clara. She explained this as
follows: ‘It’s nerve-wracking, because … [in] primary you don’t really
need to worry about anything really. And then in secondary you have to
worry about loads of things, like your GCSEs, your tests, you have to
worry about how you’re behaving, if you have the correct uniform, if you
have the correct equipment and stuff like that’ [13]. However, as Year 7
[aged 11–12] wore on, Clara said she had settled in, particularly enjoying
the increased range of subjects, in which she was able to feel increasingly
successful.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

119
Jon’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

120
Self-portrait 15: Jon
Jon was a White British, summer-born boy who attended Sandown
Academy. At primar y-school, Jon told us: ‘I know quite a bit about ani-
mals’ [5]. He had a passion for animals, especially lizards and dinosaurs,
about which he built up a sophisticated and far-reaching knowledge.
During one meeting with him, he devised an animal quiz that the adults
found challenging. This interest in animals was the reason that he was
most interested in science of all the school subjects. He explained: ‘Because
science is how you can know about space and dinosaurs, creatures’ [6].
However, actually, he objected to the fact of having ‘just constantly les-
sons’ [12] of any type, frequently requesting longer playtimes and also
more time at home. It seems that he felt restricted by the constant demand
to sit in class and concentrate, which he found particularly difcult. During
Lockdown, he had enjoyed staying at home, playing on his computer and
Xbox for several hours a day and rening his online skills. Jon described
himself as a funny, kind, hyperactive boy: ‘I like mess about and I have a
lot of energy’ [3]. He was diagnosed with ADHD at the start of the proj-
ect but was relieved when medicine helped him behave in a more con-
trolled way, as he saw it, not inhibiting his Sense of Agency but restricting
his involuntary actions ‘like where I do like noises’ [2].
He tended to have just one or two friends at a time in primary-school,
but they were his main motivation for coming to school. When we asked
him if he liked coming to school, he said: ‘I do like coming to school to
see my friends and play with them’ [2]. When Lockdown was over, even
though he had preferred being at home, he was happy to see his friends.
When anticipating starting secondary-school, he was very much looking
forward to making new friends—even though he felt nervous too. There
was a transformation in Jon when he went to secondary-school. While he
had not previously appeared overly distressed at primary-school, he
described being much happier at secondary-school where he was in a small
class in an autism unit. He rated his happiness and condence here at
10/10 and described all his teachers and peers as nice.
Bearing in mind that Jon did not remember past events very clearly, in
hindsight from secondary-school, he told us explicitly and many times that
at his primary-school he was not having his learning needs met: ‘I wasn’t
getting literally—literally not enough help, like basically no help whatso-
ever’ [13]. He went on to say that his struggles with literacy made lessons
really hard at primary-school. He explained of teachers: ‘Because some-
times if you like call their names like about—like a thousand times … they
can’t hear you’ [2].
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

121
Even though he found lessons ‘quite boring sometimes’ [1], Jon was
eager to conform, once his ADHD was well enough under control. In
secondary-school, he told us his aim was never to get any detentions
throughout secondary-school. By the time he reached secondar y-school,
he was also prioritising as important, high GCSE attainment and high test
scores generally. On the other hand, in primary-school, he had found it
particularly hard to concentrate. Yet he also resisted being given extra sup-
port by a teaching assistant. In one interview he explained that he felt like
saying to the teaching assistant: “You get out of here, I hate you … I’m
thinking like “Shoo off” … Don’t want any help and I don’t really under-
stand’ [1]. He also depicted an imaginary teacher shouting ‘Stop! You
stupid!’ [2] to an imaginary child who could not do their work, despite
Jon never having been treated like this himself. In fact, he depicted this
teacher as so angry that she had steam emanating from her ears. These
examples reect his concern with controls, which he seemed to see as the
cause forobstructed progress in school-work.
Jon certainly invested a lot of energy into trying to get down to hard
work, even though this was not easy for him. He told us that he hated to
be disturbed when he was working, making classroom learning potentially
unconducive to learning for him. Yet, he was convinced that hard work
was what he should be doing. He told us that he thought his teacher did
not want children to ask her questions, but rather wanted them to ‘do
work’ [6]. He told us that he believed that listening hard and working
hard in class were important: ‘Because then you will learn and be smart’
[6]. It is perhaps ironic that these strategies in classroom life had not
always won Jon the successful results he claimed. The pressure he seemed
to feel to knuckle down to ‘work’ was accompanied by fear for Jon that, if
he did not do well, he would not get a job easily in adulthood. He there-
fore experienced ongoing pressure in these several ways, which might well
have interfered with his Sense of Agency.
In light of the pressures he felt and to avoid any implication of de-
ciency in his attainment (in a climate dominated by mathematics and
English tests), Jon made the best of his mathematics skills, perhaps to
compensate for his discomfort with reading and writing lessons. Aged
eight, in his Year 3 [aged 7–8], he told us he did struggle with mathemat-
ics. But in the following year, he exclaimed: ‘I’m really good at mathemat-
ics!’ [5]; and by the end of the project he was assessing himself as ‘very
smart’ in mathematics[13]. Perhaps his discomfort when learning to read
made life particularly hard for him in the early years of the project. During
Year 4 [aged 8–9], he could still not read very much but told us: ‘I still
want to read’ [4]. By the end of the project, at secondary-school, he told
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

122
edIth’s lIfe- hIstory
us that he still found both reading and writing troublesome, but his
increased Sense of Relatedness and support from teachers in his new
school, put him in a positive position for the future in terms of wellbeing.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

123
Self-portrait 16: Edith
Edith was an autumn-born, dual-heritage Black British girl, born in
2009, who attended Jayden primary-school. She described herself as fol-
lows: ‘Thoughtful, polite, generous. … Friendly, kind, playful, joyful … A
hard-working student’ [10]. Getting rich was not her ambition for the
future, except to give money to charity. A Sense of Relatedness became
increasingly important to Edith. After an incident in the playground when
she was 12, she told us: ‘I felt proud of myself because I stood up for my
friend and I stood up for myself by telling the truth’ [12]. She described
how at primary-school: ‘I used to just sit alone, I didn’t really want to play
with anybody’ [11]. But then: ‘When I started secondary-school I didn’t
have that much friends, but then plenty of people at times started coming
to me and being my friend; that’s how I made friends’ [12].
In primary-school, Edith liked reading: ‘My two favourite books is
Diary of the Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries’ [3]; although by secondary-
school she had stopped reading for pleasure. However, she continued to
like studying English all through her life-history. On the other hand, she
told us: ‘Mathematics is hard for me’ [1] and ‘I’m kind of a mathematics
hater’ [2]. Overall, however, she was not keen on doing any school-work.
She confessed: ‘I never feel relaxed at school, I always like to feel like [I
want]to play outside. Because playing is my favourite’ [2]. She was also
honest to admit that the worst thing about primary-school was, in her
view: ‘That we had to do a lot of work sometimes’ [9] and at the end of
rst year in secondary, she said: ‘I don’t want to do that much hard work’
[13]. These comments suggested that her wellbeing was not being fully
promoted at school.
Edith did not pretend to perceive her academic competence as high.
She told us: ‘I would say I’m kind of smart but not really’ [11]. She added,
two terms later: ‘I’m not really the smartest person out of my class’ [13].
In her last interview, she indicated an eroded Sense of Competence: ‘Like
sometimes they give the smart kids a different [task]—when they give us
more easier. That shows us that um—that shows us that the teachers think
we can’t do harder work’ [13]. Indeed, Edith lived in fear of achieving
poor marks on her work or just not getting the answers right. This was a
matter of painful concern to her, especially as she felt she had little agency
over it: ‘It makes me feel bad’ [11]. She described the low-attaining child
as follows: ‘Lonely and sad and very disappointed … She feels really sad
because all her other friends have high marks and she’s the only one who
has low marks’ [2]. When asked what she would most like to learn in
school, she told us: ‘I want to be good at mathematics so I don’t struggle
with it’ [6]. As she explained: ‘Because I’m really bad at mathematics tests,
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

124
sometimes I get a low score’ [5]. On reaching secondary-school she con-
tinued to struggle with mathematics: ‘Mathematics is the only one I strug-
gle with, so that’s why I always hope I don’t get mathematics’ [11]. She
commented reectively: ‘People try their hardest, but sometimes they fail’
[5]. This last comment indicated a rather hopeless outlook for her, in rela-
tion to her Sense of Competence and her Sense of Agency, in mathematics
specically.
Both in primary-school and then at secondary-school, Edith attended
an intervention group for mathematics (plus one also for English at sec-
ondary): ‘It’s just a way of boosting our energy in– so like if we’re strug-
gling in English, you can boost it by going to Literacy. … It’s just to help
more with English’ [13]. She explained to us why she was taken out of
class in primary-school, acknowledging her weakened Sense of
Competence: ‘Because when I was in [the main] class, yeah, so mathemat-
ics was a little bit too hard for me’ [3]. For example:
I don’t understand when she says 2000 and 1000. I said that I don’t
know the answer for 2000; and then 200. I said that—that doesn’t even
make sense … I don’t understand, but my friends understand and get the
answers right [2].
Although she had been taught to believe that the way to learn was to
listen obediently, indicating her reduced Sense of Agency, she confessed:
‘I listen, but when it comes [to it], I don’t really understand it’ [8]. Her
punishment was: ‘If you’ve not nished your work you have to stay inside’
[6]. So she often missed what she loved most, playing outside at lunch-
time and breaktime, threatening her Sense of Relatedness too.
Edith selected the Controlled Performance Orientation/Sense of
Restricted Agency as applying to her and many of her statements reected
this Orientation, for example:
If the teachers tell me something that she didn’t tell the rest of the class,
I would still do it, but I would still be a bit confused. And I respect the
teacher because—like I work hard to get my rewards … And my mum
teach me that I shouldn’t be rude to anyone—that’s why I respect the
teachers … but it’s also a good thing because you make your parents happy
with good grades [11].
She once told us with a sigh: ‘Listening and working, working hard at
school is good, because if you don’t work hard you might not get a star
achiever [reward] … and then your teacher might say—and your teacher
might be angry of you for not listening’ [6]. In this quotation, there is no
reference to other purposes for learning, other than performance. Success,
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

125
for Edith, occurred as follows: ‘When you do something and then you get
it right’ [4]. Edith was motivated by rewards for having done things right.
At secondary-school, she was inspired by a rafe: ‘If the head teacher picks
us [good children] out of the pot we can win iPods, money, iPhones’ [11].
It is fascinating that, although clearly distracted by the imperative to be
well-behaved and rewarded—rather than, for example, curious or cre-
ative—Edith also showed an enhanced Sense of Agency as she matured.
We were very interested, given her otherwise Controlled Performance
Orientation/Sense of Restricted Agency, when she told us near the end of
the project: ‘This school—sometimes they tell you stuff—the school might
tell you something that you don’t like, but they’re not our parents and
they shouldn’t really force us to do things that we don’t like’ [12]. This
seems to contradict some of her earlier statements, and makes us wonder
whether this critical streak will transform her Sense of Agency in the
future. More than this, Edith commented on her increased Senses of
Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness over her life-history. By the end
of primary-school she felt: ‘I’m really good at English and other stuff,
stuff—I wasn’t very good at mathematics but now I am … because my
mathematics has—my mathematics has improved, I understand um stuff
now’ [8]. Later she explained: ‘I’ve become more mature and not silly
anymore… [I’ve become] the person that talks to more people … starting
to be more active’ [10]. Near the end of the project, she could even
declare:
I feel a success because I’ve come a long way from getting to know not that
much stuff, to be doing brilliant at things! [11]
Whilst she was always somewhat condent overall, she perhaps lacked a
Sense of Competence earlier in school which perhaps made her lack of
attainment in mathematics more concerning for her. However, by age
nine, she was explaining how her Sense of Competence regarding
Relatedness was improving: ‘I changed nice now because I used to be
scared of people—teachers who shout—but now when teachers shout I’m
not scared anymore’ [4]. However, her Sense of Competence in relation
to mathematics/English was less positive: by the time she ended her rst
year at secondary-school, Edith said she believed that no-one else was
struggling as much as she was [11]. The difculty of her work and the
pressure of exams continued to concern her: ‘In secondary-school there
was plenty of exams—GCSEs, A Levels and stuff—but none of that was in
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

126
eden’s lIfe- hIstory
primary. So work at primary was easier than here’ [13]. And yet, for-
malised school records showed considerable improvement in her end of
year assessments at the end of the rst year of secondary-school—includ-
ing in mathematics.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

127
Self-portrait 17: Eden
Eden was an Asian heritage British boy. He was born in late July and
attended Sunnyelds primary-school. Family and friends were very impor-
tant to Eden. Looking after his family was a high priority for him and he
spoke very affectionately about his younger sister. He also delighted in tell-
ing us about his strong Sense of Relatedness during his rst year at second-
ary-school: ‘I made loads of good friends’ [12] whom he described as ‘nice
and they’re kind’ [11], despite having suggested previously that he had
sometimes been ‘uncondent at like making friends and stuff ’ [11]. He was
certainly condent in ‘being me!’ [11] and was proud of his ‘personality’
[11] although he told us he sometimes felt different from his peers. One
very positive difference was his Muslim identity which led to his learning
Arabic outside school, which was uncommon in his rural community. He
was delighted when his class studied Islam in primary-school. However, he
explained: ‘I don’t really like speaking Arabic in school… It’s quite embar-
rassing’ [3]. He was an excellent sportsman, including football and kick-
boxing; and also loved food. Primarily, he told us ‘I love myself the most!’ [3].
He described himself as ‘very intelligent …, smart, funny’ but that ‘he
gets distracted’; which he attributed to having being diagnosed with
ADHD [10]. He told us that he thinks ‘Everything is a joke’ [10] and
that: ‘I’ve always been silly … I’m always going to be silly because that’s
just the way I am’ [10]. At the end of primary-school he looked back and
commented: ‘Every year I was happy’ [10]. However, later he thought he
might also have been bored quite a lot and that often he did not like
school. When asked at the end of the project how he would have experi-
enced primary-school, if mornings had contained sport and art instead of
mathematics and English, he replied: ‘It would just be fun … I would have
actually liked school’ [13].
By the end of the project, Eden told us that he now understood that the
way he learned things was different from how many other people did learn-
ing. This was not because he was not competent, but because he responded
to lessons differently to others. Earlier in his life-history he had appeared
both less different and also less explicit about any differences. He told us he
had begun to notice: ‘I’m just like really slow, and I tend to ask people
[questions] a lot and the others don’t’ [11]. This led, he said, to feeling
‘stressed and frustrated’ [11]. Yet Eden acknowledged that he was not to
blame for responding in his particular way to his schooling. He seemed clear:
‘I make noises and I talk a lot … I can’t control it’ [9]. ADHD medicine
helped somewhat, and yet as he grew older he felt he had actually become a
bit more destructive. He demonstrated his frustration in one interview by
repeatedly stabbing the piece of playdough he was manipulating [9].
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

128
His specic ways of learning did not always lend themselves to teachers’
favour or comprehension which challenged his Sense of Competence. He
reected back: ‘I like being praised. [But not getting praised enough at
school …] made me feel like I wasn’t good at anything and like I wouldn’t
do well in life’ [13]. Eden specically mentioned not being able to remem-
ber things very well: ‘You forget. Some teachers don’t like [this]—they say
like ‘I’m not going to tell you twice’ [12]. He expressed a desire for ‘much
more assistance’ during classes because ‘the work is hard’ [11]. He
described in his primary-school class:
I just stand with a pencil like this. I don’t really write anything, I just stand
like and wait until the teacher comes and says ‘Hello’. I’m like—I’m just
standing like waiting for her’. [5]
Earlier he had explained how he did play-acting when he felt powerless:
‘This morning when we were in mathematics … I was pretending to be
concentrating, but I wasn’t actually doing anything’; as he seemed to feel
lost without the support of a teacher. He explained: ‘When I look at the
board it just looks really hard, and … I just look somewhere else’ [1].
However, when his particular requests for help failed to be met sufciently
for him, it made him worried as he felt pressured about his future. He had
been informed that high-attainment ‘would help me if I get a job’ [13]
although he could not explain how this connection functioned. He
thought the way to success was by concentrating—yet, for him, concen-
trating was the most difcult part of schooling. He therefore had a double
challenge to his Sense of Competence—rstly to his competence in the
subject domain; and secondly to his competence in keeping to the formali-
ties of classroom traditions: ‘I sometimes get bored. Like I said, I day-
dream and like, and then I don’t know what I’m doing anymore … and
then I just, I just like, I go in my head ‘I hate mathematics’ and like I get
bored, I just draw pictures on my whiteboard’ [3]. With his Sense of
Competence so heavily taxed, his Sense of Agency will have suffered too,
further reducing the chance of Eden evidencing wellbeing.
Eden saw control as residing mainly in teachers and being mainly a
negative aspect of schooling. ‘They’re annoying and I don’t get my way…
And they tell me what to do, and they’re not in control of me—I am’ [10].
Without teachers: ‘We can do like anything, we can jump, we can do any-
thing we want, and we don’t have to follow the teacher’s rules’ [5].
Indeed, his focus on control, manifested in teachers, was reected across
his whole school-life-history and may have related directly to the fact that
he was sometimes what he called ‘silly’. ‘Silly’ was probably a word he had
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

129
picked up at school, that covered many behaviours including those related
to ADHD. While Eden recognised his behaviour as particular, his com-
ments sometimes suggested that teachers thought he was just being
‘naughty’. It sounded as though the teachers sometimes found it difcult
to know how to cope with his unique behaviour when standard sanctions
did not have the desired effect. He described one teacher: ‘She said, “Rude
boy, you’re a very rude boy”—and what I was worried about [was] people
just laughing saying “He’s an idiot”’ [5]. Despite being reprimanded a lot
by teachers, he still wanted to sustain a Sense of Relatedness to his peers
and cared how they judged him. The negative words of teachers made him
afraid that peers would see him the same way.
Eden himself suggested that if children like him did not follow school
rules: ‘Give them extra support!’ [12] rather than punishments. Eden
resented his punishments. He noted his rst few detentions at secondary-
school as signicant negative moments in his whole life-history which made
him feel angry, primarily with teachers. He reected that the most destruc-
tive aspect of primary-school had been: ‘The teachers were always like
breathing over my neck’ [13]. And, he bemoaned: ‘We have like really strict
teachers that I really want them to leave’ [5]. Of course, the question may be
which came rst, the alternative ways of behaving or the schooling sanctions,
but certainly neither seemed to serve Eden’s whole-hearted engagement in
learning or his wellbeing. However, on entering secondary- school initially,
Eden seemed delighted to encounter a male teacher for the rst time, whom
he described as follows: ‘He’s nice, and he’s kind. And he appreciates me in
his class… Because he’s always smiling at me’ [11]. This seemed to boost his
Sense of Relatedness, which had sometimes been lacking with teachers.
As seems evident from the details above, Eden seemed to spend a lot of
his energy on resisting and ghting control, energy which—as he himself
saw—could have been better spent on being helped to understand things
better. His own belief, promoted by the system, did not support his
engagement either: that the whole point of learning at school is ‘to be
clever… Like when the teacher says something you’ll know it straight
away’ [6]. Such ‘cleverness’ may not be an appropriate aim for anyone
who has more diverse goals in their lives.
Eden’s Sense of Competence in his school-work such as mathematics
and English undulated across his school-life-history but overall he tended
to suggest that he had found English, and even more so, mathematics,
difcult throughout. He explained in TERM3 how demotivating the pro-
cess might be: ‘I struggle sometimes with my work. It’s always a big deal
because I have to like go back and do my work [again]. My teachers force
me to do my homework’ [3]. He sometimes blamed himself for not
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

130
samIya’s lIfe- hIstory
having worked hard enough. However, at the start of each school year he
tended to perceive that he was making better progress; then by the end of
the year he did not seem so positive. However, his pride in his own par-
ticular ‘intelligent, funny’ personality and ‘being me’ stands to support
him as he proceeds through the rest of schooling [11].
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

131
Self-portrait 18: Samiya
Samiya was a dual-heritage Asian-White British girl, born in March
2010, who attended Sandown Academy primary-school. She had a very
positive Orientation on life and school, emphasising in particular the
importance of friendship, behaving well and working hard. Samiya
described herself as funny, kind, helpful, grateful and sociable; initially she
was shy but gradually overcame this. Although she was very well behaved
in formal school terms, she did not hide the fact that she would prefer to
lie in bed on school mornings than attend school; and that she celebrated
days when she did not have to attend school (such as during Lockdown).
Samiya was always careful not to be too critical of anyone, including her-
self. When she did not attain high marks in her worst subject, mathemat-
ics, she said that she was still proud of herself if she had done her best, a
fact that seemed clear to us too. Overall, across her life-history, she claimed
she was a happy person who had fun at school and rarely felt angry or
upset: ‘I’m always happy most like—basically every single day’ [11].
Samiya was careful not to categorise herself as having low Competence,
claiming that she did not know which set she was in when her class was
divided for English according to prior attainment. But she did not enjoy
the days when she was in this lowest group for English, nding it unen-
gaging. She expressed preference for arts subjects and humour:
We do [this group] on Thursdays and Fridays, but that isn’t as fun as the
other days, because I feel like Tuesday is one of the best days … because we
get to do art and music with other teachers. And sometimes our music
teacher—he’s quite funny. [4]
Samiya knew that she was not one of the best at mathematics or English
grammar, but persisted in being hopeful that through hard work she
would improve. She was aware that, at times, she had been taken out of
her primary-school lessons for extra mathematics coaching when she did
not understand a topic. This continued into secondary-school, a fact she
partially attributed to missing work during Lockdown. However, unlike
previously, in secondary-school she was aware that, in her withdrawal
group, she was being disadvantaged by missing new topics being taught in
the main class therefore undermining her Sense of Competence. She
reected: ‘So in the test that we’re doing in a few days I’m not really going
to know much of the stuff because I missed out on it’ [13]. But she saw
no way to change these systems.
She did not expect to be in top sets for everything in secondary-school
but she did hope to be in one or two top sets. She reected that life would
have been easier for her at primary-school if she had been better at
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

132
mathematics especially. She told us how hard remembering was for some
children: ‘When I was in primary-school like I didn’t really understand
much my times tables much, and like obviously for mathematics that’s
basically the main thing … because there’s like quite a few things, like it’s
hard just to remember all of them for some kids’ [13]. In Year 6 [aged
10–11], she felt under pressure because of the impending harder work at
secondary-school; and was therefore delighted when SATs were cancelled.
She particularly disliked all tests, found them overwhelming and stressful;
and feared that she might not do well: ‘Sometimes [a test is] not fun
because sometimes it’s just stressing, because there’s loads of pages and
stuff ’ [9].
We observed that Samiya was particularly engaged with issues of con-
trol but saw it mainly in a positive light. For example, she told us on arriv-
ing at secondary-school that she liked knowing which lessons would be
when, unlike in primary-school when lessons were more random. She
seemed to feel safe within the control of teachers. She told us: ‘The teach-
ers are around nearly everywhere at the school so if anything was to hap-
pen we’d be safe because loads of teachers are everywhere’ [6]. She felt
that she did more learning from the teacher at the front of classthan from
discussion with peers.
She found the regime in secondary-school more controlling than in
primary-school, sometimes too controlling: ‘The teachers, sometimes
they’re strict and like—say if you’re getting told off, I don’t mind if they’re
being strict because they’re telling you off, but sometimes they’re strict
like if you put your hand up, they say “Put it down!”, so you can’t ask any
questions’ [11]. She told us about many rules imposed in secondary-
school, including about whether, and if so for how long, a child was per-
mitted to visit the toilets. However, she seemed to accept the rationale for
these rules and believe what she had been told about how useful and
necessary they were. She believed that without them: ‘People would prob-
ably just spend half of their lesson maybe in the toilet, or some people
would just always playght, but then it could cause real ghts and stuff if
they don’t get consequences for it’ [11]. However, she did not consider
that one reason for children wanting to leave the classroom may have been
the fact that their needs were not being served there.
Samiya seemed to accept the school rules and assume that she would
obey them, but she drew a distinction between teachers controlling her
physical actions, which was acceptable; and others controlling her mental
activity, which was her own sphere. She believed that teachers liked the
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

133
well-behaved, quiet children best. However, if she was not caught, she was
occasionally happy to trick teachers, for example, by laughing under her
deskwhile she pretended to have dropped her pen in class. In keeping
with her Controlled Performance Orientation, Samiya valued rewards
highly too, and on one occasion we observed Samiya and her partner pre-
tending to have read a whole book, just to get the teacher’s ‘Well done’
[2]. She was always eager to avoid punishment, but she did strive to learn
about new topics and to attain high marks.
Samiya believed what she was told, that school was important ‘so then
you can get a job’ [11]. She felt the pressure to perform in order to have
a promise of reasonable employment—even though she did not always see
the link between what she learnt at school and future job options. Anyway,
she clearly believed that the way to success was through her own hard
work and conforming to the system’s demands; and it certainly did not
depend on innate ‘ability’: ‘It’s not that you can be born smart or dumb,
it’s only how much you practise’ [8]. She had experienced how hard work
could help her to learn and she stated explicitly that people should adopt
the ‘growth mindset’, that is:
Just keep on trying and then they will get it right even though they do mis-
takes—it’s more better to do mistakes because then it makes you learn what
you’ve done wrong quicker. [4]
Therefore, she believed in individual responsibilisation that if children
did not listen to the teacher, their lack of learning was ‘mostly their fault’
[5], rather than the fault of how the system operated.
Samiya had never suggested she was one of the least ‘smart’ in her class
and throughout her life-history she enacted the following view: ‘Even if
I’m not like fully like smart with it, whatever work I (like kind of) get, I’m
kind of condent with it’ [13]. Throughout her life-history, she wished
she were able to nd mathematics easier, but even in our nal interview,
she explained that she still felt she had little mastery of it: ‘I just don’t
really understand much of it’ [13]. As for English, while Samiya had always
found most aspects of English easier than mathematics, when we left her
at the end of Year 7 [aged 11–12], she felt as follows: ‘Like I don’t mind
the subject [English], but I wouldn’t like choose it as something like when
we actually get to choose our subjects’ [13]. Overall, considering her
whole life-history, Samiya was one of the children we perceived to be
thriving as she prepared to enter Year 8: her genuinely positive approach
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

134
ellIe’s lIfe- hIstory
to life, her enjoyment of friends at school and pets at home, her calm
acceptance of difculties and challenges, her determination to keep
improving and be proud of her hard work at school, all led to her ourish-
ing appearance at the end of Year 7 [aged 11–12], even if her engagement
with schoolwork was not always whole-hearted.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

135
Self-portrait 19: Ellie
Ellie was a White British girl who attended Sandown Academy. She had
a strong Sense of Agency in terms of presenting an established sense of
self, which she described as: ‘Family, they’re like really important because
they look after you, so you look after them’ [13]. She loved her home life
and made frequent remarks like:
I can’t wait to just get out of school, have hot chocolate, play down the
road with my friend, come back and then my dad’s there. That’s what I
want [4].
Ellie’s employment plan was to work with dogs like her mother did
[1,8, 9, 13]. From a young age she put considerable effort into friend-
ships at school, too, trying to sort out problems and ensure a Sense of
Relatedness was sustained.
Ellie had a low Sense of Competence in relation to school-work, and
felt others saw her like that too. Identifying from a young age as ‘not
smart’ [2], Ellie felt her teacher would place her at the bottom of the class
[9] and told us that when she was picked to answer a question ‘I usually
feel like dumb’ [9]. Mathematics was a particular source of anxiety and
fear, leading to her making great efforts to avoid it where possible, dis-
missing opportunities for grappling with it. She explained:
Because in mathematics I feel like failing everything, and I just, I don’t want
to do mathematics … When the teacher explains it, it’s like ‘this is so hard’
[8] … I’ve dreaded mathematics my whole life … I think I’m just going to
hate mathematics forever. [9]
She was wracked with anxiety when her desk faced the mathematics
display board, explaining:
Like the signs on like the board, and like I just feel so stressed … Every
time like I look at the mathematics board I’m just like ‘Oh, hopefully
we’re not doing that today’… I’m just like ‘No, I’m not going to look at
it’ [3].
This suggested that even the idea of mathematics was quite overwhelm-
ing for her and made her feel powerless. She also experienced the threat of
punishment for poor work as ‘scary, nerve-wracking’ [9]. She hated the
detentions and the humiliation, and separation, that punishments could
entail. Her chances of whole-hearted engagement with school-work were
slim, particularly as she explained that she had already nearly given up on
it. Even in primary-school she struggled to grasp its relevance to her sense
of self:
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

136
I don’t really care about how smart I am … I don’t really care about math-
ematics, like school-work, so, yeah, so I wouldn’t really care what my score
is … If I don’t get good marks then it doesn’t really make a difference to
my life. [9]
Her aim in lessons was to get by rather than to understand and she had a
matter-of-fact approach to cheating: ‘I cheated because like it has the answers
on the back, so if Miss is looking somewhere [else] then I could turn it
round and look at the answer … just be an easier way to get the mathematics
done’ [3]. In other words, school-work tended to feel like an imposition
rather than an opportunity. She said of her homework, for example: ‘I had
this sheet in my bag, but I was too busy over the weekend... whenever I get
like told to do my homework I hardly do it—I only do it sometimes if I’m
in the mood’ [13]. But she did not seem to worry about this.
Ellie described whole-hearted engagement in learning as irrelevant to
what was important in life, which was relationships with family and friends.
She noted that her goals in schooling may be different from other peo-
ple’s: ‘The whole point for me is that I get to see my friends, but like for
other people it’s probably just like learning’ [6]. She also told us: ‘I
wouldn’t mind like little [i.e. low] marks because it doesn’t matter about
your work, it just matters about people just like doing good’ [5]. Indeed,
she suggested that an (imaginary) girl who always got top marks was likely
to be ‘a little bit rude’ to friends in the playground [5]. This suggested
that she actually savoured the alternative avour of her own life-history.
Far from enjoying doing what she was told, however, Ellie appeared to
resent school’s constant control over her, feeling that it eroded her Sense of
Agency. She complained: ‘I hate school because, like, when I want a drink I
can’t go off and just get a drink, I’ve got to ask the teacher, sometimes they
say no … [Also, we] can’t go to the toilet … I’m like ‘Oh my God, I can’t
hold it!’ [2]. Above all, her Sense of Agency was blunted when she found
lessons painfully, almost agonisingly, boring and yet she was required to
remain in them: ‘We have six hours of school, it’s just so boring … I’m like
‘Oh my God! I’m so bored, what is there to do?’. I’m like ‘Oh I can’t do
anything really because I’m at school and there’s nothing to do!’ [1]. She
told us she dealt with her boredom by constantly watching the clock
[1,2,4,8,9] and daydreaming, though she feared actually falling asleep [1, 9].
Ellie explained in a straight-forward way that schooling was not appro-
priate in its current form: ‘I think I don’t suit school’ [9] and ‘I don’t
really think school’s a good inuence’ [8]. She actually resented school
wasting so much of her time, telling us that ‘you know how there’s ve
days at school, right, and then there’s two days off—you should have ve
days at school … and ve days off, I think that would be fair’ [8]. She also
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

137
complained indignantly: ‘[School is] like half my day!’ [9]. She repeat-
edly—and longingly—brought up the idea of home schooling
[1,3,4, 5, 8]. In other words, she spent, it seemed, a huge amount of
energy on disliking and fearing school, far more than she seemed to spend
on engaging in learning.
Although Ellie did not change her view of herself as lacking in school-
work competence, her Sense of Competence strengthened in social ways
and she became less anxious about being seen to do the right thing as she
progressed through primary-school. By Year 6 [aged 10–11], she told us,
with a new condence: ‘I snuck my phone into class when we were just
leaving, and the teacher didn’t see me, so that was good’ [9]. Rather than
wishing to be invisible, she started to enjoy standing out a little, with eye
makeup, a dyed fringe [9] and blue nail polish [8]; perhaps as compensa-
tion for her poor Sense of Competence in the subjects that mattered to the
schooling system.
The move to secondary-school, however, seemed to dampen her new-
found boldness and cause a resurgence of anxiety and a low Sense of
Competence. She told us: ‘I don’t know why, I felt more anxious to come
to this school... because the lessons changed a lot... I’ve got so many
detentions... I hate mathematics, and if you don’t get like a good like
score on the mathematics thing then you have to redo it’ [13]. Schooling
practices promoted her to compare herself to others and she became afraid
of being at the very bottom of the class. So strong was the competitive
environment that she told us of her relief when someone else got lower
marks than her: ‘I was expecting him to get higher but he didn’t, so I was
like “okay good, someone below you”’ [13]. At the start of secondary-
school she had actually achieved agency enough to dare speaking to her
teacher about this anxiety and been given a day off school [13]. But by the
end of Year 7 [aged 11–12], she said she was feeling more settled, helped
by building strong new friendships.
c.lIfe-hIstorIes ofchIldren wIthalearnIng
orIentatIon at school
Autonomous LearningOrientation/Strong Sense ofAgency
Autonomous Learning Orientation/Strong Sense ofAgency–Selected by
4/23 Children
I’m interested in exploring different and unusual things. I am also interested
in thinking about how things could be changed at school.
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

138
musa’s lIfe- hIstory
Child
20. Musa
21. Rory
22. Santosh
23. Amin
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

139
Self-portrait 20: Musa
Musa was an Asian heritage British boy, born in December 2009.
Outside school, he played football for two clubs as well as enjoying other
sports; and attending Quran classes at the mosque. Musa spoke mainly of
positive school experiences. He reected back on his primary-school, saying:
It wasn’t strict. Like other schools were like strict and not as happy. This
school was like a fun school. [12]
Musa believed it was his own responsibility to work hard at school; and
practise at home, especially mathematics. His father helped him with his
times tables at home too. Consequently, he suggested that children
attained low marks in their tests, when they were ‘not concentrating and
not working at home’ [2]. However, he suggested that his teachers might
describe him as someone needing ‘to concentrate a bit more on the
English … and who sometimes messes around’ [10].
However, despite this, he claimed during primary-school that he loved
learning mathematics in particular and said that he felt ‘excited by tests’
[4], rather than daunted by them. In TERM10 said: ‘I was looking for-
ward to doing my SATS and like get good scores’ [10] and he was disap-
pointed about their cancellation due to Lockdown. In Musa’s rst term in
secondary-school, he also spoke of loving the varied timetable and said he
was pleasantly surprised to nd that he found the work quite easy. When
asked what to advise a new pupil about transitioning to their secondary-
school, he said: ‘Expect good things’ [12]. This attitude, plus his
Autonomous Learning Orientation, might have been partly attributable
to the fact that he had not been designated in Year 3 as ‘lower-attaining’
in mathematics, but only in English.
He also enjoyed a strong Sense of Relatedness and following the
Covid-19 school closures he said: ‘It feels good [to be back] because I
missed my friends’ [9]. He spoke of liking many of his teachers and quickly
made friends at secondary-school, despite still missing those from
primary-school.
Nonetheless, Musa also spoke of having negative school experiences in
primary-school. Musa found his English classes tricky and was therefore
part of an intervention group for English during Year 3 & 4 [ages 7–9]
which, although the work could be repetitive and a bit too easy at times,
overall, he felt: ‘The group’s fun’ [3]. He referred to this group as being
for ‘people that need help’ [3] but he displayed no signs of embarrassment
about this. Possibly this was because these groups were taught by Musa’s
class teachers, not teaching assistants, and whose participantswere changed
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

140
each term according to need which helped to normalise the groups.
Another reason may have been because Musa had a strong Sense of
Competence in both mathematics and sport. By Year 6, Musa’s English
had improved to the level ‘expected’ for his age, which he attributed to his
own genuine engagement: ‘I’ve done a lot of reading in the holidays … I
was like reading instead of playing “Fortnite”’ [6].
None the less, he told us after Lockdown: ‘I used to hate school, but
because I missed it [during Lockdown], I like it now’ [10], conrming
how his feelings about school could uctuate. Unfortunately, in secondary-
school, he was subjected to many detentions particularly in his second and
third terms, which led him to be excluded completely from school on two
occasions, threatening his school wellbeing in every way, given that the
schooling system is supposed to cater appropriately for all children. These
exclusions were the result of an accumulation of ‘failing’ to turn up to
previous detentions and although Musa admitted that at times he had
been playing around in class, several times he felt the detentions were
unfair and was able to express how he felt very angry about how the deten-
tions were given to him. On occasions he successfully managed to argue
his case against the multiple detentions he was given, and some detentions
were cancelled. However, prior to our nal visit when he was given what
he perceived to be another unwarranted detention, his display of frustra-
tion and anger was so great that he was given an even longer, additional
external exclusion.
In our nal visit at the end of his rst year at secondary-school, Musa
reected about how detentions and exclusions also caused him to miss lots
of his classes; to be moved to tutor groups away from his friends; and pre-
vented from joining any of the afterschool clubs. His Sense of Autonomy
(Agency) was therefore threatened in secondary-school due to his not
adhering to the school rules. But he responded by making a critical reec-
tion on events and choosing himself, to change his behaviour accordingly.
He spoke of now deciding to concentrate on conforming to the numerous
school rules despite not agreeing with them; and resolved to himself that
he would ‘probably need to listen to the teachers and that’ and try to
change his ‘attitude and stuff ’ [13]. To this end he intended to avoid
hanging around with the ‘bad boys’ [12;13]. Subsequently at the end of
his rst year at secondary-school, his formal attainment results showed
that although his English was now at the ‘expected’ level for his age, his
mathematics had now fallen below that level—the rst time since we had
met him in Year 3 [aged 7–8].
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

141
rory’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

142
Self-portrait 21: Rory
Rory was a White British boy, who attended Brandon Grove primary-
school. He was born in February 2010 and lived with his younger sister
and parents. Rory’s main interests were computers and lm making and
during the Lockdown he made two humorous lms which were later
exhibited in a London museum. He was also interested in architecture; for
example, he described his new secondary-school as being in a ‘Huguenot
building’ [11].
Prior to attending Brandon Grove, Rory had attended two other
primary- schools where he seemed unsettled. He did not seem comfortable
at Brandon Grove either, as he felt like an ‘outcast’ [10], partly because he
was ethnically different from all of his classmates. However, he moved to
a new local primary-school at age nine, again locally, of which he said: ‘It’s
great … and my mum can communicate with the adults here’ [3].
Despite Rory’s obvious thirst for learning outside school, he found for-
mal school learning challenging: in his second interview he used the word
‘boring’ 19 times and the word ‘annoying’ 40 times. When he began in
Year 1 at his previous school, he had found formal mathematics and
English classes tricky. Ror y described his transition from this previ-
ous school:
It was a really nice building, it had roman pillars on the sides … In the kin-
dergarten it was drawing and eating and playing, but then [in Year 1], we
had to go all the way to doing timesing, dividing and plussing, and so on …
and I did not know how to do that. [2]
Consequently, despite having a strong Sense of Agency in general, his
specic transition to Brandon Grove had been stressful due to his low
Sense of Competence in relation to mathematics and English:
I’m stressed in school sometimes.Sometimes I get worried … And some-
times I hear ‘nished, nished, nished, nished’ everywhere—so it sort of
annoys me … because you have to um get a tick, because otherwise you do
extra work and have to stay in at breaktime to nish the work. [2]
In contrast to this anxiety, Rory imagined a child who scored high marks
in their tests would feel: ‘Like he’s calm. He’s ecstatic … because he
doesn’t need to worry about anything [2].
At this stage, aged 7–9years, Rory was assessed as working well below
the expected level for his age and accordingly was assigned to intervention
groups for both mathematics and English. His reaction to being in these
groups was mixed:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

143
I like being in this group, because once I went into the big class and you
would have to nd out the time [in that lesson] and I couldn’t work out
what the time was. I found it too hard … Sometimes it’s too easy here, and
sometimes it’s too hard there. [1]
However, later on, Rory resented being in these groups. This was not
because he was embarrassed about being in them. It was partly because
being in these groups meant that he missed other classes that he was very
motivated to engage with:
I think in Brandon Grove I missed every single French lesson. So, when the
times I was in French I had no idea whatsoever what was going on … I had
to look at someone else’s work … because like sometimes extra help doesn’t
help because you’re missing out on something else.
Later on, it was also because the work was too easy and therefore unen-
gaging. In a mathematics intervention group, he described:
The teacher kept on giving me easier and easier work. I found it annoying
and then I was—I wasn’t participating … And it sort of delays me on things
that I need to do in Year 4. [2]
When Rory moved to his new primary-school where everyone was taught
in the main class, this resentment was replaced by a different discomfort,
which also restricted his whole-hearted engagement in learning. This was
triggered by a strategy that allowed each child to choose the difculty of
their mathematics questions from A (easiest), B (medium-hard) to C
(hardest). Rory said:
I am really getting frustrated with the difcult mathematics thing because I
could like answer B really easily on the worksheet, but C is quite hard. And
when I said this to the teacher she said: ‘Just do the other one [B], it’s eas-
ier.’ And I said, ‘But I want to challenge myself sometimes!’ And she said,
‘You don’t need to challenge yourself’. It was quite annoying. [5]
Rory identied with the Autonomous Learning Orientation/strong Sense
of Agency, which aligned with what he had said in his rst interview when
asked how ‘successful people’ might appear. He answered: ‘Clever. Think
what’s right for yourself. Don’t copy other people’ [1]. Rory’s strong
Sense of Agency was obstructed by schooling not giving children many
choices and on one occasion he exclaimed: ‘There’s no democracy in the
classroom!’ [6]. In secondary-school when asked whether he thought his
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

144
school knew what was best for their pupils, he answered ‘no’ and gave a
reective, critical response:
They [schools] don’t necessarily put the rules in there for us benetting: it’s
for them, the teachers. [12]
Rory perceived that he was better able to achieve agency in secondary,
which he appreciated:
There’s more like independence and creativity … it’s like an evolution of
primary-school in some aspects … So in art, he’ll [the teacher] give you an
example—he’ll show you how to do it, then you do it. He doesn’t look and
say ‘Oh you should do it this way’—he doesn’t give you help. [11]
There was a shift in Rory’s attitude to school generally following Lockdown
whereby he particularly recognised the signicance of relatedness in moti-
vating his engaged learning at school. Before the pandemic there had been
mention that if Rory so wished, he could be home-schooled for second-
ary-school. However, when asked about this possibility after the school
closures, he explained:
I didn’t have a big imagination in Lockdown, because I mean (pause) I was
really bored for half of the time. I was really just grumpy in general because
I couldn’t see anyone. [8]
In primary-school, he perceived a Sense of Relatedness as an important
purpose for schoolinggenerally:
Well, the teachers always say[its purpose is], ‘So you can get paid a lot when
you grow older’ … I could say different answers. One of the answers I could
say is that, so you could have friends.One of the answers you could say,so
you could be educated [6].
However, when asked at secondary-school about the purpose of school-
ing, relatedness was not included when he said: ‘To educate them [pupils]
so that when they grow up they will have all the education they need to
get a job’ [11]. Later on, when ranking priorities in life, he was the only
child in our sample who put ‘Getting the highest test scores’ as his rst
priority. He explained: ‘[This] is quite important for a good career’ [13].
This was certainly a shift in Rory’s outlook which may have been triggered
by the fact that success in tests was a more realistic possibility for him now.
By the end of primary-school, and into secondary-school, he was assessed
in formal school attainment terms as being at his age-related level; while
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

145
he had been designated at the start of the project as working well below
the level for his age in mathematics/English. Once he was in secondary-
school, he reected: ‘I’m doing quite well in specic subjects. I need to
improve in others’ [12].
santosh’s lIfe- hIstory
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

146
Self-portrait 22: Santosh
Santosh was born in May 2010. She was an African-heritage British girl.
She attended Brandon Grove primary-school and was the youngest mem-
ber of her family. Her Muslim faith was important to her. One word to
sum up Santosh is humour—she loved other people making her laugh and
vice versa. Even when discussing discomforts, she would still manage to
joke about them. Santosh thought her primary-school teacher would
describe her as follows: ‘She’s very funny, she smiles a lot and is very
happy’ [3]. She in turn described her primary-school teachers as ‘very
nice’ [9]. Santosh’s strong Sense of Relatedness to her family and her
school-friends was an enduring theme in her interviews. When asked the
purpose of schooling, she responded: ‘It’s probably about making friends’
[11]. Santosh had to join her new secondary-school six weeks into the
term, due to her rst choice of school excluding her by forbidding her to
wear a hijab and therefore denying her access. Santosh said that the best
thing about starting her (different) new school was as follows: ‘Being with
my friends. Many of my friends are here and it’s really nice’ [11].
Although Santosh enjoyed many aspects of school in terms of engage-
ment and socialising, she did declare on one occasion near the end of
primary-school: ‘Every single day: wake up, do literacy, mathematics—so
boring, so, so boring!—they didn’t even try to make it fun’ [10]. At the
beginning of the project, her formal school English attainment was at age-
level expectations, but mathematics attainment wasbelowexpected levels.
In Year 4 [aged 8–9], she was in a mathematics intervention group which
she perceived in competitive, performative terms:
I wasn’t that smart. But I started revising and got smarter … But I wouldn’t
be happy [to go back into the group] because you get to leave all the smart
girls and you have to start from the bottom again and work your way all the
way back to the top. [8]
Santosh made jokes about her weaker Sense of Competence in mathemat-
ics, but when asked what she would feel if her mathematics scores were
disclosed publicly, she admitted, ‘I’d feel quite scared because I’d be quite
embarrassed if somebody told me I got a 1 out of 40. I think it should be
private’ [10]. Santosh spoke of being frustrated by her perceived lack of
competence as she said, ‘It’s sad seeing you put an X on your paper, and
you already worked that thing, and it’s stuck on your paper forever and
you can’t change it [6]. However, because she did not view her compe-
tence in English to be inferior, she at least had this Sense of Competence
to fall back on.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

147
Santosh valued her Sense of Agency, saying: ‘I would like to be described
as independent’ [10] and this desire was reected when she chose the
Autonomous Learning Orientation/Strong Sense of Agency as describing
her: ‘I’m interested in exploring different and unusual things’ [13].
However, Santosh still wanted others to see her as smart, suggesting that
her Autonomous Learning Orientation was not overwhelming: ‘I want to
be described as “She’s a smart girl, I’m going to copy off her because she
is so smart”’ [10]. Santosh was also inuenced by the (mis)conception
that succeeding at school would determine her future: ‘What happens
when I get to my GCSEs? … If you didn’t listen in class and you never
listened ever in your lifetime then you won’t do anything and you’ll just
be a McDonalds cooker, just ip patties; you will be unsuccessful’ [2]. In
similar vein, Santosh held the belief that success at school was dependent
on practising as she attributed her school-friend being ‘very clever’ to that
fact that ‘she practises a lot’ [3]. Yet she personally did not like having to
do extra school-work. During the Lockdown, she admitted: ‘I’m slacking
on my work. I should do it more … [but working online] didn’t motivate
me [to do any work], not 1%’ [11].
On the other hand, she recognised the damage she might do to her
sense of self by having a weak Sense of Competence in mathematics. She
chose to ‘make up a new story’ about herself and combine that with
hard work:
I think sometimes when I think I’m bad at mathematics I just think about
other things to get my mind off of it, because I know it’s bad thinking that
you’re lower as a person … So, I just make up a new story in my head and
put my head down and try to work as hard as I can. [8]
She explicitly linked acquiring knowledge with power and agency, rather
than attaining high scores (although she might alternatively have been
inuenced by the growth mindset misconception that anyone can achieve
anything if they try hard):
Because you have knowledge you can do literally anything and anything in
the future... I think education is for your benet and having a good time in
life like in your future. [11]
Santosh did appear to retain a Sense of Agency in school as she seemed
able to release herself from the sense that schooling oppressed her: ‘School
isn’t us, so we can choose what we like and what we don’t like’ [12].
Indeed, her Sense of Agency and substantial Sense of Competence, no
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

148
doubt played a part in Santosh being assessed as above age-related -expec-
tations in formal mathematics attainment measures by the end of the
Project; and telling us during our last visit that ‘it isn’t tricky anymore’ [13].
amIn’s lIfe- hIstory
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

149
Self-portrait 23: Amin
Amin was an Asian-heritage British boy who attended Brandon Grove
school and lived with his parents and three brothers. He often spoke about
attending classes at the mosque at weekends; and also his love of Art, espe-
cially drawing Manga. Amin spoke enthusiastically about his primary-
school years and referred to school being ‘fun’ [1, 2], especially school
activities whereby ‘You get to learn and also have fun!’ [6] However, there
were times when his enthusiasm dipped as he spoke of being bored, espe-
cially during literacy classes. He suggested that school could be stressful
too. He even claimed: ‘Any classroom stresses me out. Why? Because it’s
learning. I do like learning, but it still stresses me out’ [3]. When asked to
describe himself at age ten, he said he was ‘still eager… but more bored
nowadays’ [10]. This dip was particularly noticeable after Lockdown,
when he said he felt ‘sad’ to return to school, despite having missed his
friends [9].
Amin’s Sense of Relatedness was strong and he spoke of having long-
standing friends at his primary-school; and quickly started establishing
good friendships at secondary-school. Asked how his last primary-school
teacher might describe him, he referred to his excitable, sociable traits as
well as his hard work. He saidshe would say, ‘He’s too excited for his own
good … and sometimes he’s shouting out and talking too much in class.
But I’d say he works hard’ [10].
Amin claimed early on in the project: ‘Mathematics is really easy for me
to do’ [3] and this enthusiasm continued into secondary-school. His over-
all Sense of Competence was thereby presumably boosted and this may
have related to his stronger Sense of Agency (see below). However, he
spoke negatively about his Sense of Competence in literacy classes in the
early days of the project and said: ‘English is really hard and it’s really long’
[4]. He spoke of feeling disappointed when he got a low mark in his spell-
ing test as he said: ‘It’s really hard … Once I had like six [out of ten]. I was
sad’ [1]. He also struggled with reading books at this stage explaining that
they felt a bit overwhelming: ‘I like hearing them … but I don’t really read
my book … and sometimes the blurb is so long I couldn’t be bothered to
read it’ [3]. He was aware that he was considered lacking in Competence
with his English tests. He explained, aged eight: ‘I get really stressed
because I didn’t really remember all the things that we did to learn the
exams … It’s really hard. I’m below [age-related levels]’ [3]. This was why
Amin was in an intervention group for literacy. He said he liked this group
and missed it when he was moved into the main literacy class. He also
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

150
enjoyed having his daily (remedial) one-to-one reading session with a
teaching assistant: ‘I really like it a lot... it’s a lot more fun than being in
literacy [main class]’ [6]. He further explained that these sessions were for
the children who ‘don’t read very well’ [6]. There was no apparent embar-
rassment or shame attached to these interventions. However, his lack of
Sense of Competence in English seemed to make English-lessons more
boring for him: ‘Boring, especially because I was bad at it …That’s why I
got a low grade [in a reading test] … I used to get normal grades, and
then now I’ve gotten worser ones’ [9].
Amin believed that it was his lower score that prevented him from
being able to attend the same Muslim boarding school that his brother
attended. His disappointment about this may have knocked his Sense of
Competence in English further. He reected sadly: ‘I think like from Year
3 [aged 7–8] to Year 6 [aged 10–11], I started losing interest in a lot of
things [at school] [13]. However, by the end of primary-school, his teach-
ers estimated that, in formal school attainment measures, he was now
working at the ‘expected’ level for his age in both mathematics and
English, so this may have increased his Sense of Competence and his posi-
tive experience at school overall. Later, when asked to advise a new pupil
what to expect when joining his secondary-school, he was encouraging:
‘You should expect good learning … Fun activities in class’ [12].
Amin believed that it was a pupil’s responsibility to concentrate in class
and ‘listen well’ [2] but, unlike the other children, he also claimed it as
important that teachers support children who are nding school-work
hard: ‘[Children] shouldn’t blame themselves because [teachers] should
also help the children listen more better’ [5]. Amin’s apparent lack of fear
about his teachers’ reactions to him making mistakes permeated all of his
interviews, removing the fear that other children described in a unique
way. For example, he exclaimed, ‘Ever ybody makes mistakes, like me!’ [4].
Amin’s Learning Orientation was illustrated on a number of occasions
during his life-history, when Amin spoke enthusiastically of how much he
liked learning. For instance, he said when aged eight: ‘I like Year 4 because
I want to learn harder things’ [2]; and when asked what he was looking
forward to in the future, he said; ‘I’m looking forward to Year 5 [aged
9–10] because you learn about Space’ [4]. Amin also said that school was
like a second home to him, because ‘I get to learn’ [2]. His desire to learn
increasingly included wanting to improve in his English beyond just for
school attainment. He admitted to wanting to engage beyond what the
teacher told him: ‘I just like reading a lot because I can learn … I really
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

151
want to read a book and not just keep reading what the teacher gives us’
[6]. Amin’s strong Sense of Competence and his Sense of Agency were
illustrated when he said he would feel condent enough to advise his head
teacher on how to improve his school. He was able to reect critically on
schooling and specify a number of areas that he believed needed reform-
ing. These ranged from improving the physical state of the school build-
ings, to re-organising the end-of-term activities, to giving advice on how
supply teachers could improve their pedagogy.
references
Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (1985). The general causality orientations scale. Journal of
Research in Personality, 19, 109–134.
Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (2012). Chapter 20: Self determination theor y. In P.A. M.Van
Lange, A.W. Kruglanski, & E. Tory Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of theories of
social psychology (pp.416–437). Sage.
Ryan, R., etal. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of research
on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology,
52, 141–166.
Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2019). Brick by brick: The origins, development, and future
of self-determination theory. In A.J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation sci-
ence (6) (pp. 111–156). Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.
adms.2019.01.001
Watkins, C. (2010). Learning, performance and improvement. Research Matters:
The Research Publication of the International Network for School
Improvement.
6 THE LIFE-HISTORIES

152
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

153© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_7
CHAPTER 7
Sense ofCompetence andCLIPS children’s
Experiences ofthePolicy Focus
onMathematics andEnglish
SenSe ofCompetenCe
The child’s Sense of Competence lies at the heart of our research interest;
and how this inter-relates with the child’s wellbeing and indeed, parity of
participation. When a child believes they have mastered any challenging
task effectively, then they may experience a Sense of Competence. It is
important to note that this need not be in a normative sense; in other
words, if a child perceives that they are competent, this is what supports
their wellbeing; not a nite measure of a specic attainment. A body of
research points clearly to the fact that feeling competent and condent
with respect to valued goals is associated with enhanced wellbeing (for
example, Carver et al., 2010; McGregor etal., 1998). However, when
tasks are imposed, they may be either too easy or (in the CLIPS case, usu-
ally) too difcult, whereby wellbeing is undermined (Csikszentmihalyi,
1997), which leads to even lower expectations of success.
The concept of competence is closely related to self-efcacy—perceiv-
ing that one has the competence to act, leading to exerting oneself to
inuence one’s life intentionally (Bandura, 1989). A Sense of Competence,
including the perception of self-efcacy, is most likely to occur after a
child’s whole-hearted engagement in an area of study that they enjoy in
which they encounter mastery. Repeated experiences of not being able to
master a task are likely to quickly lower theSense of Competence because

154
competence is only experienced when children feel that they have made
‘an effect on the environment’ and therefore mastered ‘valued outcomes
within it’ (Yu etal., 2018, p.1864). In this sense, it is also closely aligned
to Sense of Agency. ‘Competency’ is the execution of the capacity to
achieve that task in action.
Summary 7.1: Supports for a child achieving a Sense of Competence
• A valued task is mastered effectively
• Goals are personally appropriate in amount of challenge
• Tasks are personally satisfying
• A difference is perceived to be made.
In primaryschooling, competence has become narrowly associated with
attainment in tests of mathematics and English. However, competence
can be more broadly dened as also including academic success in other
academic elds such as history, environmental studies, religious studies; or
the effective accomplishment of a non-academic task such as creative art-
work, textiles or computer studies; or—equally valuable for building up a
Sense of Competence—a social task. For example, a child talented at music
or who makes friends easily, but who attains lower scores in mathematics/
English at school, may have their overall Sense of Competence unjustly
undermined (Francis et al., 2019) or misrecognised (Fraser, 2008). In
these latter cases, Sense of Competence refers more generally to a child’s
overall perception of their self-condence: which can feed into academic
competence; and also be fed into by academic competence in schooling.
Summary 7.2: A more complete denition of Competence
Includes
• Success in academic tasks in humanities, sciences or mathematics/
Englishetc;
• Success in non-academic tasks such as in creative arts, sport and tech-
nology; and
• Success in social tasks which supportthe Sense of Relatedness.
Our research described in this book is concerned with each child’s full
Sense of Competence—in contrast to recent policy bias in the English
schooling system where competence almost exclusively relates to a child’s
attainment scores in mathematics and English (White, 2011). Our
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

155
concern is how well the child’s Sense of Competence can withstand the
narrow, unnegotiable dominance of these performance scores and school-
ing’s embedded messages about competence. We explore implications of
the lack of systemic importance given to children’s wider academic compe-
tence, their non-academic competence, as well as to their social competence.
In particular, we investigate Ryan and Deci’s (2019) claim that a Sense
of Agency and Relatedness are also required (as illustrated in Chaps. 8 and
9). This would mean that even if support for all kinds of competence were
available (which often they are not), unless a child’s Sense of Competence
was accompanied by supports for agency and relatedness, this may zap
motivation to engage. It might ultimately steer the child’s energies away
from opportunities for engagement in school learning, towards alternative
interests as means of enhancing wellbeing and salvaging a positive sense of
self. Alternative interests may be non-school or anti-school in their
Orientation.
In our narrative below, we consider the ways in which a Sense of
Competence was eroded for some CLIPS children in that they failed to
master effectively the tasks provided by the school; did not always share
the goals valued by schooling; did not nd all tasks relevant or satisfying;
and did not feel they made any difference, however hard they tried.
Summary 7.3: A Sense of Competence is reduced
when a child
• fails to master many tasks effectively,
• does not share the goals valued by schooling,
• does not nd many tasks relevant or satisfying,
• does not seem to make any difference, however hard they try.
HiStoriCal BaCkground totHefoCuS onnarrow
areaS ofCompetenCe
As illustrated in our life-histories (Chap. 6), primary-school timetables in
England have become heavily weighted towards mathematics and English.
This has left reduced space for non-assessed subjects such as history, geog-
raphy, music, drama, art, sport or nature-study, subjects some CLIPS chil-
dren were particularly passionate about. Not only has the curriculum been
narrowed in this way: our sample indicated that teaching approaches had
also become narrowed. Recent policy has led to the increased teaching-to-
the-test testied by the CLIPS sample, and—as a by-product—to more
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

156
emphasis being put on attainment per se and attainment groupingas a
by-product. This performative culture has led to frequent testing during
primary-schooling which our sample referred to, often with trepidation.
This exerts pressure on children generally, since ‘ability as measured on
test scores’ has become ‘the be-all and end-all of education’ (Reay, 2017,
p.62). In order to contextualise this tunnel-vision because of its impact on
the CLIPS children, we briey outline how particular performance-
oriented cultural values came into place.
Within a few years of being introduced initially in 1988, the National
Curriculum and Assessment came toplace the burden of nationally audited
testing on children at the end of a newly constructed ‘Key Stage 2’: that is,
10- and 11-year-old primary-school children. However, originally, the
National Curriculum content was developed to allow all children to enjoy the
full range of school-subjects (although division by aims or competencies, rather
than subjects, was never considered: White, 2011). However, when national
tests came to assess only the core subjects of mathematics and English, this
led to these subjects being given most emphasis and value. Content that was
assessed dictated what was taught, as well as how it was taught and further,
how often it was taught. This limited participation in a well-rounded curricu-
lum, as the CLIPS children testify below. (Fortunately (as they construed it!)
for the CLIPS sample, the year in which they reached this stage was 2020
when COVID-19 necessitated cancelling national tests (‘SATs’).)
The Primary Assessment Curriculum and Experience project (PACE)
found that even by the early 1990s, 20years before the CLIPS children
were toddlers, approximately half of curriculum time was devoted to the
core curriculum in mathematics and English (Wyse etal., 2008). Boyle and
Bragg’s (2006) longitudinal survey over a decade later also indicated the
gradual decline in time dedicated to subjects other than mathematics and
English, most signicantly in the last years of primary-school, where cuts
included: geography reduced by 21.6%; history 21.6%; and art 21.2%
(p.379). A revised version of the curriculum, implemented in 2014, further
subordinated history, geography and the creative/ne arts including music.
This occurrence could be perceived as reecting scarce value beingattrib-
uted systemically to the overall wellbeing or the human rights of the chil-
dren. There is clear evidence that the creative and ne arts, including
music, make a unique contribution to children’s creativity, imagination and
overall wellbeing (e.g. World Health Organisation, 2019) and constitute a
social justice requirement (UNCRC, 1989). The reduction in access to the
arts including music is particularly worrying, given that leisure-time has
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

157
been further reduced in schools (Baines & Blatchford, 2019) and cuts in
physical exercise, have led to 90% of primary-school children failing to
achieve the in-school 30-minute moderate-to-vigorous physical activity
threshold today (Daly-Smith etal., 2021). In addition, nature and envi-
ronmental study has been greatly under-emphasised. Unfortunately for
their Sense of Competence, arts, sports and nature study were three areas
that our CLIPS sample particularly valuedand excelled in.
Focusing on a core of mathematics and English was aimed at combat-
ting what right-wing policy-makers conceived of as the trend of students
opting out of ‘harder’ more ‘academic’ subjects such as mathematics, in
favour of cultural, artistic, recreational or vocational activities, which they
perceived as easier and less important (Berliner, 2011). This is the crux of
the challenge to our current institutionalised patterns of cultural value:
prioritising mathematics/English over other subjects is culturally biased
against many children’s main strengths and interests. According to
Neumann etal. (2021, p.706), the 2014 curriculum’s underlying assump-
tions displayed a substantial emphasis on teaching a ‘narrow, centrally dic-
tated and conservatively dened canon of core knowledge’. By 2012,
Alexander was able to write scathingly about the narrowing of curriculum
to the ‘three Rs’ (Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic) as follows:
Three subject syllabuses hardly constitute a curriculum (p.369) … what we
have here are proposals not for a curriculum but for just three subjects … it
makes no attempt to reach a consensus on values and rationale, presuming
instead that it is entirely proper in a democracy for a national curriculum to
serve as a vehicle for imposing upon the majority the values, beliefs and preju-
dices of an ideological minority. (p.379; our emphasis)
Alexander (2012) noted that its emphasis on ‘essential knowledge’ was
informed by the work of essentialist Hirsch, ignoring important contex-
tual and cultural factors, ethnic diversity and the ndings of educational
research; all of which absencesmade it harder for different groups in soci-
ety to participate fully in it—including some of the children in the CLIPS
sample. Evidence suggests that lower-attaining children, in particular,
began to perceive that their non-core interests had ‘little status and recog-
nition’ educationally (Reay, 2017, p.65). Devine (2003) noted that ‘some
forms of learning and intelligence’, which these children had once enjoyed
or excelled in, were now considered less important (p.44) or—in Fraser’s
words—‘comparatively unworthy of respect’ within the school curriculum
(2000, p.113).
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

158
influenCeS ofCurriCulum narrowing
In what may seem like an irony, illustrated by the CLIPS life-histories (see
Chap. 6), the imposition of this narrow curriculum appears to have made
it less likely that skills relevant to ourishing adult life would be learned at
school. This is despite that fact that a socially just education clearly has to
provide young people with the skills and knowledge to engage with
‘emerging societal contexts’ (Bardsley, 2007). Such skills will necessitate
engaged learning about technology, developing critical citizenship skills,
relationship competence and understandings of contemporary social issues
such as climate change and sustainability. Since these were mainly omitted
from the curriculum, it is now becoming clear that schooling in Britian
will not provide signicant advantage to Britain’s entire population either
in the present or the future.
To add to the narrowness resulting from the reduced offer of subjects,
children who found mathematics or English tricky also started to be with-
drawn from other classes that they preferred, such as art, PE, ITE, for
withdrawal for one-to-one or intervention ‘catch up’ provision and test
preparation in mathematics/English—subjects that they might have dis-
liked. In addition, children were not consulted about arrangements, pro-
viding no representation of their interests, goals or preferences, despite
the rhetoric of policy on pupil voice in schools (Comber & Hayes, 2022).
A tension has therefore emerged between school-children’s expressed
needs and the needs inferred systemically (Noddings, 2005), as reiterated
by the CLIPS sample on many occasions.
This threat to present and future wellbeing increased for children who
found mathematics/English tricky because, by denition, these children
found it difcult to participate fully in the learning of mathematics and
English: because it was on the basis of attainment specically in these two
subjects that had designated them as lower-attainers. Prior to the 1988
Education Reform Act in England, ‘low-attaining’ was used in a non-
specic way to describe children who found it difcult to participate gen-
erally within current schooling arrangements (see, for example, Low
Attaining Pupils Programme (LAPP)). By the mid-1990s, however, the
government inspectorate in England (Ofce for Standards in Education)
mandated thatprimary class teachers differentiate between ‘high’, ‘mid-
dle’ and ‘lower-attainers’ against the new National Curriculum Assessment
criteria (Hart etal., 2004). Hence our use of the label ‘lower-attaining’ in
the CLIPS study, despite our preference for de-emphasising test attain-
ment in the primary-school more generally. This labelling by
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

159
attainment- differentiation has persisted till the present day (see Francis
etal., 2019), depreciating those children who have strengths and interests
beyond formal mathematics and English schoolwork. Children designated
as lower- attaining stood to be most negatively affected by the reduced
status of alternative subjects, because these were by denition those that
lower- attainers were likely to prefer; and because these children weremost
negatively affected by narrowed pedagogies, which were often unsuited to
those who found formal school mathematics and/or English tricky.
In 2013, a group of academics had a letter published in the British
newspaper The Independent, in which they expressed how the new curricu-
lum was likely to make children’s engaged learning of the curriculum
more difcult. It highlighted how the curriculum failed to promote criti-
cal understanding and creativity, was too difcult to allow mastery and was
not relevant to many primary-aged children. This would lead, they pre-
dicted, to ‘failure and demoralisation’:
The proposed curriculum consists of endless lists of spellings, facts and rules.
This mountain of data will not develop children’s ability to think, including
problem-solving, critical understanding and creativity. Much of it demands too
much too young. This will put pressure on teachers to rely on rote learning
without understanding. Inappropriate demands will lead to failure and demor-
alisation. The learner is largely ignored. Little account is taken of children’s
potential interests and capacities, or that young children need to relate abstract
ideas to their experience, lives and activity. The new curriculum is extremely
narrow. The mountains of detail for English, mathematics and science leave
little space for other learning. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/let-
ters/letters- gove- will- bury- pupils- in- facts- and- rules- 8540741.html)
This curriculum negatively reinforced differences and promoted decit
understandings of under-performance, as our CLIPS sample describe. It
potentially eroded lower-attainers’ Sense of Competence because it
linked—for the rst time—Sense of Competence and performance (Wyse
etal., 2008). Teachers were right to become concerned that ‘forcing’ such
students to take the narrowly dened core subjects would increase disen-
gagement and disaffection (Neumann etal., 2021). White wrote, in 2011:
The more time pupils spend at school doing things they don’t have their heart
in, the more counter-productive this is from a wellbeing point of view. (p.138)
Indeed, the Primary Review (Alexander, 2012) and contributing studies
during the 1990s (Galton etal., 1999; Pollard etal., 1994; Torrance &
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

160
Pryor, 1998) found that the whole culture of teaching and learning now
disadvantaged the many children who preferred active, participatory learn-
ing approaches (White, 2011). Teachers said that they needed to cut down
pupils’ participation during lessons in order to cover the core curriculum
content; which action also appeared to restrict thinking skills; put time
pressure on teachers and pupils alike; and greatly reduce opportunities for
children to achieve a Sense of Agency. Wyse etal. (2008) portrayed a more
pressurised classroom environment which was ‘more intense than hitherto
and highly teacher controlled, with little scope for pedagogic exibility
and little pupil autonomy’ (p.9). That is, students had little, if any, role in
shaping the direction of their learning, especially as teachers began to
adopt a whole-class teaching style which emphasised transmission- teaching
to the group rather than individual interests and goals.
tHe ‘Core’ SuBjeCtS: matHematiCS andengliSH
Our CLIPS life-histories indicate how hard some children found it to
achieve any kind of mastery in mathematics; and how resistant they there-
fore became to it. Since 2014, there has been an increased swing in
primary- schooling towards basic calculation skills and mental arithmetic
rather than using and applying mathematics, making the subject seem
even less relevant to children’s normal lives. This negativity around math-
ematics need not have been the case, according to Boaler (2015). She re-
afrms that whether children nd mathematics hard or not actually
depends on how mathematics is taught—not on inherent talent. Boaler
described how children who did not do well in mathematics tests were
those who had been taught to memorise methods instead of interacting
with numbers exibly. She described a sort of disempowering trap: that
memorising methods made mathematics considerably harder for these
children; and yet high performance on tests, given limited time, demanded
memorisation.
Some student beliefs about mathematics could also be dominated by
their perception that mathematics was not only innately difcult but also
rule-based (Larkin & Jorgenson, 2016) which led to students expressing
hatred, anger, frustration, confusion, sadness and boredom in relation to
mathematics. Larkin and Jorgenson (2016) cited a young student’s com-
ments to illustrate this claim: ‘And it’s just a big blob of confusion and it
makes me frustrated that I can’t understand it … It makes no sense at all.
It’s really confusing’ (p.914). In these senses, the National Curriculum’s
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

161
increased focus on mathematics might inadvertently have had the counter-
productive effect of increasing children’s mathematics anxiety rather than
improving competence, for particular groups of children.
In relation to the other core, English (or literacy), important socio-
cultural factors which encouraged children to participate in lessons tended
to be accorded less value in the new curriculum. As Haberman noted:
How students feel about themselves, how they are positioned as literacy
learners, their individual interests and aspirations to read particular kinds of
texts, their membership of particular social networks and their visions of the
kind of readers or writers they want to become … will inuence their learn-
ing in school. (Haberman, 1991, p.291 cited in Ellis & Rowe, 2020)
This trend away from recognising children’s subjective differences, was
exacerbated by commonly-imported literacy interventions emphasising
reading as based only on technical, cognitive aspects: phonemic awareness,
phonics, uency, vocabulary development and comprehension (National
Reading Panel (US) etal., 2000 cited in Ellis & Rowe, 2020, p.420). In
one of our CLIPS primary-schools, a scheme imported from the United
States was being used which the children described as particularly boring.
As suggested by Haberman (above), reading has emotional, social and
intellectual aspects not accounted for by such imports, whose absence of
focus on individual interests might further alienate some students from
participating in reading activities. In addition, there is no clear evidence
for the efcacy of the current approach to teaching reading (Wyse &
Bradbury, 2022). In relation to writing, too, Spelling, Grammar and
Punctuation tests were nationally mandated; but have also had no clear
benets for narrative writing (Wyse & Bradbury, 2022) and were found to
be particularly boring by some children in CLIPS. They seemed to dis-
tance writing skills further from children’s own experiences of life (Braun
& Maguire, 2020). ‘Speaking’ as a skill in English-lessons was not assessed
because of ministers’ fear of it becoming ‘idle chat’ in the classroom,
because the latter failed to understand (or chose to ignore) the important
role of speaking within writing (Alexander, 2012). Children’s author,
Rosen, has criticised policy-makers’ belief that writing subjective, person-
ally oriented, narrative texts, was a form of class oppression, suggesting
that the most important factor in children being motivated to write was
having opportunities for choices in the content, format and publication of
their writing (Rosen, 2013). Others go further to argue that National
Assessment in English represents a form of linguicism ‘which serves to
entrench linguistic social injustices’ (Cushing, 2020, p.35).
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

162
ClipS CHildren’S SenSe ofCompetenCe
[IMPORTANT NOTE: Throughout the book, a digit in square brackets
following a quotation means that the quotation comes from an interview
during that TERMin the project. For example, [8] following a quotation
means that the quotation came from TERM8 of the project i.e. just over
halfway through the project when the children were starting in Year 5 of
their primary-schools.]
unmotivated By matHematiCS andengliSH But
intentionally engaged inotHer diSCiplineS
The 23 CLIPS children’s experience of being misrecognised related to
their interest in curriculum areas other than mathematics and English;
including interests they engaged in passionately at home. Harriet, for
example, had a passion for reading novels and drawing, but she felt that
these were not valued by the schooling system. Even though reading is part
of the core curriculum, she perceived that reading for pleasure was not val-
ued in the way that reading comprehension texts was; or writing was; and
that artwork had even lower status. In addition, her lack of knowledge in
mathematics led to the all-pervasivedemotivating experience of not mas-
tering mathematics tasks effectively. Harriet described—perhaps as a conse-
quence—not choosing to reveal her true self, or participate fully, at school:
[The teachers] don’t know how good I am at drawing … because I don’t
really feel like I have to show my true drawings—or identity—to the school. [3]
In other words, Harriet intentionally absented herself from engagement in
school-learning because of what was taught and how it was taught.
Rory described missing out on learning French—which he was eager to
learn—because he was being taken out of French lessons for tuition in
mathematics. This was his school’s response to his lower-attainment in
mathematics. It resulted in Rory not experiencing success in mastering
French tasks effectively; it did not accord with his valued goals for school-
ing; and he did not nd mathematics tasks relevant or satisfying. In these
ways, his low Sense of Competence was sustained. This made him angry:
Sometimes extra help doesn’t help because you’re missing out on something
else … I found it annoying [being withdrawn from French] and then I
was—I wasn’t participating … It sort of delays me on things that I need to
do in Year 4. [2]
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

163
Jack started actually absenting himself physically from school on a regular
basis. We asked Jack to comment on how school would be different if
school focussed on sport, art and computers instead of mathematics and
English during the mornings. He replied:
I would be like kwww! [indicates speeding into school] Much better! … Much
easier… [I’d] be coming in every day. Because like normally there’s some
days that I don’t really want to get up [and attend school]. [13]
If school involved valued tasks like sport that he mastered effectively,
aligning with his personally meaningful goals and interests, making his
experience relevant and satisfying, then he would not need to miss whole
days of school: then he would feel his presence was meaningful. Then he
would feel a stronger overall Sense of Competence.
We invited Gabriella to describe the best things about primary-school
and she mentioned ‘the activities that we do like in the afternoon and PE’:
that is, subjects like art and topic, that she found personally relevant and
satisfying, which perhaps she could master successfully if she tried hard;
that boosted her Sense of Competence. She went on to describe how, if
she won the lottery, she would use the money to develop her desire for
greater engagement in art:
Just do art basically … just buy stuff from like art suppliers. [10]
In relation to areas of interest not offered at school, Zeph, Fin and Jon
were all passionate and extremely knowledgeable about animals. Jon told
us that if he could replace mathematics and English-lessons in the morn-
ing, he would ‘learn about animals’ instead. When it came to knowing
about animals, these three children had a great track record of success:
learning about animals accorded with their personally meaningful goals
for life; and tasks relating to animals were relevant and satisfying and they
could make a meaningful contribution by participating. In this area, their
Sense of Competence was strong. Despite this, Fin noted that the school
as an institution ‘wouldn’t know how good I know about animals’ [3]
because little focus was given to nature study. Nature study was not
included in their school’s curriculum, despite these children’s interest; and
despite Zeph, for example, being nick-named the ‘animal dictionary’ [11].
Zeph came to assess his overall competence somewhat negatively as ‘intel-
ligent about animals but not on every other thing’ [3].
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

164
These institutionalised patterns of cultural devaluing—which infused
topics and practices the CLIPS children encountered every day—became
embedded in the children’s minds. This inuence was exemplied by
Santosh who was another aspiring artist who claimed that what she loved
best about school was ‘pointilism’ in artwork [2] (i.e. using dots to create
a picture). When we asked her whether she would like to do art rst thing
every morning at school rather than mathematics, initially she said she
would ‘jump around’ for joyif that were the case. But then she checked
herself, despite her own passion for art and her own aversion to mathemat-
ics, remembering what was systemically considered important:
Well, if it was every day I would quite get tired (at school) of art. It would
get quite meaningless. Because you have to do plus and take away and divi-
sion and stuff.
tHe dominanCe anddiffiCulty ofmatHematiCS
intHeCurriCulum
Michael felt that academic failure, particularly in mathematics, could
blight the future, telling us: ‘Your life is ruined, and [if] like you don’t
learn … like you can’t go to the job anymore … then what are they going
to do for their life?’ [1]; and he often sounded anxious that ‘the future
awaits’ [13]. In congruence with nowex-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (as
of 2024), the sample children were constantly told that mathematics was
the most important subject for their future careers. While of course math-
ematics is a potentially useful and powerful domain of knowledge, it is
good to remember that Clark et al. (2018) claimed that wellbeing in
primary- school—not qualications in mathematics—was the best predic-
tor of wellbeing in adulthood. If children’s wellbeing is compromised
because of the way mathematics is taught or presented, then this bodes
badly for their future wellbeing.
However, the children absorbed the messages about the importanceof
mathematics, although few of them could explain the link between math-
ematics now and their future wellbeing. They could only think of times
when basic arithmetic might be useful, if a calculator was not available.
Santosh [4] perceived mathematics as helpful to ‘get bills and electrical
stuff for my house when I grow up’. Gabriella [9] had a similar perception
that mathematics was for sorting bills:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

165
When I’m older and I start to like—I will start to have to pay the rent and
the water bills and everything … then when you start to like work it will be
easier for you because like you’ve learnt all this stuff in primary.
Unfortunately, Zeph saw no chance that mathematics could be enjoyable,
however useful it might be:
[Teachers] encourage you to do stuff, like so they make it more fun so then
you like it and you want to do it … But in mathematics you can’t really do
that because if you made it more fun it would still be boring … Yeah, it’s
quite hard, and yeah, boring as well. It’s not really exciting, it’s just doing
loads of sums and stuff. [3]
These examples illustrate the discordance between the CLIPS children’s
conceptualisations of their goals and aspirations and those of policy-mak-
ers for the schooling system. These latter were evidently opaque: their
ultimate concern with global economic competitiveness was of course not
obvious to the children. As we discovered in our activity of sorting cards
showing life-goals, the children’s life-values were almost exclusively
focused on relationships: on becoming good, loyal family members and
friends; and on supporting ‘the common good’ (Sandel, 2020): and very
few of them said they aspired to wealth, fame or social mobility. The most
common order of priority for the children was similar to this, starting with
the most important life-goal:
1. Looking after my family
2. Being a good, loyal friend
3. Being kind
4. Making other people happy
5. Being healthy and t
6. Being popular
7. Getting the highest test scores
8. Being famous
9. Getting rich
10. Being attractive/beautiful/handsome.
Unfortunately, the children’s experiences of nding many tasks to be
irrelevant or too tricky—and often too boring—led to their disengage-
ment and their sense that what they wanted or what they did had little
impact on the schooling agenda; and indeed, the schooling agenda had
little impact on their real future aspirations.
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

166
While these testimonies may be unsurprising, particularly given the diet
of mathematics provided in schools, our data do underline the intensity of
these children’s dislike for the way mathematics was presented and their
particular disadvantage in nding mathematics tiresome, given its domina-
tion of the curriculum. If, for example, one’s status was judged according
to capacity for engagement in reading ction books for enjoyment, in
studies of animals, or pointillism in art, these children’s school status
would have been transformed. It was their misfortune that mathematics
was promoted as being most valuable.
tHe dominanCe anddiffiCulty ofengliSH
intHeCurriCulum
For other children, English-lessons were the biggest burden but more
often because they were too boring rather than too tricky. This was because,
although the children tended to love stories, the bulk of the English-
lessons they described appeared to be highly structured but mundane—
which the children did not nd sufciently satisfying. In particular, they
appeared to endure too little experience of mastering tasks effectively and
a lot of passive listening. Sam and Michael [5], for example, explained how
they experienced English-lessons as boring but, at the same time, there was
no time to daydream in the pressured class they inhabited. Losing concen-
tration, even when a lesson was boring to them, was not acceptable to
teachers who had to get them through a prescribed curriculum:
Sam: I pay attention then it’s like I fall asleep for 10 seconds and then we’re
moving on to the next thing.
Michael: Yeah, I remember something. And then like I stop. And then we
go on with the work. And I forget it.
Jack explained how writing his own real opinion was engaging for him
because it was satisfying and relevant:
I’m not really good at writing. And sometimes—(pause) in Year 6 it’s much
funner because we like write about these nice things—what I actually like
about things—but in Year 5 it was boring writing and that lot [8].
Jack seemed to be requesting that his own ideas, judgements and prefer-
ences were taken into account during writing lessons.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

167
Zeph did not nd English any more satisfying or relevant than mathe-
matics but he had no choice but to conform, even though his interests and
preferences were not accorded value. He ended up feeling coerced rather
than acting intentionally:
Like they give you like—stuff to do, but like—most of it’s like boring writ-
ing. And then … I didn’t want to do it anymore but I still had to do it. [9]
Similarly, Gabriella enjoyed writing stories at home. She loved reading
story books. However, these aspects of English were not emphasised in
her English-lessons at school:
I don’t nd that much lessons exciting … It was quite boring, because
like … I don’t like listening to words, I just like doing very nice books, like
reading nice books in lessons. [3]
She appeared worried about grammar, another focus in lessons that did
not align with many children’s aspirations for schooling or life more widely:
I ask, what’s like the adjective and everything? And what’s a noun? What’s
an adverb?—like what do they do? [8]
Others found the actual process of handwriting difcult and frequently
failed to master writing tasks at all. When these uncomfortable experiences
of literacy dominated their impressions of school-life, it was likely to have
negative consequences for participation within and beyond the English
curriculum and the associated opportunities for wellbeing.
wellBeing andSoCial juStiCe: inadequate empHaSiS
Several children told us that when they did not nish their schoolwork
within the classroom, they were held in during break-time or lunch-time
to complete their work, further indicating the system’s little investment in
social activities and relationship development, or wellbeing more gener-
ally. Samiya explained how the system worked for mathematics:
You have to stay in for your lunch or break. Because if you’re doing math-
ematics before break you have to stay in for your break, but if you do it after
break you have to stay in for your lunch. And if you do it after lunch you
have to stay in the next day.
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

168
Rory depicted the stress this caused him, perhaps increasing his Sense of
Incompetence compared to others who could perform more quickly:
I’m stressed in school sometimes. Sometimes I get worried … And some-
times I hear ‘nished, nished, nished, nished’ everywhere—so it sort of
annoys me … because you have to get a tick, because otherwise you do extra
work and have to stay in at break-time to nish the work. [2]
This system seemed to suggest that those who worked slowly—though no
fault of their own or indeed perhaps because they wantedto take time for
reection—were less worthy of enjoying a full playtime and enjoying the
wellbeing it encouraged. While a weak Sense of Competence is linked to
lack of wellbeing, in this system, the punishment for insufcient perfor-
mance was further reduction in opportunities for wellbeing. Louise agreed
that this was not a fair system: ‘Because the rest [of the class] get break-
time, and the other people have to miss some of it’ [2]. When we asked
Mark how he felt about being kept in at lunch-time, he replied, ‘Hungry’.
It seems that schools felt justied in keeping children in at break-time or
lunch-time by the need to relieve teachers’ pressure of having to be able to
cover the core curriculum (Baines & Blatchford, 2019). However, this is
clearly a destructive move in terms of children’s wellbeing, especially in
terms ofsocial parity of participation. Given that most of the children in
the sample selected break-time, lunch-time or home-time as their favou-
rite aspects of primary-schooling, keeping children away from their leisure-
time seemed to them particularly unfair. These children, especially, may
have needed these times to boost their status through activities other than
doing core subjects—such as doing sport or enjoying friendships.
It is sadly not surprising then that many of the children in our study
expressed dislike for school, some an extreme dislike, apart from as a place
to meet friends. In short, the children referred frequently to the fact that
the institutionalised patterns of cultural value around mathematics/English
did not include a valuing of their own goals, or preferences, therebyreduc-
ing their chances of mastering learning tasks effectively. In the end, this
further eroded their Sense of Competence, as illustrated in Summary 7.4:
Summary 7.4: The relationship between Sense of Competence, wellbeing and
social justice
Performative Schooling System, focus on testing in mathematics/English
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

169
↓
Child’s low Sense of Competence because of tasks they cannot master
↓
Reduced intentional engagement, creative learning
↓
Compromised wellbeing/positive experience
↓
Reduced participation, reduced social justice
↓
Lowered Sense of Competence etc.
referenCeS
Alexander, R. (2012). Neither national nor a curriculum? Forum, 54(3), 369–384.
Baines, E., & Blatchford, P. (2019). School break and lunch times and young people’s
social lives: A follow-up national study. Nufeld Foundation.
Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American
Psychologist, 44(9), 1175–1184.
Bardsley, D. (2007). Education for all in a global era? The social justice of
Australian secondary school education in a risk society. Journal of Education
Policy, 22(5), 493–508.
Berliner, D. (2011). Rational responses to high stakes testing: The case of curricu-
lum narrowing and the harm that follows. Cambridge Journal of Education,
41(3), 287–302.
Boaler, J. (2015). Fluency without fear: Research evidence on the best ways to learn
math facts. Stanford University.
Boyle, B., & Bragg, J. (2006). A curriculum without foundation. British
Educational Research Journal, 32(4), 569–582.
Braun, A., & Maguire, M. (2020). Doing without believing—enacting policy in
the English primary school. Critical Studies in Education, 61(4), 433–447.
Carver, C., Scheier, M., & Segerstrom, S. (2010). Optimism. Clinical Psychology
Review, 30, 879–889.
Clark, A. E., Flèche, S., Layard, R., Powdthavee, N., & Ward, G. (2018). The
origins of happiness: The science of well-being over the life course. Princeton
University Press.
Comber, B., & Hayes, D. (2022). Classroom participation: Teachers’ work as lis-
teners. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 55(1), 37–48.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding ow: The psychology of engagement with
everyday life. Basic Books.
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

170
Cushing, I. (2020). Prescriptivism, linguicism and pedagogical coercion in pri-
mary school UK curriculum policy. English Teaching: Practice & Critique,
19(1), 35–47.
Daly-Smith, A., Hobbs, M., Morris, J., Defeyter, M., Resaland, G., & McKenna,
J. (2021). Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in primary school children:
Inactive lessons are dominated by mathematics and English. International
Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(990), 1–14. https://
doi.org/10.3390/ijerph
Devine, D. (2003). Children, power and schooling: How childhood is structured in
the primary school. Trentham Books.
Ellis, S., & Rowe, A. (2020). Literacy, social justice and inclusion: A large-scale
design experiment to narrow the attainment gap linked to poverty. National
Association for Special Educational Needs.
Francis, B., Taylor, B., & Tereshchenko, A. (2019). Reassessing 'ability' grouping:
Improving practice for equity and attainment. Routledge.
Fraser, N. (2000). Rethinking recognition. New Left Review, 3, 107–120.
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of justice. Polity Press.
Galton, M., Hargreaves, L., Comber, C., Wall, D., & Pell, T. (1999). Changes in
patterns of teacher interaction in primary classrooms: 1976-96. British
Educational Research Journal, 25(1), 23–37.
Hart, S., Dixon, A., Drummond, M.-J., & McIntyre, D. (2004). Learning without
limits. Open University Press.
Larkin, K., & Jorgenson, R. (2016). ‘I hate mathematics: Why do we need to do
mathematics?’ Using iPad video diaries to investigate attitudes and emotions.
Towards mathematics in year 3 and year 6 students. International Journal of
Science and Mathematics Education, 14, 925–944.
McGregor, I., McAdams, D., & Little, B. (1998). Personal projects, life stories,
and happiness: On being true to traits. Journal of Research in Personality,
40, 551–572.
Neumann, E., Gewirtz, S., Maguire, M., & Towers, E. (2021). Neoconservative
education policy and the case of the English baccalaureate. Journal of
Curriculum Studies, 52(5), 702–719.
Noddings, N. (2005). Identifying and responding to needs in education.
Cambridge Journal of Education, 35(2), 147–159.
Pollard, A., Broadfoot, P., Croll, P., Osborn, M., & Abbott, D. (1994). Changing
English primary schools? The impact of the education reform act at key stage
1. Cassell.
Reay, D. (2017). The state education is in: Recognising the challenge of achieving
a fair educational system in post-Brexit, austerity England. FORUM: For
Promoting 3–19 Comprehensive Education, 59(3), 325–330.
Rosen, M. (2013). How genre theory saved the world. Changing English,
20(1), 3–10.
Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2019). Brick by brick: The origins, development, and future
of self-determination theory. In A.J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation science
(6) (pp.111–156). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.adms.2019.01.001
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

171
Sandel, M. (2020). The tyranny of meritocracy. Penguin Books LTD.
Torrance, H., & Pryor, J. (1998). Investigating formative assessment. Open
University Press.
United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). (1989).
http://wunrn.org/reference/pdf/Convention_Rights_Child.PDF
White, J. (2011). Exploring well-being in schools: A guide to making children's lives
more fullling. Routledge.
World Health Organisation. (2019). https://www.google.com/search?q=
World+Health+Organisation+(2019).&rlz=1C1GCEB_en&oq=World+Healt
h+Organisation+(2019).&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQA
BgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMggIAxAAGBYYHjIICAQQABgWGB4y
CAgFEAAYFhgeMggIBhAAGBYYHjIKCAcQABiGAxiKBTIKCAg
QABiGAxiKBdIBCDY4OTFqMGo0qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=
UTF- 8
Wyse, D., etal. (2008). The trajectory and impact of national reform: Curriculum
and assessment in English primary schools. In Research survey 3/2. University
of Cambridge.
Wyse, D., & Bradbury, A. (2022). Reading wars or reading reconciliation? A criti-
cal examination of robust research evidence, curriculum policy and teachers'
practices for teaching phonics and reading. Review of Education, 10(1).
Yu, S., Chen, B., Levesque-Bristol, C., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2018). Chinese edu-
cation examined via the lens of self-determination. Educational Psychology
Review, 30, 177–214.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
7 SENSE OF COMPETENCE AND CLIPS CHILDREN’S EXPERIENCES…

173© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_8
CHAPTER 8
Sense ofAgency andStatus-Subordination
Agency intheLife-history
Etelapelto etal. (2013) explain how:
The concept of agency has … usually been loosely associated with active
striving, taking initiatives, or having an inuence on one’s own life situation.
Autonomy can be dened as behaviour or actions that reect the child’s
agency (although we have used the terms interchangeably at times). A
child’s agency is reected in how they operate in relation to their Sense of
Agency. Billett (2006) maintains that, with a strong Sense of Agency and
subsequent autonomous action, children can actually select from social
suggestions, to shape their own development and remake cultural prac-
tices in transformative ways:
Individual accounts of learning emphasize the individual’s role as an actor
who will decide what problems are worth solving and with what degree of
energy. In this way the individual is emphasized as an actor in relation to the
social world … shaped by their individual life history and prior experiences.
(Billett, 2006 cited in Etelapelto etal., 2013, p.46)
Agency is therefore not a ready-made capacity that individuals either have
or not but something that they achieve under certain ecological

174
conditions (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p.137). Agency is something indi-
vidual efforts can achieve to varying extents, depending on:
(a) the available resources,
(b) contextual factors and
(c) structural, systemic factors.
Out of an individual’s action and their structural, systemic, contextual
environment, agency can emerge that was not in existence previously.
Biesta and Tedder (2007) suggest that life-histories (such as those used in
the CLIPS project) are particularly suitable vehicles for empirical research
into agency (2007, p.14) because these can illustrate how an individual
shapes their responsiveness to their particular (school-life) situation. They
suggest:
[For] learning about one’s agentic orientations …, it is important that actors
can distance themselves from their actions in order to explore and evaluate
them. Hence the importance of narratives—life stories—in such learning
processes. (Biesta & Tedder, 2007, p.146)
Bourdieu (1977) claimed that the agency depended also on a range of
relational properties such as the child’s social position and dispositions,
which they import with them into schooling as ‘habitus’. In other words,
he maintained that how and whether a Sense of Agency is achieved in the
schooling environment is closely linked to the child’s specic outside-school
environments (see also Priestley etal., 2015). According to Bourdieu, the
child’s background environments provide some specic patterns of cul-
tural value of their own, which bypass language ‘to act below the level of
consciousness’ and to endure despite the new environment of schooling
andits systemic patterns of cultural value.
The implication here is that particular efforts will need to be made
within the schooling system to facilitate the achievement of agency in a
multitude of ways, among children from diverse walks of life and diverse
orientations. Social contexts and structures interplay with different identi-
ties and children’s reactions in different ways. This underlines the vast
opportunity schooling has to promote the development of children’sSense
of Agency, which in turn enhances both the Sense of Competence and
Relatedness, which in turncontributes to wellbeing and social justice.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

175
intentionAL engAgement
We use the phrase intentional engagement to embrace the idea of children
achieving agency, as the children choose to engage agentically in learning.
To achieve intentional engagement, we mean children choosing to apply
themselves to school learning by incorporating it into their personal goals,
whether long-term or immediate. It rests on Ryan and Deci’s (2000) criti-
cal distinction between
1. behaviours that are volitional and accompanied by the experience of
freedom and autonomy and
2. behaviours that are accompanied by the experience of pressure and
control and are not representative of one’s self (p.65).
Giddens understands human action and consequent events as agentic
only when the action is intentional from the perspective of the actor. Such
actions are the opposite of mere responsive reactions, such as just doing
what one is told (Giddens, 1984). Giddens species that an intentional act
is one that ‘the actor knows, or believes, will have a particular outcome,
and in which knowledge is utilized by the actor to achieve the outcome’
(cited in Etelapelto etal., 2013, p.49). This aligns the achievement of
Agency closely with the Sense of Competence since, where agents lack the
power to engage intentionally, there is little Sense of Competence. We
questioned the extent to which the CLIPS children experienced their
actions in school as intentional i.e. being ‘volitional and accompanied by
the experience of freedom and autonomy’. Being intentional suggests that
a child grapples with challenging concepts or ideas because they choose to
better understand and interact with their world and people within it
(Vygotsky, 1962) and believe that one can do so. This contrasts with having
to carry out actions necessary for a pre-ordained performance goal.
Intentional learning relates to a desire to be competent in understanding
concepts, practices and ideas in more sophisticated ways, linking to those
already tackled in prior learning; as well as the drive to be competent in
constructing new meanings and the belief that one can do so.
Mills etal. (2016, p.109) reinforced the idea that, at the immediate
classroom level, children engage intentionally (achieving agency) when
they have a Sense of Competence. They claimed that their Sense of Agency
was also boosted when children felt trusted to achieve a task; when they
understood their valued contribution to the Big Picture; and had an
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

176
opportunity to question their own and others’ roles without fear. Agency
was promoted when they understood the various links within a school
subject and across school subjects; and the meaningful reasons for embark-
ing on a particular task.
Summary 8.1: Supports for a strong Sense of Agency among school-children
(Mills etal., 2016)
• Feeling trusted to achieve a task;
• Understanding one’s contribution to the Big Picture;
• Opportunities to question, without fear;
• Understanding links within and across school subjects;
• Knowing why a task is meaningful and making it a personal goal.
In our analysis below, we questioned how or whether a Sense of Agency
could thrive in the environment described by some CLIPS children, where
intentionality was constrained, where:
• Children’s competence was explicitly designated as subordinate.
• Children were not always trusted and were threatened with punish-
ments for not complying.
• They did not understand their contribution to the Big Picture.
• They did not have opportunities to question their own and oth-
ers’ roles.
• They did not understand links within and between school subjects.
• They did not fully understand the reasons for embarking on partic-
ular tasks.
Intentional engagement also demands imagination and creativity,
including divergence of thought and openness to experience. However, it
is antithetical to excessive external control structures such asthose alluded
to by some of the CLIPS children.
Summary 8.2: Important components of intentional engagement
• Children choosing to apply themselves to school-learning
• Children grappling with challenging concepts or ideas in order to
better understand and interact with their world and people within it,
and believing they can achieve their aim
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

177
• Children having a desire to understand concepts, practices and ideas
in more sophisticated ways and believing they can achieve this aim
• Children constructing new meanings and new ways of behaving
• Children using imagination and creativity
• Children demonstrating divergence of thought and openness to
experience
• Children evaluating their own experiences of engagement.
Since Enlightenment days, in the Global North, there have been strong
proponents of the idea that education should help people to develop their
capacities for intentional, agentic action. C.Taylor, pioneer in conceptual-
ising agency, contended that the critical component of distinctly human
agency (reected in autonomous action), lies in the human capacity to
evaluate our actions (Taylor, 1985; our emphasis). This is a conception of
agency that schooling systems would nd hard to accommodate, whereby
school-children were encouraged to evaluate the value and justice of the
skills, attributes and knowledge they were told to learn at school—and
take action to change them if they seemed invalid or unjust. Further devel-
opment of reexivity and critique among children would support their
wellbeing, for example, through exercising their imagination of ‘new pos-
sibilities for thought and action’ (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998,
pp.983–984). We hope that this book will support teachers and school-
children to do exactly this, but our data from the CLIPS project suggests
that this rarely happens at present.
Hays (1994) differentiated between structurally reproductive agency
(whereby only peripheral impact is made) and structurally transformative
agency (such as the transformations of revolutionaries). This latter is
achieved through a predominantly future-focused imaginative process
wherein some ‘actors attempt to recongure received schemas by generat-
ing alternative possible responses to the problematic situations they con-
front in their lives’ (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p.984). It is with this
Sense of Agency in mind, for example, that the current book ‘imagines’
schooling as a positive experience. Hays (1994) suggests that for agency
to be possible, ‘alternative courses of action are available, and the agent
therefore could have acted otherwise’ (p.64; our emphasis). However, it is
clear that the immediate contextual features of schooling usually restrict
the child from exercising agency, as choice is highly constrained and few
alternatives are offered. The environment of schooling will therefore often
curtail children’s Sense of Agency.
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

178
Summary 8.3: A Sense of Agency is facilitated when people (including
school-children)
make evaluations of their actions;
perceive themselves to have power to cause change;
are not too constrained by particular structural situations;
practise reexivity;
perceive themselves to have alternative courses of action; and
have their intentions aligned with their actions.
Summary 8.4: A Sense of Agency is achieved when people
make manifest their desires, volitions and intentionality;
exercise choices;
draw on their knowledge and beliefs to override random or irratio-
nal acts; and
experience freedom.
cLiPs chiLdren’s sense ofAgency AndstAtus
subordinAtion inreLAtion tocomPetence
[IMPORTANT NOTE: Throughout the book, a digit in square brackets
following a quotation means that the quotation comes from an interview
during that term of the 13 term project. For example, [8] following a
quotation means that the quotation came from TERM8 of the project i.e.
just over half way through the project when the children were starting in
Year 5 of their primary-schools.]
The narrative below draws on our 23 life-histories to provide illustra-
tions of occasions on which certain children alluded to systems, practices or
institutionalized patterns of cultural value (as Fraser describes them) in
schooling, that they believed inuenced their experiences of status-
subordination, based on what was perceived to be their limited competence
in mathematics/English. These experiences could lead themto feel inferior;
feel excluded; or feel ‘other’ or invisible (again to paraphrase Fraser, 2008,
p.24). In our analysis of these occasions, we draw on our framework for
human agency and intentionality as presented above to further investigate
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

179
what happened to the children’s Sense of Agency—closely linked to their
wellbeing—when they perceived their competence as subordinate.
We asked sample children how often they could make their own deci-
sions in their primary classroom. The majority replied ‘never’ [n = 16/23].
The children also suggested that they could not say something critical
about what the teacher told them to do. Santosh exemplied this: ‘I
wouldn’t say “I don’t want to do that” because it’s kind of disobeying …
I have to do it’ [6]. Rory exclaimed disbelievingly:
There is no democracy in the classroom … They don’t necessarily put the
rules in there for us benetting: it’s them! It’s the teachers! [12]
Rory’s comment reects his realisation of his own curtailed agency, but in
this case, as it applied to all children not just those designated lower-
attaining. We learnt that some children felt controlled during lessons even
in relation to holding each part of their body in a prescribed, rigid and
static position, as if they were not competent to choose how to sit in class.
Such physical restraints may have been particularly disabling for children
in our sample who expressed a need for constant activity, especially in light
of reduced sports curriculum time and reduced playtimes. For example,
Salah exclaimed: ‘You have to sit on the carpet or on the chair. I want to
stand up and play something. Or like—run!’ [3]. Jack reported a recent
occasion, when he had actually taken the initiative to ask in exasperation
during a lesson, ‘Can I go and explore? Because this is too boring!’ [1].
He was kept in for lunch-time on the two subsequent days as punishment.
His autonomous behaviour and request to meet his own personal needs
were met with further limitations to his freedoms. Rory used the word
‘boring’ 19 times and the word ‘annoying’ 40 times to describe his overall
experiences of school, in a one-hour interview.
feeLings ofLimited comPetence Andhow these
reLAted toAweAker sense ofAgency
Our ndings supported and illuminated previous research ndings that
some children did indeed perceive themselves as of inferior worth to oth-
ers at school, owing to the systemic emphasis on performance in mathe-
matics/English. At the same time, it is important to note that some
children, such as Michael and Clara, did not explicitly acknowledge these
feelings of stigmatisation. Perhaps this was mainly because they were
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

180
encouraged to constantly show that they were happy and coping. However,
there were many in the sample who did explicitly articulate a sense of infe-
riority, usually based on a reduced Sense of Competence as a result of
comparing their own attainment to that of others—in mathematics/
English. For example, Edith showed a lowered Sense of Competence and
little faith in her power to initiate change, indicating a weakened Sense of
Agency, when she told us:
I’m the one who was always slow because I write slow. [2]
I’m not really the smartest person out of my class. [13]
She described a picture of a child who had received low marks in a test as
‘sad’, indicating her sense of powerlessness because she had no alternative
courses of possible action. She also lacked a Sense of Relatedness to higher-
attaining peers:
She feels really sad because all her other friends have high marks and she’s
the only one who has low marks. Lonely and sad and very disappointed. [2]
The isolation linked to lower-attainment suggests further disempower-
ment and lack of control of the situation. On the other hand, Edith per-
ceived that a child who attained high marks for their performance would
be recognised by being paraded to the head teacher who would praise her
performance. She would feel perhaps an empowering Sense of Competence:
Super happy, really, really happy. Extremely excited about her scores [espe-
cially] when they show the head teacher. [2]
Edith went on to recommend that the low-scoring child take private
tutoring, suggesting that she had no power initiate help for herself at pres-
ent; that the support she received at school was inadequate to allow her to
make normal progress. This was despite the fact that Edith herself and
many of her peers were on Pupil Premium (indicating economic disadvan-
tage), meaning she was trapped in an impossible position, lacking agency:
[The low-scoring child] should ask her parents to book a tutoring pro-
gramme so she could get more better at mathematics and stuff like that.
[Or] they might send them to a school which costs a lot of money so they
can learn better maybe. [6]
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

181
She used the word ‘sad’ again to illustrate her awareness of her own infe-
rior competence when test-scores were made public, a classic vehicle for
drawing attention to failure:
I’m a little bit sad, because I’m not very good at mathematics tests and
sometimes—um sometimes you need to write your score [in public]. I think
for my last mathematics test I got 4. [4]
Again, she is describing feeling trapped in a place she can do nothing to
change. Edith was explicit about the pain and humiliation she felt when
comparing herself to others and her sense of powerlessness to change her
predicament because she had failed:
My friends understand and get the answers right … It doesn’t feel good for
me, because I don’t understand … people try their hardest, but sometimes
they fail. [5]
Edith’s Sense of Competence is repeatedly eroded, every time she tries her
hardest, but still fails. This lead to her questioning whether she has any
control over the situation. Edith relatedly described being ‘very worried
for the test’, in case she achieved ‘zero’ [4]: that is, not even one mark to
suggest competence! She again expressed her lack of power to initiate
change, leaving her just to dream about being better at mathematics. She
indicated the relief she would feel if she were magically guaranteed future
high grades in mathematics examinations:
I want to be good at—good at mathematics so I don’t struggle with it … [If
guaranteed good grades], I wouldn’t have to worry about revising for exams
too much because I would know I’m going to get good grades. [13]
Edith’s peer, Laurie, indicated that hisSense of Competence and Agency
were affected by the status of the actual performance, rather than any spe-
cic engagement or learning. He had a greater sense of freedom when the
test was a practice, indicating a particular hierarchy within the performa-
tive system:
I got 6 out of 20. But I would be crying if it was a real test, but it was a
practice [so] I wasn’t that angry—but … if it was a real test I’d be
ashamed. [5]
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

182
Laurie uses the word ‘ashamed’, which itself implies lower-status, and
the sense of being trapped in a position he could not tackle. Similarly, Sam
seemed cornered and disempowered when he said:
So, the teacher got so mad when I got 7/20 … it was embarrassing … I felt
very sad and disappointed.
Louise’s low Sense of Competence obstructed her from putting her hand
up to answer questions in class, because she was anxious about being rep-
rimanded for getting something wrong; and about losing external afrma-
tion for her performance. This seemed more important to her than her
freedom to nd out whether she had grasped a concept well or not. This
was because, when reprimanded, she felt:
Scared … and sometimes I get dojo points off [i.e. reward-points off].
Despite her overall greater Sense of Agency than Louise, Santosh’s free-
dom was constrained by fear of disapproval from peers, too. She explained:
Some people can say, ‘Oh you got that wrong! It was so easy!’
She therefore also tried to avoid humiliation by not raising her hand in
class, even if this would have helped her engagement and learning. Michael
[3] similarly had a disabling fear of peer disapproval, especially being
deliberately labelled as ‘dumb’:
They might bully him … They will say that he’s a dumb person … Probably
they will say ‘Oh you’re bad at mathematics, oh you’re bad at English’ …
‘Oh you’re not smart’.
Rory [3] described needing more time for agentic reection, which led
him to feel very nervous in his competitive infant classroom [aged 5–7],
limiting his sense of freedom and capacity for thoughtful action; and
potentially exacerbating his lower Sense of Competence within the perfor-
mative environment. It is sobering to consider that these young children
were so busy avoiding trouble that they had little time for reection, let
alone reexivity. One can imagine his distress when Rory explained:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

183
I just felt really worried about everything … and then I was worried because
you don’t have lots of time to think! And sometimes, doing times tables, I
hear the pencils back in trays and that noise makes you worried because I
was going slowly.
Mark, Gemma and Harriet in a lower-attainers’ group for mathematics
told us about a classic schooling process that led them to stand out as less
competent than others: as the only Year 4 children who still had to work
among the younger children in a Year 3 class. Santosh named the walk
from Year 4 to the lower-attainers’ Year 3 group, ‘The walk of shame’ [3].
This shame seemed to undermine their Sense of Agency in many ways:
they saw themselves to lack both a Sense of Competence and a Sense of
Relatedness; they perceived themselves to have no power to initiate a
change to the situation; they were entirely constrained by the attainment
grouping structure; they had no chance to follow alternative courses of
possible action; and nally, they could not exercise their desires, volitions
or intentionality or exercise choice—all because of how ‘prior attainment’
was perceived.
Some children perceived teachers to prefer ‘good, smart’ children. This
was another performance-related strategy that singled them out as having
inferior status—based on their prior attainment. Michael, for example,
pointed out how the teacher favoured children who were competent read-
ers, meaning that he had fewer opportunities—less freedom—than
they had:
The smart people, they get a lot of chances because if they get—so we do
reading … Whoever’s reading that much, they [the teacher] put their name
up in the star, and then—(pause) but he never picks me. [2]
Later he described these smart people as super-stars ‘like the mathematics
gods’ and ‘like the mathematics angels’ [5] while he was just normal. His
peer, Sam, explained how this discrepancy deprived him too of some
enjoyable social time that ‘smart’ children enjoyed, denying him some
opportunity for exercising choice and experiencing some freedom:
I’m just carrying on and then I nish like ten minutes later than the other
people—[they] are just messing round on the board because they’ve nished.
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

184
When asked what a teacher would say about an (imaginary) high-attaining
girl called Maria, Ellie explained that only higher-attainers like Maria were
allowed to get a drink when they wanted [2], were picked for special jobs
[4] and given more rewards [4].
feeLing excLuded onthebAsis ofAttAinment
Andhow this reLAted toAninferior sense ofAgency
Feeling excluded on the basis of attainment could simply be provoked by
sitting physically in a different space from others—a space determined by
prior attainment with no input according to the child’s choice or judge-
ment. Due to her perceived lack of competence, Ellie felt excluded—and
she felt powerless to initiate a change to this—from the green and yellow
groups for mathematics:
If you’re on green then it means you’re good with mathematics. If you’re
on yellow then it means you’re kind of good with mathematics. But if you’re
on red it means … you wouldn’t like be getting it [3] … When I feel left out,
I feel mad!
On several occasions she expressed anguish when her friends went out to
their (higher) literacy attainment groups, again, against her preference and
with no recourse to changing this situation:
I’m like ‘Don’t leave me! … no! you guys can’t leave me!’ … I need my
friends. I need them to stay in the same class as me. They’re the friends I
usually play with. [1]
On the other hand, when she did work within the whole class, she was
sometimes given easier work than the others on the basis of her perceived
lack of competence, which led her to feel cornered by embarrassment:
I feel embarrassed when I get different work … Like I get a sheet like full of
other stuff … But like everybody else just does it in their book.
Jack sometimes experienced teasing because he was in a lower-attainers’
intervention group. This seemed to put him on the defensive, feeling
attacked by higher-attaining peers’ derogatory comments, potentially
reducing his own Sense of both Competence and Agency:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

185
Some people might tease you for it, [being] in the bottom group for every-
thing. But if they just tease you, just tell them, ‘So what if I’m in the bottom
group for everything, I’m still catching up to just learn stuff’.
Jack perceived himself as excluded and lacking normality in relation to his
peers in another way too, over which he believed he had no agency:
It’s harder for me because normally other people like practise 24/seven with
their mums and dads. [But] I’m not a practice person.
Fin described being deliberately excluded from teachers’ attention, deny-
ing him opportunities for spontaneous engagement, because of the dif-
culty he faced with handwriting. This eroded his Sense both of
Competence and Relatedness:
It doesn’t really help my condence because most [teachers] just sort of
walk straight past [me] because they know they can’t read my handwriting.
They don’t talk to me much.
On the other hand, Fin’s Attention Decit and Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD) diagnosis singled him out because he found it more difcult to
concentrate in a formal classroom and he could suddenly be surprised
when his attention was caught. This put him in a compromised position
where ‘everybody stares at you’, which he found humiliating. Yet he per-
ceived that he had no power to initiate change:
When you’re just daydreaming, like the teacher might just ask you [a ques-
tion], and then you’re just like ‘Oh!’ and then everybody stares at you, and
it’s really humiliating.
The dominant focus on mathematics (in addition to writing) in schooling
was itself a source of exclusion which triggered erosion of children’s Sense
of Agency. The majority of children in our sample found themselves par-
ticularly adverse to mathematics, while simultaneously being told that
mathematics was the most important subject for their future career suc-
cess. Institutionalised patterns of cultural value suggested to them that to
fail at mathematics was potentially dangerous leading them to feel trapped
by their lack of competence in this subject—regardless of their compe-
tence in many others. Laurie relayed to us this ‘cruel and cynical ction’:
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

186
Mathematics is a core subject … it’s a subject that you need like in your life,
and not being good at it like—like there’s lots of jobs that need mathematics.
A further and obvious source of exclusion which reduced a Sense of
Agency was being kept in at break/lunch-time—against children’s inten-
tions—because they had not completed as much work as other children.
This was prescribed, despite the fact that they had little choice over the
speed with which they worked—and that working faster may not have
been most engaging or rich in learning. Clara felt constrained by this and
expressed frustration, displaying a rational argument to what appeared to
her to be an irrational ruling:
I don’t know why they have to like say if you haven’t nished you have to
stay in for break. Why can’t we just do it after lunch? [2]
Edith explained her reaction to being kept in against her wishes to nish
work. She noted how this would interfere with her Sense of Relatedness to
peers; and curtail her freedoms:
[I get] very upset, angry or furious … Very upset because I have to miss all
my friends playing outside.
In secondary-school, some of the sample children spent time in sealed off
Isolation Units because of unnished or forgotten homework, especially
designed to exclude them from both their classrooms and their playtimes.
Such treatment has been considered both against human rights and also
illegal according to safeguarding policies. More research on the impact of
this practice needs to be initiated.
feeLing invisibLe or whoLLy ‘other’ becAuse
ofLower-AttAinment Andhow this curtAiLed
chiLdren’s sense ofAgency
The ‘Wholly Other’ Experience ofDisempowerment through Stress
andAnxiety
Some children experienced disempoweringly high levels of stress and anxi-
ety when faced by a page of mathematics/English tasks at which they
knew they could not succeed, limiting their capacity for acting at all. They
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

187
were left feeling powerless because they could see no way forward, no way
out. This extreme state was often exacerbated by the fact that mathematics
(especially) seemed so ‘hard’, and yet was held to be of such high impor-
tance. Of all the testimonies we collected from the CLIPS children, per-
haps the following are the most devastating and most in need of addressing.
While these experiences persist, engagement and attainment is sure to be
reduced; and wellbeing denied. Ellie, for example, explained:
When we’re learning about [mathematics] I’m like ‘This is so hard!’ …
[Even] when the teacher explains it—it’s like ‘This is so hard!’
The pressure to perform successfully—despite not feeling able to act at
all—was intense for Ellie. This experience was usually accompanied by
fear, stress, even panic and anger, which undermined Ellie’s Sense of
Competence and Sense of Agency further. Ellie described her intense fear
of the teacher choosing her to answer a mathematics question in class:
I’m like, ‘Not me, not me! I don’t know the answer’ … I was sitting down
in my chair and I was like—(stunned pause) I don’t have that much ngers!
For Ellie, simply sitting in class looking at the mathematics display-board
brought on panic which seemed to lock her into fearful inaction:
Every time like I look at the mathematics board I’m just like, ‘Oh, hopefully
we’re not doing that today … I’m just like ‘No, I’m not going to look at
it’… I’m just like ‘No!’—I’m so stressed. [3]
Mark told us about his anger. But for him, the difculty centred around
the fact that it did not feel safe to express this angerwithin the constraints
of school. This gave him the constant and challenging task of hiding his
negative feelings at school. The energy he put into accomplishing this hid-
ing task was clearly in tension with energy he might have put into engag-
ing in other learning agentically. It was also a distressing experience for
him, specically as a person frequentlyevidencing limited wellbeing:
I seem to get very angry every day … I mostly just play Fortnite [later, at
home]. I mostly just take my anger out on people online. I’m just sort of
killing people. Because … [at school], I’m just trying to keep it in. I nor-
mally do deep breaths. Well—not out loud!
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

188
Mark’s anger tallied with his weak Sense of Agency which stemmed from
his weak Sense of Competence in writing, as well asthe fact that writing
actually hurting his hand and arm physically. But he reafrmed that he
needed to repress his anger and hurt;and was not free to express these:
Sometimes I just can’t deal with it, there’s too much information in my
head. So I normally just scream into my arm.
Reecting back on a teacher he used to have, he reported feeling out of
control and yet having no recourse to help:
She was saying like, ‘You have to do this and that!’ I kind of got confused
and didn’t know what I was doing. There was too much stuff in my head at
once and I couldn’t work things out [Starts crying]. [10]
These confessions illustrate how his weak Sense of Competence became
exacerbated by his weak Sense of Agency where he did not feel free to
express distress. He perhaps felt trapped because, not only did he perceive
his responses to be wrong and feel powerless to change the situation, but
he felt constrained to repress or hide these exact feelings.
Fin felt constrained by having a different impossible choice: if he was
struggling to understand a concept, he needed time to think about it and
engage with it; but time was not available and he had to move on to the
next task:
I get confused with the other bit and then I don’t really listen to what the
teacher’s saying because I’m still trying to gure out why that answer is
like that. [3]
Here is yet another example of how hard the CLIPS children seemed to
be working, and yet despite this, how their Sense of Competence was con-
stantly eroded, leading to a damaged Sense of Agency. Several children
also surprised us by depicting other children as constraints on their free-
dom to engage, a comment that might be expected more from the highest-
attainers in a class. One example was whenAbe described how painfully
difcult he found it to succeed in English writing, both earlier and later in
his life-history, leading to ongoing nervousness and physical shaking:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

189
I hate English writing, because sometimes they distract me, and I get very
nervous; and I break the pencil. [1]
I tried so hard because I was nervous, and I was like shaking. [5]
Jack seemed to experience a similar confusion triggered by classroom dis-
turbance, which impeded his Sense of Competence and made him less
capable of taking control of his situation:
It’s because when there’s an easy question, when people are talking so loud
I can’t think so then I get it wrong … it gives you quite a headache and it
does annoy me when people are talking when I’m trying to do my work. [6]
Another trigger for disempowerment was the testing regime. Like many of
the children, Jack explained how the fear surrounding tests made it more
difcult to perform competently and take action to achieve success. He
used a very evocative image of lacking agency, saying that his brain ‘crum-
bles up’ and ‘just goes blank’ under test pressure, literally disabling him:
I’ll do it when it’s on a piece of like paper in my book and then I would just
answer it, but in a test it’s just weird. I don’t know, I’m not sure. It’s like my
brain—weird. It’s just like—it like crumbles up and once I’m trying to g-
ure out a question it just goes blank.
His solution was to provoke the teacher to send him out of class, in other
words choosing to be excluded and isolated as preferable to attempting
what appeared to be the impossible task in front of him:
If you like constantly be on Miss’s case, you’ll get sent out, so your brain can
relax. [4]
At least in this way, he had discovered how to make a change to an unten-
able situation, achieving some Sense of Agency where he was allowed a
little freedom.
Gemma experienced what she described as ‘anxiety’ attacks or ‘panic’
attacks from age nine, which, like Jack’s experiences, left her practically
disabled. When faced by a mathematics task she felt incompetent to
address, yet pressured to attempt:
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

190
Sometimes like bad voices come in my head and my head starts spinning …
Sometimes, when I can’t do my work … when there’s so much noise and so
many people, your head just starts to spin and sometimes I get a bit of
anxiety. [10]
These moments of panic continued throughout her nal year in primary-
school, at which time she nally informed her parents about them. Up to
that point, she had been trying, unsuccessfully, to deal with them in alien-
ation from others.
Michael also found mathematics stressful, seemingly impossible
to master:
I hate mathematics because it’s too hard because it has—so if I do 1000
times 1000—it’s 2000. But if it was the hard-hard-hard-hard like 100
divided by 100 like—is that 200? I think I think, but it’s hard-hard-hard!
And yet Michael’s confusion could be reinforced by his teacher’s anger
whereby the little work he had so far successfully achieved was destroyed,
provoking an even further reduced Sense of Agency in Michael, and lead-
ing to fear, distress and anger. He tried to concentrate but sometimes this
was not within his mastery and he had no control over it in class:
[Teacher] gets so angry and he will say ‘Did you get distracted?’ If I said
‘yes, yes sorry’ … he will make me in big trouble … He took out the paper,
he um, he (pause) he ripped out the paper and then I had to start again.
In contrast, Michael imagined a student who had good marks, imagining
him as feeling ‘powerful’ [2]. This contrasted to those who were posi-
tioned in the lower ranks, feeling disempowered cognitively, socially and
emotionally: ‘Being on the bottom is like you’re feeling like sad and like
no-one’s playing with you and like you’re being angry’ [6].
Salah said that when he was expecting a test he might simply absent
himself rather than face the test, choosing not to risk threats to his Sense
of Competence and Agency:
I might not come [to school] … [or] I might hide in the toilets … I’m
scared that if I get it [the test] wrong, then I’ll get in big trouble. Today I
got seven out of 30in my mathematics test and I started crying. [1]
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

191
None the less, all children—except Sam, Ellie and Zeph—simultaneously
believed the institutionalised messages of cultural value—the ‘cruel and
cynical ction’—that tests are good for children. Perhaps their overarch-
ing belief that they had little power to initiate change to structures, and
their emaciated opportunities for critical reection in schooling, led them
to accept the ction that tests were good for learning just as they accepted
other practices for fear of punishment if they did not. Sam, however, in a
role-play scenario, showed some insight by warning against giving (imagi-
nary, alien) children tests because: The alien children ‘might get super
stressed-out and faint’.
Indeed, Sam is an example of a child who responded to his repeated
failure to meet ‘age-related expectations’, exemplied by poor test marks,
by concluding that there was something ‘wrong’ with him. He expressed
this clearly:
My life is like a massive jigsaw with pieces missing. It’s like a story and then
there’s a missing page.
These images of a jigsaw with pieces missing or a book with a missing page
powerfully highlight how limited Sam felt in his emaciated capacity as an
incomplete, incoherent whole. Unfortunately, his feelings about his poor
performance dominated his whole school-life-history: his Sense of Agency
appears to have been weakened by his constantly low scores in tandem
with his ongoing hard work and concentration. This was disempower-
ment—when he worked as hard as he could but still could not attain the
same scores as others, even as others who did not work as hard as he did.
Initiating Gaining Help
Many of the children eloquently described not being able to initiate
receiving the help they needed in class. One can easily imagine the sense
of powerlessness experienced by the CLIPS children as they sat and waited
for help, constrained by school-rules not to move around or nd help in
other ways they preferred. They had no choices but to sit and wait with
their hands up: again, actually wanting to engage with their work, but
constrained by the systemic structures of the classroom from doing so. Jon
was particularly angry with teachers:
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

192
Sometimes if you like call their names like about—like a thousand times,
they will just, won’t—they can’t hear you like. I wasn’t getting literally—lit-
erally not enough help, like basically no help whatsoever. [11]
For Sam, the wait for help felt like ‘a million years’; and Fin sometimes
actually felt invisible and never managed to talk with the teacher, which
presumably evoked a strong sense of disempowerment:
I do put my hand up. But she doesn’t see me because I’m at the end of the
classroom.
the outcome: disLike ofschooLing
The narratives above illustrate how some of the children in the CLIPS
project—due to their perceived low-attainment—felt lower-status or infe-
rior; excluded; or ‘wholly other’ and invisible; and how these experiences
related directly to a weakened Sense of Agency or even disablement. This
sense of powerlessness was not due to lack of hard work or the desire to
concentrate among these children. It occurred when the children were
working as hard as they could but perceived that they still did not achieve
the same as other children. We imagine that this led to even less motiva-
tion to engage the next time.
Some of the children came to dislike school intensely, apart from as a
place to meet friends. For example, Ellie’s life-history is rich in examples
of her strong dislike for all aspects of school except home-time. Ellie
explained how her school-life was dominated by longing to go home
where, presumably, she felt she could exercise her own desires and choices
and experience freedom, drawing on her own knowledge and beliefs to
inform her actions:
I looked at the clock and then it was nearly home-time, it was like on the 11.
And I was like ‘So close’… I’m saying ‘home-time’ in my head all over
again—I’m like ‘home-time, home-time’ … The thing I like about school is
like the end of the day—that’s the only part I like … I love going home …
I wish I never came to school today.
Ellie expressed this rejection of school particularly lucidly, but others
shared it. Edith told us how important home and lunch-time were for her:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

193
I [would like to] stay home and throw away school … That makes me really
sad when I get up to go to school … I never feel relaxed at school [except]
super happy about lunch-time. [3]
Five children out of 23in the project appeared to nd schooling so unpal-
atable that they made a conscious or sub-conscious decision to focus on
non-school or anti-school interests by the end of the project. What distin-
guished these ve children was their especially weak Sense of Agency (with
three having a Controlled Performance Orientation; and two an Impersonal
Performance Orientation). All ve of these children told us in nal inter-
views that they did not care about school-work anymore. They seemed to
have given up on the possibility of participation in intentional engagement
in school-learning. The lack of recognition they experienced, the low sta-
tus they perceived themselves to hold, and their disempowerment in initi-
ating changes for the better, seems to have curtailed their participation.
Our interpretation of their portrayals is that the institutionalised patterns
of cultural value they faced in schooling did not recognise their particular
strengths, intentions or goals, constraining their experiences of freedom
and preventing them from drawing on their own knowledges and beliefs
in making decisions about action. This minimised their capacity to evalu-
ate or critique schooling practices. They neither perceived themselves to
be competent nor to have the power to make desirable things happen.
Overall, the system was not serving their best interests; and undermining
social justice.
Gemma is the most extreme example of someone who seemed to have
given up on being able to master any institutionally valued aspects of
schooling. In the rst few years of the project, Gemma was very obedient
and hard-working at school and always tried to be positive. She seemed
constantly optimistic that if she kept trying hard, she would achieve suc-
cess. However, at the end of her last year at primary-school, in a role-play,
she showed herself to be getting angry with the teacher for keeping her in
for further mathematics at break; and angry with peers who did not stand
up for her. Despite all her hard work, success still seemed elusive. By the
start of secondary-school, she could say:
I hate most of my lessons, they’re very boring [11].
During one interview, she told us about storming out of lessons with-
out permission:
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

194
I wasn’t going to be in the lesson if the teacher gives me [punishments] for
no reason! [13]
And she tried to take control and put her teacher in his place, exclaiming
to him in class ‘I’m not a dog!’ when he asked her to ‘Sit!’ [12]. She com-
mented on the control that secondary-school teachers wanted to have
over her, instructing her to be ‘goody two-shoes’. And she expressed an
utter desperation in relation to her lack of a Sense of Agency:
I hate mathematics so much … We had a test today and I didn’t even start
it … I didn’t want to do it … I don’t care … I know I’m going to be in the
bottom set, because I don’t do any work in mathematics … Because I don’t
care about tests. [13]
Summary 7.5: Institutionalised patterns of cultural value in schooling that
seemed to disable the CLIPS children and led them to experience
status-subordination
Systemic schooling policy that values performance/attainment over inten-
tional learning/engagement:
Maths being promoted as most important despite obstructing some
children from mastering it
The external pressure of testing
Testing being held up as benecial for children
Limited time to cover prescribed mathematics/English curriculum
Outside-school support being expected and necessary to be normal in
current system
>=lead to=>
General patterns that curtail agency:
Allowing children no alternative courses of possible action to redeem
their sense of status
Not recognising children’s choices, preferences and judgements
Permitting children to have minimal impact on their environment
>=lead to=>
School patterns that indicate valuing those with higher-
attainmentabove others:
Physical separation according to prior attainment
School-based rewards and privileges for high- attainment
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

195
Public announcement of scores that highlight negative differences
>=lead to=>
Classroom practices that value competition:
Making comparisons between children’s attainments
Individualised work in class, disallowing collaboration that might pro-
vide support
Other children’s comments which hierarchise children by attainment
Publicly apparent differentiation according to prior attainment
Children being presented with tasks that look too difcult
Children being picked on to answer a question in class that appears too
difcult
Display boards that might intimidate some children
Whole-class teaching that may not suit some children
Teachers shouting and getting angry or impatient with children who
nd class difcult
>=lead to=>.
Lack of parity-of-participation = reduced social justice.
references
Biesta, G., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: Towards
an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39(2), 132–149.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. CUP.
Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency? American Journal of
Sociology, 103(4), 962–1023. https://doi.org/10.1086/231294
Etelapelto, A., Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., & Paloniemi, S. (2013). What is
agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational Research
Review, 10, 45–65.
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of justice. Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Polity press.
Hays, S. (1994). Structure and agency and the sticky problem of culture.
Sociological Theory, 12(1), 57–72.
Mills, M., McGregor, G., Baroutsis, A., Te Riele, K., & Hayes, D. (2016).
Alternative education and social justice: Considering issues of affective and con-
tributive justice. Critical Studies in Education, 57(1), 100–115.
Priestley, M., Biesta, G.J. J., & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: What is it
and why does it matter? In R. Kneyber & J. Evers (Eds.), Flip the system:
Changing education from the bottom up. Routledge.
8 SENSE OF AGENCY AND STATUS-SUBORDINATION

196
Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation
of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American
Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.
Taylor, C. (1985). What is human agency? In Philosophical papers (Volume 1:
Human agency and language) (pp. 15–44). Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173483.002
Vygotsky, L. ([1934] 1962). Thought and language. MIT Press.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

197© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_9
CHAPTER 9
Relatedness forWellbeing
SenSe ofRelatedneSS
Our life-histories happily demonstrated how an increased Sense of
Relatedness could inuence a child’s trajectory in directions promising
wellbeing. The life-histories indicated the importance of friendships, espe-
cially for children with a low Sense of Competence. However, this appeared
to be an incidental outcome, rather than a systemically designed one.
Eden and Mark, for example, found school-life barely tolerable in pri-
mary-school, but on discovering a greater range of friends in secondary-
school, both managed to keep going albeit not always in a learning-engaged
way; while Gemma felt that her agency was increasingly undermined as she
mourned the loss of her primary-school friends. Feeling a Sense of
Relatedness is what most people want passionately, whether they acknowl-
edge this or not. However, relatedness may not come easily to some chil-
dren, surrounded by dozens of other school-children. They may need to
learn how to nurture this. This is where systemic strategies can help. Like
Watkins (2010), Lynch and Baker (2005) have critiqued the neo-liberal
performativity of the current schooling system which tends to relegate
relatedness and affective aspects of childhood to second place:
Formal education has been premised on the assumption that the principal
function of schooling is to develop intellect … The neglect of the emotions

198
has been paralleled by the neglect of education of the personal intelligences
involved in emotional work … [Western thought] characterized the emo-
tions as being in opposition to reason, and therefore subordinate and mor-
ally suspect. (p.142)
As proposed also by Macmurray, policy-makers and educators in schools
could consider instigating a ‘relational pedagogy’ (Cremin & Chappell,
2021), emphasising relationships as not only the means to effective learn-
ing and wellbeing but also as the desired outcome of these (Fielding, 2004;
Stern, 2012). Adults could explicitly support children’s relationship devel-
opment as well as their cognitive attainment, in order to promote chil-
dren’s future wellbeing more fully. This would align with Ryan and Deci’s
Self-Determination Theory which proposes that wellbeing and academic
attainment will occur if children have a strong Sense of Competence and
a strong Sense of Relatedness, including good friendships or relationships
among peers. The child is less likely to attain cognitive competence at
school if they lack the Sense of Relatedness. This claim seems to be sys-
temically ignored.
The Sense of Relatedness that most people crave is characterised by
experiences of:
• closeness,
• warmth,
• belonging,
• respect,
• acceptance,
• value,
• trust,
• participation,
• shared purpose,
• cooperation and/or
• care.
Ryan and Deci suggested that to generate the motivation required to
engage intentionally, the child needed to feel not only competent and
agentic, but also personally connected or related to their peers in the
immediate community. They needed:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

199
A sense of belongingness and connectedness to the persons, group, or cul-
ture disseminating a purpose, or what in Self Determination Theory we call
a sense of relatedness. [This means] feeling respected and cared for. (Ryan
& Deci, 2000, p.64)
A good Sense of Relatedness allows the child to feel a positive social status
in their community or group, being recognised as valuable within it.
Relatedness therefore is one means for promoting recognition, an essen-
tial pillar of social justice. It is linked ‘inextricably to identity, the shaping
of people’s subjectivities, or senses of self in relation to the social world’
(Ecclestone & Brunila, 2015, p.492). It is important for the child’s devel-
opment of their own unique identity—or their particular niche in relation
to the immediate and wider social world—which will potentially help them
develop a stronger Sense of Agency and Competence. It is important to
stress here the Sense of Relatedness. There may be no nite denition of
who belongs and who does not, but if school-children have the sense that
they belong and are connected at school, this is likely to be what motivates
them to engage with school. Pavlenko and Norton (2007) suggested that
only when a child believes in (or imagines) the existence of positive future
possibilities for their social group, will they choose to invest in learning
and take control over it.
Bourdieu (1977) emphasised that part of feeling related is knowing
how to gain acceptance into to the social world in the rst place. This
knowledge may need to be nurtured explicitly for some children more
than others. At best, primary-school children eventually form a learning
community through close networks of egalitarian peer relationships where,
in Cremin’s words ‘You nd your people’ (HHPC conference, Nov 2023).
When school-children have this sense of belongingness and connected-
ness, they feel the right to participate in the development of the future of
their social group. Although each school-child’s development of a sense of
belongingness and connectedness will be different, Ryan and Deci’s
hypothesis is that some form of Sense of Relatedness is vital: not only to
support academic attainment; but also to enhance motivation to engage in
school-work; and promote good physical and mental health and wellbeing
overall.
In terms of cognitive learning (of mathematics, English, humanities,
science etc.), Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural theory proposes that even
this is fundamentally socio-cultural and not just cognitive; and indeed that
it feeds into the development of the human being who is learning, rather
9 RELATEDNESS FOR WELLBEING

200
than being an end in itself. In his theory, new knowledge is not acquired
by being presented with information by a good teacher and storing it.
Rather, a cognitive (e.g. scientic) idea is seeded by a teacher but will not
become engaged with as integral to the thought, speech and action of the
learner, until the individual has investigated it through interaction with
others—potentially including peers—in the cultural environment. Then
the learner may become competent and creative with their use of the new
knowledge. That is, without some fundamental forms of social relation-
ship and interaction, many areas of cognitive learning are obstructed.
These theories suggest that relatedness is a key aspect—often a necessity—
for any intentional learning.
Summary 9.1 Sense of relatedness
might include
• sense of belongingness and/or connectedness to group/others, hav-
ing a sense of purpose and potential benet with and for the group and
• feeling respected, having good status, being valued, experiences of
closeness, warmth, belonging, respect, value, acceptance, trust, par-
ticipation, cooperation, and/or care.
BackgRound liteRatuRe SuppoRting thelinkS
Between SenSe ofcompetence, SenSe ofRelatedneSS
andwellBeing
There is limited research focused on children’s perceptions of their relat-
edness to peers and/or staff in primary-schooling (but see Burke &
Grosvenor, 2004; Cook-Sather, 2006; Fielding, 2004; Williamson etal.,
2020). However, there is some consensus in recent research literature
(e.g. Sellars & Imig, 2021; Tze etal., 2021; Wentzel, 2017) that time
spent with peers and/or friends can provide personal help for children to
achieve agency and wellbeing. Good peer relationships also seem to be
associated positively with academic performance throughout school (Guo
etal., 2018). In contrast, feeling socially excluded leads to distress and
reduced chances of wellbeing with negative implications for cognitive
competence. Mínguez (2020) provided evidence, from the Subjective
Wellbeing literature, for personal relationships being the strongest factor for
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

201
predicting happiness. This aligns with Clark etal.’s (2018) claim that well-
being in childhood predicts later wellbeing, assuming that good personal
relationships are also key to happiness. This may be because good peer
relationships can buffer some of the negative effects of stress or fear (as
referred to by the CLIPS children). For example, Baines and MacIntyre’s
(2022) research illustrated that enjoyment of sitting with peers to eat a
meal at school was positively related to greater liking of lessons in school
and school liking generally, presumably enhancing engagement with learn-
ing too. Humour and fun functioned to build a sense of connectedness
within the group and help foster acceptance and respect for diversity, espe-
cially among boys (Baines & MacIntyre, 2022). Seligman (2011) pro-
posed that one of the main reasons why relationships promote wellbeing
is because it is only in relationships that we can show kindness to others, a
positive trigger for feeling good.
Sadly, there is also a substantial documentation of the deleterious effects
on children’s mental health and wellbeing that lack of relatedness impli-
cates (Maunder & Monks, 2019; Ng-Knight etal., 2019). For example,
Reay’s (2006) study of primary-school pupil narratives about the social
conditions of learning uncovered a negative social status hierarchy that
undermined relatedness. Reay found ‘aspects of both pupil peer group
cultures and classroom dynamics that work against fairness, collegiality
and a sense of community in classrooms’ (p.171). Peer relationships may
be made less satisfactory by a systemic culture of neo-liberal performativ-
ity, within a power hierarchy strategised by attainment, social class, gender
and ethnicity differences. Reay (2006) emphasised the importance of rec-
ognising ‘the school’s role in the development of such invidious pupil
hierarchies’ (p.179). She described how these power dynamics inevitably
silenced certain, marginalised groups of pupils and made bonding with
other peers more problematic for them.
Webster and Blatchford (2013) also illustrated the subtle interplay
between a low Sense of Competence and a poor Sense of Relatedness
when they investigated experiences of pupils with Special Educational
Needs/learning disabilities in primary-school. Many of these were with-
drawn into lower-attainment intervention groups (as were some children
in our CLIPS sample). These children described their limited access to
other pupils compared with higher-attainment groups, which made
relationship- forming more difcult. Dunne et al. (2011) also illustrated
primary pupils’ resistance to being taken away from higher-attaining peers
for lower- attainment group work in mathematics or English (as also
9 RELATEDNESS FOR WELLBEING

202
indicated by the CLIPS children). Separation justied in terms of attain-
ment may be one factor behind the research showing that 50% of children
in the UK have reported feeling left out by other children in school classes
at least once in the last month (Mínguez, 2020). To illustrate how this
might occur, Ambreen (2020) reported how, in her study, the presence of
children from lower-attainment groups in mixed-attainment groups: ‘was
not appreciated by those children from both the average- and high-ability
groups’ who stigmatized their lower-attaining peers as ‘low knowledge-
able and unhelpful’. In such a competitive environment, children who
attained consistently highly might come to prefer to work alone than
engage in peer work (Ambreen, 2020), thereby reducing opportunities
for all children to interact and form relationships during class. Indeed, any
instructional methods that aim to foster competition or even ‘indepen-
dence’ may obstruct the fostering of good relationships (Juvonen, 2018).
Some children with syndromes such as ADHD or Autism Spectrum
Disorder (ASD) may nd it difcult to relate to peers, even more so when
placed in segregated groups. As Woodgate etal. (2020) suggest, despite
society’s efforts to promote social inclusion, children with divergences
(even lower-attainment, it seems) continue to report feeling lonely and
excluded, having limited contact socially and encountering systemic barri-
ers (e.g. bullying, discrimination). Other barriers to the creation of good
peer relatedness may concern the fact that opportunities are declining for
children to engage in enjoyable face-to-face interaction with peers in ‘open
settings’ both in and outside the school (Baines & Blatchford, 2009).
Children are spending less time socialising with peers and are less engaged
in play outside the classroom within the current performative system. This
is especially because, in nearly all schools, break-times and lunch-times are
used as occasions to catch up on incomplete work, negatively affecting
those who work more slowly. Other barriers may include the constantly
close control of adults in school which may hinder the development of
peer interactions (Leigers etal., 2017). CLIPS children themselves were
aware that freedom during playtimes could redress the impact of stressful
experiences. For example, Clara explained how the playground was a place
where she could eliminate stress:
The [school’s] secret garden … whenever I’m stressed, nature makes me feel
happy… because like you can sit down and watch all the birds come and it
will be so quiet here. [3]
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

203
Given that many so-called lower-attainers will spend most of their school-
mornings working on subjects they nd tricky and may well dislike (math-
ematics/English), it is especially important that this source of stress is
counterbalanced for them, by the opportunity to enjoy relatedness to
peers, free from the ‘continual compliance’ and ‘surveillance’ of their
classrooms (Devine, 2003, p. 123).
clipS childRen’S SenSe ofRelatedneSS
[IMPORTANT NOTE: Throughout the book, a digit in square brackets
following a quotation means that the quotation comes from an interview
during that TERM of the project. For example, [8] following a quotation
means that the quotation came from TERM8 of the project i.e. just over
half way through the project when the children were starting in Year 5 of
their primary-schools.]
We were amazed to discover that in two different sample schools, the
children did not know the names of all the children in their own class by
the end of Year 3 (ages 7–8)—partly as a result of segregation by attain-
ment. Some afrmative remedies had been put in place to address lack of
relatedness in some schools—for example, a friendship bench in the school
playground [Mark, 3] and a break-time supervised activity-room for those
who did not want to play outside [Gemma, 4]. However, more transfor-
mative remedies appeared necessary which addressed the wider causes of
loneliness and isolation.
The children in the CLIPS study understood how important related-
ness was for success and wellbeing at school. Gemma told us that what she
liked most about herself was that: ‘I have a lot of friends, and my friends
support me’ [4]. Fin explained in TERM3 that he was a shy person and
therefore beneted particularly by being in ‘teams’ to learn. Jack explained
how his friends made him feel calm and cared for:
I think it is important to be happy because if you’re not then it affects your
learning … Whenever I’m not happy it’s hard for me to like work—when-
ever I’m not happy I just stop doing my work … [but] whenever I’m sad
about anything my friends do come over … They really care about me and
whenever I’m like hurt they would just help me out. [6]
Seven children in our sample of 23 told us explicitly that the only part of
school they liked was friends. Harriet said: ‘The only thing I like about
9 RELATEDNESS FOR WELLBEING

204
school is that I get to meet my friends’ [4]. Ellie explained that, for her,
the whole point of school was to have fun and feel happy by being with
friends: ‘I want to see my friends because like it makes me happy’ [6]. Sam
similarly explained that what he really wanted to gain from schooling over-
all was ‘to make friends’ because ‘making friends is a key part of being
happy’ [6]. Rory [5] told us that he believed that good relationships were
more important than high-attainment. The children described feeling
respected, having good status, being valued, experiencing closeness,
warmth, acceptance, trust and/or care with their friends. For example,
nding that ‘they are always nice to me’ [Michael, 3]; and they were
‘always making me feel like I’m a grown up’ [Amin, 3].
Given that quality appears to be more important than quantity in terms
of relationships, even one best friend could seemingly transform a child’s
engagement at school. This appeared to be particularly the case with Fin
whose life-history dramatically transformed once he was reunited with his
infant-school friend when he was nine. Others had particular and signi-
cant best friends too. Ellie explained that she and her best friend: ‘Text
every night’ [4]. Musa [3] described his fun-lled, humour-rich friendship
with Latham: ‘Me and him say we’re funny … And he says weird stuff and
makes me laugh’. Clara [1] recognised one of her strengths as caring for
others and helping children who felt excluded: ‘My best things about me
is like—I help people when they’re upset or like hurt. And if they don’t
have anyone to play with, I can play with them’. Despite a systemic lack of
emphasis on collaboration that we noticed in the schools, the children
seemed to want to help each other, perhaps anticipating the sense of con-
nectedness and worth it gave to them and to their peers.
tRouBled RelationShipS within Schooling andaSenSe
ofalienation
However, among our CLIPS sample of 23 children, we coded 20 children
as expressing the concern that other children caused trouble for them. We
have no way to know whether or how these troubles were related to their
own Sense of Competence or the fact that they found mathematics/
English particularly tricky. However, our ndings illustrate that many of
the sample children, who all found schooling hard in some ways, were
experiencing other children as fearsome or intrusive, potentially under-
mining their Sense of Relatedness and threatening their engagement and
wellbeing. Jack [5] summed this up neatly, saying:
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

205
A lot of people are sad in this school … Because like either they get told off
by other children or other children be rude to them.
The term ‘bullying’ was used by eight children during the episode of
interviews in which we focussed on relationships. The children addition-
ally described how other children were violent to them, kicking them,
spitting, punching and hitting them. As Rory told us fearfully:
One of the bullies said … ‘If you say that again I’m going to—I’m going to
punch your head like a little egg’ [3].
Behaviour that troubled our sample children included peers being ‘rude’
to them, shouting at them, calling them names, humiliating them on pur-
pose, scaring them or being ‘mean’. For example, Gabriella complained
during the rst term when she was still new to her school:
What I really hate is people bullying me and people just think they can just
be rude to me whenever they want [1].
Equally troubling was the not uncommon description of peers deliberately
placing the sample children in a position whereby they would be admon-
ished by teachers and possibly punished. For example, Edith told us:
I was about to get a red [sanction] card because one of my friends, Amelia,
yeah, she was lying, yeah, and then she made me and somebody else in our
class, yeah, get in trouble [6].
The CLIPS children described peers telling lies about them as well as
being selsh, unfair or arrogant towards them. These apparent miscar-
riages of justice appeared to be sources of considerable pain to the children
and presumably made it more likely that they lacked a secure Sense of
Relatedness; all of which would interfere with the ourishing of future
relationships, as well as cognitive learning; and overall wellbeing.
The CLIPS children described instances of feeling lonely at school dur-
ing which they would have welcomed support from others. For example,
Clara told us, ‘Whenever someone tells me “I’m not your friend” or when
I’m alone—that’s when I’m stressed’ [3]. The following term, she said:
‘I’m lonely—maybe when, like, no one wants to play with me’. She also
explained how she had felt when she rst arrived in school:
9 RELATEDNESS FOR WELLBEING

206
[I felt] not that great because—Look at them! They all have friends
and not me.
Gemma described how in her nursery, ‘People didn’t like me … So like the
rst two months I was basically walking around alone’. When Harriet was
eight-years-old, we asked Harriet who her best friend was. She replied:
‘Not really anyone because I don’t play with anyone’ [4]; although she
subsequently became friends with Mark. Earlier on, we had asked Mark to
place a model of himself on the middle of concentric circles drawn on a
table-top, and place gures representing friends, family and teachers at
appropriate distances from himself depending on how close he felt to
them. Unlike the other children, who all put family closest to them and
teachers furthest away, Mark did not place anyone close to him. He placed
one friend relatively close. In each of these cases, the experience of feeling
lonely may have limited these children’s opportunities to feel a sense of
belonging and have their status recognised.
the douBle-Bind oflow SenSe ofcompetence
withpeRceived alienation fRomfRiendS
While feelings of loneliness could be experienced by any child, there were
some instances in which this loneliness was perceived as exclusion directly
linked to their perceived low competence. This corroborates Ryan and
Deci’s (2019) theory that children with a low Sense of Competence (which
we assume occurred once they had been told they were lower-attainers)
were particularly vulnerable to feeling inadequately related. For example, it
was striking that when Edith described the feelings of someone who did
not do well at school, she used the words ‘Lonely and sad’ [3], making an
explicit link between a weak Sense of Relatedness and a weak Sense of
Competence. Gabriella also suggested that when a child (like herself) did
badly in mathematics or writing, she felt unsupported by others:
[Lower-attainers feel] sad …, no-one cares; and they feel lonely … Because
they have no friends to stand up for them.
Physical isolation from higher-attaining friends could lead the children to
feel more alienated as well as less competent. Several children described
feeling a loss when the children had to move physically away from their
friends, to their attainment sets or intervention groups. This exodus
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

207
highlighted both prior attainment; and lack of relatedness. For example,
Ellie explained: ‘I need my friends. I need them to stay in the same class as
me’ [2]. And yet her friends with perceived higher competence were
moved into another room, exacerbating her perception of being alienated
from her support system. As another example, Zeph also said he suffered
when he was separated from his friends who went to a [higher] mathemat-
ics attainment group. Given that Zeph [3] told us explicitly that friends
were the only part of school he enjoyed, this was a considerable source of
distress for him: he was not only denied the opportunity to feel valued by
his friends, but he also found no vehicle for voicing his own preferences
and having these acted on.
Hard work done individually, in keeping with the performative system,
was perhaps emphasised at the expense of (potentially richer) collaborative
learning through peer interactions, thereby ignoring the crucial links,
expressed by the children, between relatedness and competence. For
example, Amin explained why he sometimes did not want to help peers: ‘I
don’t want people stealing my ideas’ [6]. Such individualistic practices
may have been counter to their sense of belongingness and connectedness
where peers could extend and inspire each other’s ideas through their
relatedness—regardless of prior attainment. Jack alluded to this emphasis
on individualism: ‘If you have no friends … you will work easier’ [6].
Zeph [3] told us: ‘I work hard a lot in mathematics and I listen quite a
lot … and do less talking … Because most of the people on my table aren’t
really my friends’. In addition, this valuing of independence and individu-
alism led some children to feel burdened with responsibility for their own
failures within a situation where they simultaneously felt they had no
power to initiate change. In other words, they were expected to achieve
competence without being allowed its supports in terms of Agency and
Relatedness. They often blamed themselves for not achieving what they
were supposed to achieve, adding to existing feelings of helplessness and
ineffectuality—rather than, as we would see it, blaming the performative
schooling context or the narrow curriculum within it. For example, Laurie
blamed the children:
It’s the children’s fault they didn’t learn. And if the teacher said learn it at
home and they didn’t learn, it’s their fault [4].
Independence should not be confused with autonomy or agency, speci-
cally because a child’s Sense of Relatedness explicitly relies on their agency
9 RELATEDNESS FOR WELLBEING

208
to make it effectual. For example, Edith told us how she felt abandoned
rather than autonomous when she had to work alone:
Sometimes … it’s hard for me and no one helps me. Sometimes I feel [my
friend is] not always here to help me [2].
All the children admitted being kept in alone at break-time or lunch-time
(or both) for not fully completing set tasks. This potentially exacerbated a
child’s low Sense of Competence (for feeling slow) by adding a lowered
Sense of Relatedness too. Yet, the children seemed to view being kept in
at break-time as a completely normal practice that must be tolerated,
despite threatening their Sense of Relatedness and causing them distress.
For example, Ellie told us that being kept in at break/lunch did not really
sound fair. Then she added, ‘But it actually is, because otherwise I’ll have
to stay in for my next lunch-break’ [4]. The prioritisation of teachers com-
pleting the curriculum for mathematics and English seems to have justied
deliberate alienation of these children during break or lunch-time.
final thoughtS ontheSenSe ofRelatedneSS
inouR data
This chapter has explored the CLIPS children’s Sense of Relatedness as
having a feeling of belonging, being connected and contributing to the
social group at school. We have suggested that when feeling related, the
children felt more respected, higher status, better valued; and they experi-
enced closeness, warmth, trust and care. We have suggested that having a
good Sense of Relatedness helped them develop a positive Sense of
Competence, thereby supporting them in engaging in and mastering
school-work.
Our data indicated that where the CLIPS children did not believe that
they enjoyed equal social status in their classrooms—that is, enjoying a
strong Sense of Relatedness—it may have led to them having their Sense
of Agency curtailed too as they came to feel excluded as legitimate mem-
bers of their community thereby being obstructed from parity of partici-
pation. Our data suggested that peer relationships were made less
satisfactory by competitiveness among the peer group within a hierarchy
strategised by attainment differences as well as social inequalities.
Our data, however, also illustrate how even one rich peer relationship
had the potential to provide a source of companionship, support, care and
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

209
entertainment for the CLIPS children, including humour and fun, which
could also function to build a sense of belongingness within the group.
Most strikingly, having a strong Sense of Relatedness appeared to allow
the CLIPS children to satisfy their own needs for autonomy and competence
as well as relatedness; to feel recognised as they connected with others in
valuing and valued ways. The social group or individual friend could then
help in providing practical support, potentially leading to increased inten-
tional engagement and ultimately, enhanced wellbeing and social
participation.
RefeRenceS
Ambreen, S. (2020). Children’s perspectives toward ability-based group work in a
primary classroom. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 35(4),
651–665. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2020.1811813
Baines, E., & Blatchford, P. (2009). Sex differences in the structure and stability
of children’s playground social networks and their overlap with friendship rela-
tions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27(3), 743–760. https://
doi.org/10.1348/026151008X371114
Baines, E., & MacIntyre, H. (2022). Children’s social experiences with peers and
friends during primary school mealtimes. Educational Review, 74(2), 165–187.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2019.1680534
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. CUP.
Burke, C., & Grosvenor, I. (2004). Response to review of the school I’d like:
Children and young people’s reections on an education for the 21st century.
Children, Youth and Environments, 14(1), 263–265.
Clark, A. E., Flèche, S., Layard, R., Powdthavee, N., & Ward, G. (2018). The
origins of happiness: The science of well-being over the life course. Princeton
University Press.
Cook-Sather, A. (2006). Sound, presence, and power: “Student voice” in educa-
tional research and reform. Curriculum Inquiry, 36(4), 359–390. https://doi.
org/10.1111/j.1467- 873X.2006.00363.x
Cremin, T., & Chappell, K. (2021). Creative pedagogies: a systematic review.
Research Papers in Education, 36(3), 299–331, https://doi.org/10.1080/
02671522.2019.1677757
Devine, D. (2003). Children, power and schooling: How childhood is structured in
the primary school. Trentham Books.
Dunne, M., Humphreys, S., Dyson, A., Sebba, J., Gallannaugh, F., & Muijs, D.
(2011). The teaching and learning of pupils in low-attainment sets. Curriculum
Journal, 22(4), 485–513.
9 RELATEDNESS FOR WELLBEING

210
Fielding, M. (2004). Transformative approaches to student voice: Theoretical
underpinnings, recalcitrant realities. British Educational Research Journal,
30(2), 295–311.
Ecclestone, K., & Brunila, K. (2015). Governing emotionally vulnerable subjects
and ‘therapisation’ of social. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23(4), 485–506.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1015152
Guo, X., Lv, B., Zhou, H., Lui, C., & Juan, L. (2018). Gender differences in how
family income and parental education relate to reading achievement in China:
The mediating role of parental expectation and parental involvement. Frontiers
in Psychology, 9(783), 1–12.
Juvonen, J. (2018). The potential of schools to facilitate and constrain peer rela-
tionships. In W.M. Bukowski, B.Laursen, & K.H. Rubin (Eds.), Handbook of
peer interactions, relationships, and groups (pp.491–509). The Guilford Press.
Leigers, K., Kleinert, H., & Carter, E. (2017). I never truly thought about them
having friends: Equipping schools to foster peer relationships. Rural Special
Education Quarterly, 36(2), 73–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/875687
0517707711
Lynch, K., & Baker, J. (2005). Equality in education: An equality of condition
perspective. Theory and Research in Education, 3(2), 131–164. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1477878505053298
Maunder, R., & Monks, C. (2019). Friendships in middle childhood: Links to peer
and school identication, and general self-worth. British Journal of Developmental
Psychology, 37(2), 211–229. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12268
Mínguez, A. (2020). Children’s relationships and happiness: The role of family,
friends and the school in four European countries. Journal of Happiness Studies,
21(5), 1859–1878. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902- 019- 00160- 4
Ng-Knight, T., Shelton, K., Riglin, L., Frederickson, N., McManus, I., & Rice,
F. (2019). ‘Best friends forever’? Friendship stability across school transition and
associations with mental health and educational attainment. British Journal of
Educational Psychology, 89(4), 585–599. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12246
Pavlenko, A., & Norton, B. (2007). Imagined communities, identity, and English
language learning. In J.Cummins & C.Davison (Eds.), International hand-
book of English language (pp.589–600). Springer.
Reay, D. (2006). ‘I’m not seen as one of the clever children’: Consulting primary
school pupils about the social conditions of learning. Educational Review,
58(2), 171–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910600584066
Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2019). Self-determination theory and the facilitation
of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American
Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003- 066X.55.1.68
Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A new understanding of happiness and well-being—
and how to achieve them. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Sellars, M., & Imig, D. (2021). Pestalozzi and pedagogies of love: Pathways to
educational reform. Early Child Development and Care, 191(7–8), 1152–1163.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2020.1845667
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

211
Stern, J. (2012). The personal world of schooling: John Macmurray and schools
as households. Oxford Review of Education, 38(6), 727–745. https://doi.
org/10.1080/03054985.2012.740586
Tze, V., Li, J., & Daniels, L. (2021). Similarities and differences in social and
emotional proles among students in Canada, USA, China, and Singapore:
PISA 2015. Research Papers in Education, 37(6), 1–26.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological pro-
cesses. Harvard University Press.
Watkins, C. (2010). Learning, performance and improvement. Research Matters: The
Research Publication of the International Network for School Improvement.
Webster, R., & Blatchford, P. (2013). The educational experiences of pupils with a
statement for special educational needs in mainstream primary schools: Results
from a systematic observation study. European Journal of Special Needs Education,
28(4), 463–479. https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2013.820459
Wentzel, K.R. (2017). Peer relationships, motivation, and academic performance
at school. In A.J. Elliot, C.S. Dweck, & D.S. Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of
competence and motivation: Theory and application (pp. 586–603). The
Guilford Press.
Williamson, J., Lovatt, D., & Hedges, H. (2020). Looking beyond books and
blocks: Peers playing around with concepts. In A.Ridgway, G.Quiñones, &
L.Li (Eds.), Peer play and relationships in early childhood. International perspec-
tives on early childhood education and development (pp.30–37). Springer.
Woodgate, R.L., Gonzalez, M., Demczuk, L., Snow, W., Barriage, S., & Kirk,
S. (2020). How do peers promote social inclusion of children with disabilities?
A mixed-methods systematic review. Disability and Rehabilitation, 42(18),
2553–2579. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2018.1561955
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
9 RELATEDNESS FOR WELLBEING

213© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_10
CHAPTER 10
Imagining Schooling asaPositive
Experience: Conclusions andPractical
Recommendations
It was ambitious for our study to draw on three theories from different
roots. Two were from outside education: Fraser’s political science concep-
tualisation of social justice as parity of participation; and Ryan and Deci’s
social psychology-based theory that agency is fundamental to human well-
being. By bringing in our third theory, Watkins’ pedagogical theory of the
distinction between learning and performance, to link the two previous
theories together in an educational context, we have enriched our under-
standings of both wellbeing and social justice; and perceived synergies
between the two. This allows us to draw well-targeted implications out of
our data, which stand to support both academic and practical enhance-
ments of children’s experiences within schooling—in particular because
children’s own voices inform and direct these. These add insights into
psychological understandings of children’s motivational Orientations in
schooling; but illustrate too how inuences of a global performative
schooling system inuence individual children’s everyday experiences.
Our work has helped throw light on social injustice within the British
schooling system, a system which Chris Watkins (2010) described as
encouraging performance rather than learning. The data from these chil-
dren in particular alerts us to the aspect of social justice that Nancy Fraser
(2022) calls recognition of status; which is also important for wellbeing
and social justice, both of which demand development of a strong Sense
of Agency (Ryan and Deci, 2019).

214
ImagInIng SchoolIng aSaPoSItIve exPerIence:
through thechaPterS ofthIS Book
We started by dening participation as when an individual actively shares
in, partakes of and/or contributes to a task, system or community. Using
this denition, we imagine that school-children participating on a par with
other children at school would entail everyone feeling that they are part of
and contributing to their schooling community. In Fraser’s terms, this
implies that they have equal access to the resources to take an active and
equal part in social interaction with others in schooling; that they feel that
they have equal social status among others in schooling; and equal access
to political decision-making in schooling. We imagine a schooling system
where these demands are met as a socially just schooling system (Chap. 3).
Imagining schooling as a positive experience, we would see each child
constructing themselves, and being constructed by others, as equally wor-
thy in the schooling situation, regardless of their prior attainment. How
they identify themselves will be respected; as will the groups they choose
to identify with. When recognised in these positive ways, all children will
be enjoying equal access to leisure time; and to other people’s equally
positive evaluations of their diverse strengths and interests. In this imagi-
nary scenario, common practices in schooling support rather than ignore
children’s preferences; for example, support by physically placing children
in classroom situations where they feel comfortable. And, crucial to repre-
sentational justice, all children will have equal opportunities to represent
their needs and preferences and these will be taken seriously and acted upon.
We have made a signicant cross-discipline link in this book to boost
our imagining, by highlighting how demands for wellbeing overlap with
human rights underpinning social justice (Chap. 4). As indicated in the
UNCRC (1989), this overlap might be manifest in children feeling pro-
tected and cared for within the schooling system, having their unique
sense of self, strengths and interests developed, rather than undermined;
and being given appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic,
recreational and leisure activities. This book has imagined that the out-
come of having the positive experience of recognition will be children’s
wholehearted intentional engagement in academic tasks, non-academic
pursuits, as well as in relationship-building. The positive conditions of
schooling where they experience status recognition will spur them to
interact with and understand the people and practices around them rather
than feeling bored, trapped or distressed. In this situation, they are likely
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

215
to have good feelings such as excitement, enjoyment, calmness, and con-
tentedness, which boost their creativity, imagination, concentration, cog-
nitive performance, and exible styles of thinking, and thus their overall
wellbeing. This will be made more likely when schooling environments
explicitly support them to have strong Learning Orientations, including a
strong Sense of Competence, of Agency and of Relatedness.
For these aspects of wellbeing to be most readily evidenced, we imagine
that the schooling environment focusses on children’s growing and learn-
ing, their practice of freedom and volition, leading to children being eager
to improve the range of their competences without regard to prior attain-
ment (Chap. 5). For wellbeing to ourish, formal judgements and com-
parisons among different children will be minimised, as will rewards for
meeting prescribed goals. Instead, an environment conducive to inten-
tional engagement will develop: where school-children are encouraged to
grapple with challenges that interest them and succeed in mastering them,
receiving help from a range of people, having access to different resources
and opportunities and being allowed to decide to stop working on a par-
ticular task when appropriate.
One important aspect of recognising the high status of every school-
child would be the systematising of opportunities to support every child’s
Sense of Competence (Chap. 7): competence which may or may not relate
to performance in mathematics and English tests. Whichever competence
they have achieved (whether cognitive, creative or social), the child needs
to feel that the task is personally appropriate and fullling; they can master
it effectively; and a difference is made; after effort is exerted. And this must
account for the majority of their time in schooling if it is to sustain their
Sense of Competence.
From our ndings, it is clear that children in a positively-experienced
schooling system would need a strong Learning Orientation, which
includes a strong Sense of Agency, in order to be recognised as competent,
as theorised by Self- Determination Theory. For example, a Sense of
Competence is unlikely to be nurtured when children do not feel they
direct their own mastery of tasks (Chap. 8). We learnt from the children
that their engagement and learning were compromised when they lacked
a sense of control within schooling, sometimes instead, believing a ‘cruel
and cynical ction’ about their futures being ‘ruined’ if they did not con-
form. They needed more opportunities to ask questions about opaque
aspects of schooling itself; as well as subject domains and their relevance to
their learning and wellbeing. The CLIPS children showed us that they
10 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE: CONCLUSIONS…

216
were most likely to choose to engage in school-learning when this was
fuelled by their own desire to grapple with particular ideas, to explore new
meanings and new ways of behaving imaginatively and creatively, perceiv-
ing themselves as having the power to initiate change, practise reexivity
and consider genuinely alternative actions.
In particular, when children imagined having the freedom to focus on
subjects such as arts, nature-study or sport instead of only mathematics
and English, they seemed more enthusiastic about engaging; especially if
testing were less dominant and time pressure less oppressive. They imag-
ined feeling particularly well-recognised when they could choose to sit
with their special friends; and when everyone won rewards for particular
strengths, rather than just for performing well in mathematics/English
tests. In the imaginary positive experience of schooling, their Learning
Orientation, including a strong Sense of Competence and Agency, would
be supported because they would be presented with tasks to do in ways
that worked best for them and allowed them to master these; they would
have access to collaborative ways of working and would not compete
against their peers; and the teachers would not feel so pressured them-
selves that they resort to shouting at them; or become angry or impatient
with children who are having difculties.
We afrmed in our ndings too, in keeping with Self-Determination
Theory, that a Sense of Relatedness could support children’s status-
recognition and wellbeing at school (Chap. 9). Positive experiences of
schooling, potentially including perceptions of higher-attainment, were
more likely to emerge when children felt a sense of belongingness and/or
connectedness to their group/others, feeling closeness, warmth, belong-
ing, respect, acceptance, trust, participation, cooperation, and/or care;
and having a sense of purpose and potential benet with and for their
group. A stronger Sense of Relatedness could compensate for deciencies
in Sense of Competence and could provide support for enhancing Sense
of Agency; both of which spurred children on to adopt a Learning
Orientation and engage intentionally in school-work. However, all of
these would require systemic support from policy-makers and other
educators.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

217
key fIndIngS: oBStacleS toWellBeIng cauSed By
gloBal neo-lIBeral PerformatIvIty
At the policy level, global neo-liberal performativity has fed into the
narrow emphasis on attainment scores in mathematics and English within
the British system. This narrow emphasis has inuenced those with
lower scores in mathematics/English, whereby they feel status-subordina-
tion and a reduced Sense of Competence. This narrow focus on specic
performance in narrow curriculum areas, rather than learning and engage-
ment in wider elds, has provoked limited conceptions of what is normal
and what is acceptable, pushing many children into perceiving themselves
as in the category of less than normal. The systemic performative culture
promotes competition for high performances in a narrow set of tests. This
has meant that some CLIPS children felt they were the ‘losers’ rather than
achievers; and children’s Sense of Relatedness was undermined. Attainment
differences for these narrow performances potentially reinforced the exist-
ing power hierarchy (not investigated in our study) organised by social
class, gender and ethnicity differences. Instructional methods that assumed
that children would work individually, competitively, rather than collab-
oratively, have denied children the opportunities for learning with and
from each other. Children have had few opportunities to engage in social
or leisure activities with other children too, especially as break-times and
lunch-times are used as ‘catch-up’ times for children who work more
slowly than others. Within the classroom, the grouping of children accord-
ing to prior attainment in a narrow range of performance tests has some-
times denied them access to their preferred seating partners and drawn
attention to those with lower prior attainment. Such groupings have
sometimes contributed to making children designated to lower groups
feel subordinate. All these factors have reinforced a Performance
Orientation over a Learning Orientation among the children.
Summary 10.1: Systemic factors that mitigated against children’s wellbeing
Policy-wide
Narrow emphasis on attainment rather than learning.
Narrow conceptions of ‘normality’ among children.
Few systemic supports for relatedness.
Systemic culture of competition for performance rather than learning.
Power hierarchy strategised by attainment, social class, gender and eth-
nicity differences.
10 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE: CONCLUSIONS…

218
Instructional methods aimed to foster ‘independence’ or individualised
responsibility.
Few opportunities for children to engage in enjoyable face-to-face
interaction with peers in ‘open settings’.
Break-times and lunch-times being used as occasions to catch up on
incomplete work, negatively affecting those who work more slowly.
Close control of adults in school.
Classroom based
Limited access of lower-attainers to other pupils, compared with higher-
attainment groups.
Lower-attainers being taken away from higher-attaining peers.
Support for performance over learning.
Fear of being laughed at for lower-attainment.
key fIndIngS: evIdence forImProvIng chIldren’S
exPerIenceS
The inuence of the systemic factors described above, according to the
life-histories, was that children’s wellbeing was overall negatively affected;
the CLIPS children often felt angry, frustrated and alienated. Some chil-
dren found the formal aspects of mathematics and English particularly
distressing and lacked any sense of successful learning or mastery in these
subjects; and they all experienced frequent testing as a source of fear and
anxiety. These negative feelings eroded the Learning Orientation, includ-
ing the Sense of Agency, of many children, especially those who found it
unsatisfactory to sit still for long hours and preferred more active, explor-
atory or collaborative approaches to learning. On the other hand, given
that they were expected to concentrate on difcult tasks for long periods
of time, many children wanted more peace and quiet in the classroom; as
well as longer lunch-times and break-times in which they could relax and
make each other happy. The constant and dominant erosion of children’s
Sense of Agency was closely and negatively connected to Sense of
Competence. This aligned with the nding that those who perceived their
competence in performance as weak, took a more passive, conformist
approach to schooling, trying to get by without being in trouble, as best
they could. Whole-hearted engagement in learning would have demanded
support for a Learning Orientation, including a much stronger Sense of
Agency, including power and control by the children, whereby they could
see—every day—that they could make a difference to how and what they
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

219
learnt. Then they could whole-heartedly learn about the many aspects of
the world they found fascinating; and not worry only about performing.
A strong Sense of Relatedness was closely and positively connected to a
strong Sense of Competence. However, relatedness was rarely given
emphasis in the children’s experiences of schooling as a system. Children
were instead oppressed by the ction that their happiness in future
depended only on hard work in primary-school. It sometimes led to them
blaming themselves when they were not engaged by the classroom, rather
than demanding a better system and/or a better curriculum. They were
not told that the best predictor of future wellbeing was their current well-
being (Clark etal., 2018).
Summary 10.2: How Sense of Relatedness, Agency and Competence are
linked to intentional learning, wellbeing and parity of participation
Strong sense of Relatedness +
Strong sense of Competence + +Strong sense of Agency.
Wellbeing/ourishing/Positive experience Intentional engagement in
school-work
Increased parity of participation Increased social justice.
ImPlIcatIonS ofthelIfe-hIStorIeS InrelatIon
WellBeIng andSocIal JuStIce
Nancy Fraser (2022) has recently re-emphasised the need for sustaining
‘human beings and social bonds’ as a counter-balance to the policy tunnel-
vision on proving successful performance in economic prowess, the latter
10 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE: CONCLUSIONS…

220
which permeates the institutionalised patterns of capitalism in systems of
schooling:
One essential epistemic shift is that from production to social reproduction—
the forms of provisioning, caregiving, and interaction that produce and sus-
tain human being and social bonds … Called ‘care’, this activity forms
capitalism’s human subjects, sustaining them as embodied natural beings,
while also constituting them as social beings. (p.9; our emphasis)
This book has considered one form of national provisioning for social
reproduction—schooling—and how or whether it provides the care to
sustain human beings and social bonds as well as facilitating academic
attainment and economic success more widely. Our ndings have high-
lighted exactly this need, to swing the focus in schooling towards wellbe-
ing, including nurturing relatedness and human agency in schooling. In
re-imagining schooling as a positive experience for all children, our analy-
sis suggests areas for improvement relate to each of the three aspects of
parity of participation: distribution; recognition; and representation. In
Fraser’s terms, some suggestions for improvement could be categorised as
transformative—reforming the systemic neo-liberal performative struc-
tures that generate injustice; while others are afrmative—correcting ineq-
uitable outcomes without substantially disrupting the systemic structures
underpinning them. Both are important in challenging injustice, although
transformative actions are more likely to pertain to the national or interna-
tional level of action; while the afrmative actions may be those more
accessible to schools and to individual teachers and children, who are also
strongly inuenced by systemic structures. Some suggestions are also
included below, relating Fraser’s three-pronged conception of social jus-
tice to Articles in the UNCRC (1989) as suggested by Jerome and
Starkey (2021).
redIStrIButIon: tranSformatIve remedIeS at
natIonal/InternatIonal level
First and foremost, at the national and international policy level, our nd-
ings suggest that a deliberate separation of schooling from the performative
models of governmentalised neoliberalism would remove some of the fear
felt by the sample children of their lives being ‘ruined’ if they do not meet
(unnegotiated) policy expectations in terms of narrow attainment targets.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

221
In particular, the concept of ‘meritocracy’—that some children deserve
better lives because they perform better at school—must be shown to be
the ‘cruel and cynical ction’ that it actually is (Owens and St. de Croix,
2020, p.19). Attainment tests as measures of educational performance, as
this book has shown, are disturbingly blunt instruments which limit the
wellbeing of many children, and dis-able vast riches of potential talent,
creativity and intentional engagement/learning. There are more equitable
and humane ways to keep schools accountable than through national test-
ing, as has been persuasively argued ever since the 1988 Reform Act. One
more humane way is the adaptation of the National Inspectorate to become
a supportive knowledge exchange—or learning—arrangement rather than
one that provides summative assessments on schools. Another means is
that, where testing is used in schooling, tests take account of the different
ways that children learn and express themselves (as highlighted for example
in Articles 2, 28, 29, 30 of the UNCRC). By reducing a systemic require-
ment for testing, the lower status that accompanies a child’s lower grades
in mathematics/English could be dispensed with; especially if any tests that
continue to exist focus on a wide range of Orientations, skills, knowledge
and understanding rather than only measurable aspects of mathematics and
English at the primary-school stage. At the wider level, more democratic
processes for selecting curriculum content can be introduced, including a
diversity of children’s contributions.
Reducing or eliminating the focus on tests would also help contain all
schooling to within school hours, not pressuring parents into paying for
outside-school private tutoring (Articles 2, 28, 31 of the UNCRC). A
schooling system that promotes children’s positive learning experience
would be adequately funded to provide a truly broad and balanced cur-
riculum including a central place for arts, sports, environment and human-
ities (Articles 13, 14, 29, 31 of the UNCRC); and a central place for
investigating how these can be taught most engagingly. At the same time,
policy-makers would do well to publish the research ndings they draw on
from a range of sources, including studies using qualitative data like our
own, showing that their policies are based on this diverse range.
recognItIon: affIrmatIve remedIeS at School
andclaSSroom level
As this book has illustrated, enhanced wellbeing takes many forms but
having a Sense of Relatedness with other people is shown to be vitally
important for children’s school-lives, whereby they feel a sense of
10 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE: CONCLUSIONS…

222
belonging, feel cared for, and they notice that they make a benecial dif-
ference to others’ lives. The children have suggested that this is not an
added extra for schooling, but a fundamental need which underpins their
whole experience. Learning Orientations are unlikely to develop without
this foundation.
The children experienced recognition in diverse ways, such as, funda-
mentally, school staff and other children being careful not to cause physi-
cal or emotional pain (Articles 19, 28) and people encouraging each other
to be respectful, particularly of those who appear different (Article 29).
While teachers strive to do this already, priority and accompanying support
must be systemically given and explicitly reinforced in policy messages.
Teachers can also challenge the performative language used in policy
directives and ban such language from being used by teachers in their
schools. They can punish children’s derogatory performance-oriented
comments or behaviour. They could stop using the words ‘low’ or ‘high’
in relation to performance—instead focussing on children’s achievement
of agency and intentional engagement in learning, which in turn will
encourage further engagement. If intervention groups are needed, they
can be uid, tailored and temporary, led by the most highly skilled teach-
ers. Friendship seating in class should be encouraged and reectively
developed to be effective for both children and teachers. It was noticeable
that the children in our study also expressed a desire for quiet places to be
provided for children to seek sanctuary when their brains were about to
‘crumble’; and for spaces without overwhelming display boards. Another
message that is clear in our ndings is the dangers of substituting leisure
times (break-time, lunch-time) as ‘catch-up’ spaces: systemic messages
should, rather, emphasise the benets to children of play and fun, espe-
cially where these can be systemically supported by staff too (with ade-
quate funding), to build up relatedness and autonomy in non-formal areas.
In addition, as educators have been arguing for centuries, children’s
learning can be facilitated through pedagogies that are engaging for chil-
dren, that are fullling and meaningful to them, not only in terms of prior
and future performance. Teachers can avoid passing down the coercion
they may be experiencing in the system, by not hurrying nor threatening
children in relation to formal schoolwork, despite the pressure that teach-
ers themselves are under to meet targets. Promoting whole-hearted
engagement in learning, rather, might involve use of particular teaching
and learning situations that draw benecially on children’s diverse strengths
and contributions—taking account of the fact that sitting still,
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

223
concentrating, listening and remembering can only be applied to a narrow
range of performance objectives. Instead, for example, intentional learn-
ing could be promoted through the Jigsaw Method, collaborative prob-
lem-solving, reciprocal teaching, group or online discussions, collaborative
experiments, charity projects, outdoor explorations or creative/perfor-
mance arts events. Children’s competence in other skills and interests, that
they have developed outside the classroom, need to be taken seriously at
school. Systemic support should be provided by government to teachers
and teaching assistants in using such participatory pedagogies; and indeed
by providing additional members of staff in school.
rePreSentatIon: affIrmatIve remedIeS at School
andclaSSroom level
Recognition of a child’s worth hinges on valuing, encouraging and acting
on their achievement of agency, including the child constructing critiques of
schooling provision. The UNCRC (1989) is emphatic that there must be
formal and informal mechanisms for learners to make a complaint or sug-
gestions for improving the life of the school (Articles 12, 13); students
(and staff) must be consulted about the quality of the teaching and learn-
ing in the school (Article 5, 12 and 18); and children must have the free-
dom to express their own political, religious or other opinions during their
learning, whatever the outlook of the teacher (Articles 12, 13, 14 and 17).
Relatedly, children must feel safe somewhere in school to express negative
feelings without fear and have these acted upon, despite the inconve-
niences this might entail for staff. From a researcher perspective, we would
promote continuous, rigorous research by children with their teachers
about how, when and where children evidence wellbeing most fully while
learning at school. This book has attempted to make a start on supporting
children to represent their perspectives, critiques and feelings about
schooling as a positive experience.
referenceS
Clark, A. E., Flèche, S., Layard, R., Powdthavee, N., & Ward, G. (2018). The
origins of happiness: The science of well-being over the life course. Princeton
University Press.
Fraser, N. (2022). Cannibal capitalism. Verso.
10 IMAGINING SCHOOLING AS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE: CONCLUSIONS…

224
Jerome, L., & Starkey, H. (2021). Developing children’s agency within a chil-
dren’s rights education framework: 10 propositions. Education 3-13, 50(4),
439–451. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2022.2052233
Owens, J., & de St Croix, T. (2020). Engines of social mobility? Navigating meri-
tocratic education discourse in an unequal society. British Journal of
Educational Studies, 68(4), 403–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/0007100
5.2019.1708863
Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2019). Brick by brick: The origins, development, and future
of self-determination theory. In A.J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation sci-
ence (6) (pp. 111–156). Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.
adms.2019.01.001
United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). (1989).
http://wunrn.org/reference/pdf/Convention_Rights_Child.PDF
Watkins, C. (2010). Learning, performance and improvement. Research Matters:
The Research Publication of the International Network for School
Improvement.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to
the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license
and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
E. HARGREAVES ET AL.

225© The Author(s) 2025
E. Hargreaves et al., Children’s Life-Histories in Primary Schools,
Palgrave Critical Perspectives on Schooling, Teachers and Teaching,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69445-5_10
Index
A
Ability, viii, 31, 34, 41, 133, 156, 159
Agency, vii, 2, 6, 14, 16, 21, 45, 46,
50, 52, 53, 56, 57, 88, 104, 109,
112, 113, 123, 137, 144, 147,
155, 173–180, 185, 189, 194,
197, 200, 207, 213, 220,
222, 223
Alienation, 16, 26, 190, 204–208
Anger, 16, 32, 91, 108, 114, 140,
160, 187, 188, 190
Animals, 76, 79, 80, 117, 120,
163, 166
Anxiety, stress, 186–191
Art, viii, 40, 41, 68, 72–74, 83, 101,
127, 131, 144, 149, 154–158,
163, 164, 166, 216, 221, 223
Attainment group, 19, 184, 207
Attention Decit and Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD), 76, 120, 121,
127, 129, 185, 202
Autonomous Learning Orientation,
21, 57, 59, 64–65, 85, 138–151
Avoidance of punishments, 18
B
Belonging, 18, 30, 198, 200, 206,
208, 216, 222
Bourdieu, P., 35, 42, 174, 199
Break-time, lunch-time, ix, 16, 44, 58,
94, 167, 168, 179, 186, 192,
193, 202, 203, 208, 217,
218, 222
C
Care, ix, 21, 29, 32, 33, 40, 42, 65,
66, 68, 72, 110, 112, 113, 136,
193, 194, 198, 200, 203, 204,
206, 208, 216, 220
Choosing, 140, 162, 175, 176, 187,
189, 190
Cognitive learning, 199, 200, 205
Comparison, 50, 54, 55, 105,
195, 215
Competent, vii, 10, 13, 33, 77, 85,
98, 112, 117, 127, 153, 175,
179, 183, 193, 198, 200,
206, 215

226 INDEX
Concentration, 70, 88, 96, 105, 166,
191, 215
Controlled Performance Orientation,
20, 21, 57–58, 64, 65, 110–114,
117, 118, 124, 125, 133, 193
Core subjects, 4, 10, 15, 19, 29, 56,
59, 65, 156, 159–161, 168, 186
Cruel and cynical ction, 27, 52, 56,
185, 191, 215, 221
Curriculum, viii, 19, 21, 29, 33, 42,
43, 69, 80, 95, 155–168, 179,
194, 207, 208, 217, 219, 221
D
Deci, Edward, xv, 14, 15, 17–18, 20,
29, 39, 44, 45, 49–60, 63–65,
155, 175, 198, 199, 206, 213
Decision-making, 15, 30, 32, 214
Democracy, 143, 157, 179
Disadvantage, 27, 35, 94, 166, 180
E
Education Reform Act of 1988,
3, 19, 158
Education Secretary, 41, 42
Employment, 16, 27, 85, 133, 135
English-lessons, 19, 72, 101, 105,
150, 161, 163, 166, 167
Equality, 15, 31–33
F
Failure, 26, 49, 55, 56, 63, 69, 73, 88,
118, 159, 164, 181, 191, 207
Francis, B., 3, 19, 154, 159
Fraser, Nancy, xv, 14–17, 20, 25–36,
44, 45, 154, 157, 178, 213, 214,
219, 220
Freedom, 30, 41, 56, 175, 178, 179,
181–183, 186, 188, 189, 192,
193, 202, 215, 216, 223
H
Happiness, 34, 120, 201, 219
Hard work, 16, 17, 25, 26, 56, 80,
85, 92, 105, 113, 118, 121, 123,
131, 133, 134, 147, 149,
191–193, 207, 219
Help, 10, 17, 41, 52, 55, 56, 60,
76, 79, 81, 85, 87, 88, 92, 95,
101, 104, 105, 107, 109, 113,
116, 120, 121, 124, 128, 133,
143, 144, 150, 162, 177, 180,
185, 188, 191–192, 197,
199–201, 203, 204, 207–209,
215, 221
High-attainment, 42, 128, 194, 204
Human rights, 16, 29, 156, 186, 214
Humiliation, viii, ix, 32, 74, 92, 102,
105, 135, 181, 182
I
Imagination, 45, 46, 90, 144, 156,
176, 177, 215
Impersonal Performance Orientation,
20, 21, 58, 63–109, 193
Implication, 21, 55–56, 121, 155,
174, 200, 213, 219–220
Injustice, xv, 3, 4, 14–16, 28, 32, 33,
161, 213, 220
Intentional learning, 18–20, 30, 50,
51, 54, 80, 194, 200, 219,
221, 223
Intervention, 68, 101, 107, 124, 139,
143, 146, 149, 150, 158, 161,
184, 201, 206, 222
Interview activities, 14
J
Job, 27, 28, 52, 69, 70, 77,
83, 85, 88, 96, 99, 109,
121, 128, 133, 144, 164,
184, 186

227 INDEX
L
Learning, xv, 5, 14, 18–19, 30, 40, 43,
49–56, 64–65, 138–151, 155,
173, 198, 213
Learning vs. Performance, xv, 18–20,
42, 50–55, 92, 124, 213
Life-histories, xv, 1–10, 13, 14, 21,
28, 49, 51, 56, 57, 63–151, 155,
158, 160, 173–174, 178, 188,
192, 197, 204, 218–220
Low-attainment, 59, 90, 192
M
Mastery, 16, 55, 133, 153, 159, 160,
190, 215, 218
Mathematics, xv, 2, 13, 29, 39, 56, 63,
153–169, 178, 199, 215
Meritocracy, 15, 16, 26, 221
Motivation, 43, 45, 49, 50, 54, 55,
84, 96, 120, 155, 192, 198, 199
N
Nature-study, 80, 155, 157, 163, 216
Neoliberalism, 26, 220
O
Orientations, 17, 39, 49–60, 63–151,
155, 174, 213
P
Parity of participation, xv, 14, 15, 18,
20, 25–36, 44–46, 57, 153, 168,
208, 213, 219, 220
Participation, 10, 14–16, 29–33, 35,
41, 57, 64, 156, 160, 167, 169,
193, 198, 200, 209, 214, 216
Performance, xv, 16, 18–19, 34, 42,
49–55, 63–64, 66–137, 155, 175,
200, 213
Performativity, 14, 18, 29, 50, 53, 55,
63, 197, 201, 217–218
Political science, 14, 213
Positive experience and
wellness, 17, 39
Prior attainment, 34, 50, 54, 55, 63,
131, 183, 184, 194, 195, 207,
214, 215, 217
R
Reading, viii, 33, 41, 72, 73, 80, 83,
85, 90, 92, 96, 112, 121–123,
140, 149–151, 157, 161, 162,
166, 167, 183
Relatedness, 20, 33, 40, 45, 46, 52,
88, 144, 154, 155, 174,
197–209, 217, 219, 220, 222
Relevance, 28, 34, 135, 215
Representation, 15, 20, 28, 29, 32,
34, 158, 220, 223
Rewards, 21, 50, 51, 54, 55, 58,
63–65, 110, 117, 124, 125, 133,
184, 194, 215, 216
Ryan, Richard, xv, 14, 15, 17–18, 20,
29, 39, 44, 45, 49–60, 63–65,
155, 175, 198, 199, 206, 213
S
Safeguarding, 10, 186
Seating, 15, 217, 222
Self Determination Theory, xv, 15, 18,
20, 44–46, 56, 59, 198, 199,
215, 216
Self-efcacy, 153
Sense of Agency, 14, 15, 17–18, 20,
21, 29, 42, 45, 50, 52, 57–59,
63–109, 114, 117, 120, 121,
124, 125, 128, 135, 136,
138–151, 154, 155, 160,
173–195, 199, 208, 213, 215,
216, 218, 219

228 INDEX
Sense of Competence, xv, 14, 15, 17,
18, 20, 21, 29, 42, 45, 50, 56, 59,
65, 73, 91, 92, 94, 95, 99, 102,
104, 107, 112–114, 117,
123–125, 128, 129, 131, 135,
137, 140, 142, 146, 147,
149–151, 153–169, 175,
180–183, 185, 187–190, 197,
198, 200–204, 206–208, 215–219
Sense of Relatedness, 14, 15, 17, 18,
20, 21, 29, 42, 45, 59, 72, 90,
94, 98, 107, 108, 112, 122–125,
127, 129, 135, 139, 144, 146,
149, 155, 180, 183, 185, 186,
197–209, 215–217, 219, 221
Separation, 34, 135, 194, 202, 220
Social justice, 5, 14–16, 18, 20, 21,
25–36, 44, 45, 167–169, 174,
193, 199, 213, 214, 219–220
Social mobility, 25–28, 83, 165
Social psychology, 14, 15, 44, 213
Social reproduction, 25, 220
Sport, 3, 94, 105, 107, 127, 139, 140,
154, 155, 157, 163, 168, 179,
216, 221
Status hierarchy, 201
Status-subordination or
misrecognition, 15–17, 19, 21,
28, 31–36, 108, 173–195, 217
T
Testing, 2, 156, 168, 194, 216,
218, 221
Time pressure, 160, 216
U
United Nations Convention of the
Rights of the Child (UNCRC),
20, 29, 40–41, 156, 214, 220,
221, 223
V
Values, viii, x, 18, 26, 29, 31,
32, 34, 41, 53–55, 69,
77, 79, 81, 156, 157, 161,
167, 168, 174, 177, 178,
185, 191, 193–195,
198, 200
Voice, 4, 15, 28, 32, 113, 158,
190, 213
W
Watkins, Chris, 15, 18–20, 49–60, 63,
65, 197, 213
Wellbeing, viii, ix, xv, 13–15, 17–18,
20, 21, 25, 27–30, 32, 33,
39–46, 56, 57, 59, 65, 122, 123,
128, 129, 140, 153, 155, 156,
158, 159, 164, 167–169, 174,
179, 187, 197–209,
213–221, 223
White, J., 17, 18, 20, 39–45, 51, 59,
154, 156, 159, 160
Writing, viii, 33, 41, 51, 55, 68,
72, 73, 76, 83, 87, 90–92,
95, 96, 99, 109, 121, 122, 161,
162, 166, 167, 185, 188,
189, 206