Learning and human development

Through three historiographies, we examine competing conceptualisations of learning and human development. First, we use the phenomenon of school strikes in the UK and North America to discuss the ways in which society reacts when children decide to leave schools in protest if injustice. Second, We discuss the concept of the plurilingual child as a unit of analysis for thinking about the changing ways in which children who speak more than one language have been viewed by schools. Finally, we address some of the mythology of what it means to come to age in the new digital age. We conclude with the on going tension that characterises the contested histories of how children learn: that of the structure of childhood and the agency of children themselves.