Exploring the (re)production of inequality in the institutional everyday life of children

This presentation is based on an ongoing PhD project focusing on the concept of “situated inequality” (Højholt, 2016; Højholt & Røn-Larsen, 2021a, 2021b). Rather than understanding inequality solely as something predefined, the project examines, with roots within a cultural historical tradition, how children's (unequal) opportunities for participating are shaped and changed as a part of their institutional everyday lives through their interactions with each other and the professionals.

The aim of this presentation is to open up for an discussion on how inequality, investigated as unequal possibilities of participation, can impact children’s everyday life and also how the institutional conditions are a part of (re)producing inequality locally (McDermott, 1996; Mehan et al., 1986). This is an important part of getting more situated knowledge about how such dynamics of inequality can be prevented by working with expanding children's opportunities of participation across the different social practices, where they live their everyday life. We need to look insight the institutional arrangements, where inequality have a variety of meanings for children in their shared everyday life – It calls for opening "the black box of inequality” (Højholt & Røn-Larsen, 2021a, p. 605).

This presentation takes its starting point in the projects empirical work consisting of qualitative data from participant observations and situated interviews combined with quantitative analyzes of statistical data on institutional conditions from diverging municipalities. With this combination the project seeks to explore the institutional inequality, conceptualized as the institutional conditions that promote and prevent inequality as they unfold in situated practices.