Conceptual development of ‘participation’ in and ‘conflicts’ about educational institutions

How can we understand the constitution of unequal possibilities of participation in societal institutions of education? In this paper, we want to shift the conceptual focus on inequality from issues outside societal institutions for children and young people (intergenerational transmission, family relationships, social background) to how the involved are dealing with social conflicts and historical contradictions within these institutions.
This conceptual turn emphasises possibilities of participation in social situations and leads to a concept of ’situated inequality’ – but what is meant by ‘participation’ and ‘participation possibilities’? How to observe social possibilities for participation and not just individual children, and how to work professionally and differently with the way children and their adults make up conditions for the participation of one another?
Different professionals across children's lives simultaneously have common tasks in relation to the children and different areas of responsibility and perspectives on the issues surrounding the children. The collaboration between professionals is thus both necessary and conflictual. To strengthen the conditions of the children’s conduct of everyday life across contexts we need to conceptualise ‘conflicts’ as related to collaboration on common but still contradictory matters - in the everyday life of educational institutions, different considerations must be reconciled every day through a flexible and exploring ‘conflictual collaboration’.
From a social practice perspective and in collaboration with professionals we explore situated inequality, and in the paper we will discuss and exemplify theoretical development in relation to the concept of participation.