Situated inequality in education: How to explore children’s conditions for participation from the perspective of subjective reasons

Based on an ongoing research-project about "Leisure time pedagogy and situated inequality", we present the theoretical framework for understanding inequality in school as related to concrete social dynamics in the everyday life among both children and different professionals. By empirical examples, we illustrate how inequality relates to social situations and nexuses across children's compound everyday life contexts. Observations of situations in children's everyday school life illustrate how children together maneuver in double agendas related to social dynamics, academic tasks, collaboration, friendships, competition, conflicts, performance, etc. Including this acknowledgement of the signification of children's access to collaboration with other children points to methodological challenges. These are among other things related to exploring the social dynamics in communities from the perspectives of the children and to explore social - structural and historical - conditions in their concrete meanings to subjects and their everyday life. We will propose the concept of reasons - and not just reasons but what we term 'chains of reasons' as a methodological possibility for exploring structural conditions from the perspectives of the subjects living them. This has significances to how we move within our fieldwork and move our research according to the subjective reasons. When children's unequal conditions for taking part in school life are explored as 'wicked problems' in the sense that they relate to other problems, we must move our research - extend it into new contexts. In this way we work analytical and explorative with 'chains of reasons' as pointing to conditions of the problems and guiding the focus of exploration. In the research project, we conduct participatory observations in the life contexts of the children and in the working contexts of the professionals -- such as meetings, interdisciplinary collaboration and conflicts. Also, we conduct interviews with the involved and arrange research collaboration with the professionals. The theoretical basis for this exploration is a practice and subject oriented critical psychology with a focus on children's development of conduct of everyday life.