Children’s reconstruction of psychological knowledge: An ethnographic study of life skills education programmes in India

Abstract

Despite calls for examining children’s lives relationally, dominant accounts view childhood as biologically, culturally or economically determined. Based on ethnographic observations of children’s life skills education programmes in Bangalore, this article shows how poor and marginalised children reposition themselves as ‘better educated’ and successful compared to peers, while a global network of professionals position them as ‘at-risk’, seeking to intervene in their lives. This article draws attention to how children can be seen as ‘strategically opportunising actors’, who creatively seek to make meaning of their lives despite structural and discursive constraints placed upon them.