In this book, we have set out to explore the notion of kid power, both as it is understood more conventionally and as we believe it should more fully be analysed and recognized. In Section 1, we concentrated on the former. We argued, in Chapters 2– 4, that a conventional conception of kid power which emphasises the rise of children's power at the expense of adults, offers a limited understanding of the power dynamics between adults and children. Furthermore, kid power is, in many ways, complicated by the growing attention to adult ‘responsibility’ within policy and practices. Chapter 2 discussed the rights agenda, which has placed a much higher premium on adults’ ‘caretaker role’ in relation to children. It described a set of global expectations that adults and institutions oversee and monitor children's welfare and well-being, as well as provide limited channels through which children have some involvement in the latter. However, adults have a regulatory role and implicit responsibility, leading to more complex configurations of generational power than the conventional idea of adults having overt power over children. Furthermore, while the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child challenges the view that adults retain power over children in terms of viewing children as property, in the majority of countries parents still retain the capacity to physically chastise their children. In addition, children's rights are often conceptualised rather unidimensionally and discursively, as them ‘having a voice’, leaving other dimensions and more material contributions less explored.

Chapter 3 focused on the role of teachers controlling and regulating children's educational and cognitive development at a distance. Childcentred education is increasingly becoming a norm globally, albeit there is large variation as to how it is perceived and practiced. Child-centred education represents a departure from earlier forms of teacher-centred pedagogy and opens up spaces, especially for young children, to express themselves. However, as we have argued, this should not be confused with a redistribution of power to children, as adults continue to construct spaces through which education and development are merged, underwriting children's emotional, cognitive and educational growth.