Consent in the Childhood Classroom Centering Student Voices Across Early Years and Elementary Education

"Clio Stearns gives us a rich picture of children's real lives in school. She treats them as whole human beings whose inner lives are as meaningful and complex as any adults'. Through sensitive and respectful observations and interviews of both children and teachers, she takes us beyond the learning and emotions of the classroom to the often-neglected moral context."

-John Hornstein, Faculty in the Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship Program at the University of California-Davis, USA

"Consent in the Childhood Classroom is a powerful investigation of what it means to take children's desires and needs seriously in the context of school-to honor their capacity and right to consent, even as we acknowledge the limitations of consent in a democratic society. In its rich descriptions of the interactions that make up teaching and learning, the book pushes us to see, challenge, and reimagine what it might look like for educators and students to partner in the critical task of understanding each other's agency. Then, it helps us reimagine how to move through moments when our agency is limited, centering transparency, trust, and authentic intergenerational partnership."

-Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Lecturer on Education in the Prevention Science & Practice Program at Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA