NIPIAC - Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Pesquisa e Intercâmbio para a Infância e Adolescência Contemporâneas

‘Developmentalism’ continues to feed as a theoretical input and a practical regulation of adult-children relationships. The paper, based on an empirical investigation with Brazilian children, discusses how participation views of students and school staff, premised on the ‘good-enough student’, commit participation to an unchallenged school hierarchy, non-reciprocal adult-child relationships, a single standpoint from where to envisage the educational process and a de-politicization of school life. Consequently, the effective inclusion of children in society, constituting an important political challenge of our time, must be faced so that children’s participation can become more real and less rhetoric.