The (slow) urgency of socio-ecological justice in ESE – listening to children in marginalized positions in ESE research

This essay discusses the relation between education and the pursuit of societal transformation with a view to questions of socio-ecological justice. Our research interest centers on young children’s right to participation and voice, on the inequalities which constitute barriers to this participation, and on the potentials of a more fine-tuned pedagogy of listening to children’s voices and relations with the non-human environment in our research practices. The essay is based on an ongoing dialogue about research on sustainability educational responses to the voices of children in marginalized positions across two very different geographical and socio-cultural settings – the Danish welfare state and post-apartheid South Africa (see James & Jørgensen, forthcoming). Here we pay attention to the dangers of urgency (dualism, instrumentalism, and dominant narratives) and the focus on the voices of young children in research as a practice that resists these dangers.