Learning from Everyday Conflicts
from Part IV - Contradictory Co-production of Everyday Life with Children
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 August 2026
This chapter discusses how conflicts in and about school are rooted in contradictions intrinsic to the organization of public education. Drawing on ethnographic research in Danish schools, the chapter develops a dialectical framework for analyzing everyday conflicts among teachers, parents, and children. Building on analyses of children’s perspectives on what matters in school life, the chapter examine a conflict between a parent and a teacher over how to understand a child struggling in school. The analysis of conflictual collaboration is interwoven with a theoretical exploration of the relationships between historical conditions and the situated interplay of everyday life (Axel 2011; Dreier 2008; Lave 2019). The concept of “situated generalization” (Schraube and Højholt 2019) is introduced to reconnect problems with their broader social contexts and challenge dominant psychologizing approaches. By tracing how conflicts unfold and how problem formulations shift over time, the chapter offers new insights into the conditions for understanding school problems.
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