Fashioning a Mind of One’s Own in the Good Company of Others

ABSTRACT While much theoretical work on value takes point of departure in what adults presumably value, this chapter addresses the valuing work children do. Articulating ideals of ‘being social’ and ‘being oneself’ as good forms of personhood, Danish teachers oblige children to enact a good form of ‘being together as a class’, a sociability considered vital to democratic society. Drawing on discussions of value exemplarity, I suggest that Danish school classes may be viewed from an adult perspective as exemplars representing, and to some extent realising, a high-sung value of egalitarian community. For children tasked with living out an idealised social form, the class is a limited social field, one they ‘value’ through myriad small valuing acts lodged in the sociable give and take of everyday class activity. The verb form is crucial here for exploring, not how children take on adult values, but rather what comes to matter to children as they, inescapably themselves, navigate the ‘class’ as an imposed social field and highly valued form of sociability.