Beyond Voice: High-Quality Interactions and Children’s Agency in Early Childhood Education

Abstract Children’s participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is widely recognised as a right. Yet in everyday practice it is shaped by power relations, routines and the material-temporal organisation of settings. This article examines how children’s agency, the capacity to act, negotiate and influence within social and institutional contexts, is enacted, supported or constrained in daily interactions between educators and children. Drawing on ethnographic research in three German ECEC centres implementing the Kita-Beirat (ECEC Council), the study combines participant observation, group interviews and child-led methods inspired by the Mosaic Approach. The analysis shows how interaction quality emerges through three interrelated dimensions: power dynamics, relationships and space–time, which together shape children’s possibilities for agency. These are examined through an integrated theoretical framework that brings together relational agency, Foucauldian understandings of power and socio-material perspectives on space–time. The findings show that while formal participatory structures can open spaces for children’s influence, agency is primarily realised through high-quality, participatory interactions, marked by shared attention, reciprocity and the co-construction of meaning between children and educators. Supporting agency thus requires not only procedural mechanisms for participation but also relational and reflective pedagogies that make power visible, nurture children’s contributions and open dialogue as a shared practice. The article concludes by arguing for a view of participation as lived, negotiated and ethically grounded in the co-production of meaning and practice.