On Friday, 3 May 2019, I joined my two daughters on a strike for climate action organized by a local youth-led organization in Cyprus. Mostly attended by children and young people with a few parents and other adults, the strike was quite small (less than 150 people by my estimation) but nevertheless full of excitement, passion, and determination. As we marched through the streets of Nicosia, it was clear that the children and young people who participated took the future very seriously. From the banners they held to the slogans they shouted, there was no doubt that they had every intention to fight for a better future. For a generation often accused of being passive and totally preoccupied with their own selves, their digital devices, and social media, they were ready to show that there is another side to their life trajectories—that they are futuremakers (Appadurai, 2013), prepared to take the lead, to fight, to reclaim the future from adults and imagine it otherwise. The political action was part of a larger mobilization to address climate change, largely initiated and led by children and young people seeking to set the agenda for climate change debates in more forceful terms and in light of adults’ failure to address the crisis effectively. Spearheaded by Greta Thunberg who started her “school strike for the climate” outside the Swedish parliament in August 2018, a global, childand youth-led social movement has evolved. The movement (and Greta Thunberg herself) has received unprecedented media attention, with both praise and disapproval (including condemnation in some instances), all revealing the complexity of public attitudes toward children’s political activism and their claims for the future. Although the real impact and sustainability of such a movement remains to be seen, it is clear that the leading role of children and young people has reignited a public debate on climate change around the globe and created much more awareness about the risks of climate change for human beings and life on the planet as a whole. Children’s political activism is of course not a new phenomenon. Given the unprecedented media coverage, the opportunities afforded by social media and the unfortunate visible manifestations of climate change (from multiple heat waves and record temperatures to forest fires and hurricanes), children’s political intervention in the climate debate illustrates to the world what childhood studies has been arguing for years, most notably that children, far from being passive and naïve, are knowledgeable social actors who can, on occasion, also act as agents of change. What we have failed to communicate beyond the field is vividly communicated by children themselves at a global scale through their activism: they are asking to be taken seriously as future-makers challenging adult authority and control and asking for decisive change. 884142 CHD0010.1177/0907568219884142ChildhoodEditorial editorial2019

中文翻译：

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儿童成为未来的创造者

在2019年5月3日星期五，我和我的两个女儿一起参加了由塞浦路斯当地青年领导的组织组织的一次气候行动罢工。罢工主要由儿童和年轻人以及少数父母和其他成年人参加，罢工规模很小（据我估计少于150人），但充满了兴奋，激情和决心。当我们在尼科西亚的街道上游行时，很明显，参加活动的儿童和年轻人非常重视未来。从他们举起的标语到他们大喊的口号，毫无疑问，他们有为争取更好的未来而奋斗的意图。对于经常被指为被动的人们，他们完全专注于自己，自己的数字设备和社交媒体，他们准备表明他们的生活轨迹还有另一面-他们是未来的创造者（Appadurai，2013年），准备带头奋战，从成年人那里夺回未来，并以其他方式想象。政治行动是为应对气候变化而进行的更大动员活动的一部分，该动议很大程度上是由儿童和年轻人发起并领导的，他们试图以更有力的方式并鉴于成年人未能有效解决危机而为气候变化辩论确定议程。由格蕾塔·滕贝格（Greta Thunberg）率领的她于2018年8月在瑞典议会外发起了“气候变化学校罢工”，这是一场由儿童和青年主导的全球性社会运动。该运动（以及Greta Thunberg本人）受到了前所未有的媒体关注，受到了赞扬和反对（包括在某些情况下的谴责），所有这些都揭示了公众对儿童政治行动主义及其对未来的主张的态度的复杂性。尽管这种运动的真正影响和可持续性还有待观察，但很明显，儿童和年轻人的领导作用重新点燃了全球气候变化的公开辩论，并使人们对气候变化的风险有了更多的认识。人类和整个地球上的生命。儿童的政治行动主义当然不是一个新现象。鉴于媒体的空前报道，社交媒体提供了机会，而且气候变化的不幸可见表现（从多次热浪和创纪录的气温到森林大火和飓风），儿童在气候辩论中的政治干预向世界说明了儿童研究多年以来一直在争论的问题，最显着的是，儿童不仅是被动的和幼稚的，而且是知识渊博的社会参与者，有时还可以充当变革的推动者。孩子们自己通过他们的积极行动在全球范围内生动地传达了我们在野外无法传达的信息：他们要求被认真对待，因为未来的制造者挑战成人的权威和控制力并要求果断的改变。884142 CHD0010.1177 / 0907568219884142儿童社论社论2019 孩子们自己通过他们的积极行动在全球范围内生动地传达了我们在野外无法传达的信息：他们要求被认真对待，因为未来的制造者挑战成人的权威和控制力并要求果断的改变。884142 CHD0010.1177 / 0907568219884142儿童社论社论2019 孩子们自己通过他们的积极行动在全球范围内生动地传达了我们在野外无法传达的信息：他们要求被认真对待，因为未来的制造者挑战成人的权威和控制力并要求果断的改变。884142 CHD0010.1177 / 0907568219884142儿童社论社论2019