Following the introduction of the concept of agency by the New Sociology of Childhood, the concept has dominated discourses about children's everyday lives. Nevertheless, little is known about schoolchildren's agency in their daily interactions with the service providers of Ghana's school feeding programme. Through this qualitative study, the paper provides empirical evidence to show how children in restrictive contexts exercise ‘thin’ agency in their interactions with frontline service providers, leading to significant improvements in the quality of services delivered to them. Consequently, the article questions Michael Lipsky's assumption that clients have minimal effect on the services delivered to them.

中文翻译：

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“我们饿了，但我们不会吃食物”：学童的“瘦身”机构及其对加纳学校供餐计划实施的影响

在新儿童社会学引入代理概念之后，该概念主导了有关儿童日常生活的论述。然而，在与加纳学校供餐计划服务提供者的日常互动中，对学童的机构知之甚少。通过这项定性研究，本文提供了实证证据，表明在限制性环境中的儿童如何在与一线服务提供者的互动中运用“弱”代理，从而显着提高向他们提供的服务质量。因此，本文质疑 Michael Lipsky 的假设，即客户对提供给他们的服务的影响最小。