‘Ordinary Magic’ in Extraordinary Times: Ukrainian children’s agency and resilience despite conflict-related educational disruption

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the impact on children’s education has been devastating. Over four thousand educational institutions have been damaged, and millions of children have experienced prolonged disruption to their learning (MOES, 2025; UNICEF, 2024a). Yet despite this, Ukrainian children continue to demonstrate remarkable agency and resilience. They are not simply passive victims of war but are active social agents who shape their learning, relationships and everyday routines.

Much of the literature on education in emergencies focuses on what adults can do for children (Danese and Martsenkovskyi, 2023; Flyarkovska et al., 2023; Zakharchenko et al., 2025). However, the New Social Studies of Childhood model argues that children are active participants in society who co-construct their social worlds (Prout and James, 2014; Corsaro and Everitt, 2023). Agency, as James and James (2008) explain, is the capacity of individuals to act independently, albeit within societal and political constraints. This is particularly relevant in Ukraine, where children’s choices are shaped by displacement, trauma and uncertainty, yet their capacity to act remains evident.

Resilience theory also helps illuminate children’s experiences. Masten (2001; 2014) describes resilience as ‘ordinary magic’ (Masten, 2001, p. 227): the everyday adaptive systems that help individuals cope with adversity. Ungar (2011) expands this by emphasising the social ecology of resilience, arguing that children’s adaptive capacities depend on access to meaningful resources and supportive relationships. In Ukraine, these theories come to life in the everyday actions of children who rebuild routines, support peers and co-create learning spaces, even during the fallout of war.

This blog post focuses on those everyday acts. It explores how Ukrainian children demonstrate agency and resilience, even in challenging circumstances. These examples show that children are not merely recipients of aid but are active contributors to the continuity of learning in Ukraine.

Co-created learning environments

All over Ukraine, children are helping to adapt their learning spaces. UNICEF’s “2 by 2” model, designed for preschoolers who are displaced or with disabilities, offers two-hour sessions twice a week in safe locations (UNICEF, 2024b). These sessions focus on mental health, emotional intelligence and cooperation, while also providing opportunities for children to express themselves through open-ended materials, art and play (UNICEF, 2025).

Here, children are not just passive participants. They are co producers of their everyday worlds (Corsaro and Everitt, 2023). Sasha, aged four, displaced from Polohy, now attends sessions in Zaporizhzhya. She explains, ‘I love playing, drawing and making things out of coloured paper. But most of all, I love dancing. I also practice acrobatics and show my friends and teachers everything I’ve learned’ (UNICEF, 2025, para. 5). Her dancing and creativity are powerful examples of Masten’s (2001, p. 227) ‘ordinary magic’, illustrating how children combine agency and resilience to create adaptive strategies.

In Zhytomyr, adolescents attending the SviTy club decorated their learning spaces with “Tree of Strength” and “Dove of Peace” artwork (Kids of Ukraine, 2024).

Figures 1 and 2: Children’s ‘Tree of Strength’ and ‘Dove of Peace’ artwork
Source: Kids of Ukraine (2024, p. 5)

These images are more than decoration; they are metaphors through which children explore their feelings, reclaim their environments and create spaces that reflect their identities and hopes, exhibiting Ungar’s (2011) emphasis on protective systems and co-constructed strategies for resilience.

Creative expression also plays a central role in the Voices Camp organised by the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation. Here, children engage in poetry, storytelling and performance (Voices of Children, 2025). Fourteen-year-old Polina found comfort in writing and sharing her poetry with her peers. She reflects, ‘life goes on: don’t give up – make it happier yourself’ (Voices of Children, 2025, para. 9). Her words capture James and James’s (2008) essence of agency: the capacity to act and to choose and to shape one’s emotional landscape even in the face of adversity.

Children taking on active roles and responsibilities

Beyond creative expression, many Ukrainian children are taking on responsibilities that support their communities. In Yuzhne, adolescents aged thirteen to sixteen have ‘answered the call of their school director to help their community’ (Butlin, 2024, para. 2) learning first aid and emergency safety skills. One participant explained, ‘If something happens, I’ll know what to do.’ (Butlin, 2024, para. 5). This is a striking example of children stepping into roles that contribute to the protective systems around them. They are not only building their own resilience but also strengthening that of their communities, reflecting Ungar’s (2011) emphasis on social ecological support.

Kids of Ukraine (2025a; 2025b) document further examples of children taking on active roles. In February 2025, teenagers in Lviv took part in the recording of a real podcast (Kids of Ukraine, 2025a). Through this, children explored the things that made them unique and played the role of host, asking questions and shaping the recording. Children ‘did not just listen but took an active part’ (Kids of Ukraine, 2025a, p. 3).

Additionally, in March 2025, children completed a series of workshops around self-discovery and changemaking (Kids of Ukraine, 2025b). They identified their personal values and mission and were able to set goals for the application of these to real life situations (Kids of Ukraine, 2025b).  This youth engagement approach is key to Escamilla’s (2023) argument that Ukrainian youth must be given opportunities to take on responsibilities and influence decisions that affect them.

Children have also contributed to research that shapes the support they receive. Bogdanov et al. (2021) developed a culturally relevant resilience measure for adolescents in eastern Ukraine by working directly with participants aged nine to eighteen. Their involvement ensured that the resulting tool reflected the lived experiences of children in conflict affected areas. This is a powerful example of children shaping the knowledge and practices used to support them.

Everyday acts that sustain learning

Across Ukraine, children are finding ways to sustain learning even when formal systems are disrupted. Peer homework clubs, online study groups and informal learning circles have emerged in many communities. These initiatives reflect Masten’s (2001, p. 227) idea of ‘ordinary magic’. They show how children draw on relationships, routines and shared purpose to maintain continuity in their education.

Building on this, Giordano et al. (2024) illustrate how Ukrainian youth actively build peer support networks and facilitate resilience building themselves, as well as recognising the need for protective systems.  In this sense, agency and resilience again become intertwined: children’s purposeful engagement contributes to collective adaptation and structures, and these structures in turn reinforce children’s resilience and agency.

Taken together, these examples challenge the narrative of children as passive victims of war. They show that Ukrainian children are active social agents who shape their environments, relationships and learning. Their actions reveal a dynamic interplay between agency and resilience. Children in Ukraine are adapting to adversity through creative expression, peer support, community engagement and the co construction of safe and meaningful spaces.

These everyday acts matter. They sustain learning, strengthen communities and contribute to the broader recovery of Ukraine. They also offer valuable insights for other conflict affected contexts. When children are recognised as capable actors, and when supportive structures are in place, their ‘ordinary magic’ (Masten, 2001, p. 227) can flourish even in extraordinary circumstances.

References

Bogdanov, S. et al. (2021) ‘Developing a Culturally Relevant Measure of Resilience for War-Affected Adolescents in Eastern Ukraine’, Journal on education in emergencies, 7(2), pp. 311–334. Available at: https://doi.org/10.33682/wxrd-x8fq. (Accessed: 1 November 2025).

Butlin, L. (2024) ‘Hope in Conflict: How Children in Ukraine are Learning Lifesaving Skills Amid the Chaos of War’, REACT. Available at: https://www.re-act.org.uk/news/hope-frontlines-how-children-ukraine-are-learning-lifesaving-skills-amid-chaos-war/. (Accessed: 3 December 2025).

Corsaro, W. and Everitt, J. (2023) The Sociology of Childhood. 6^th ed.Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.

Danese, A., & Martsenkovskyi, D (2023). ‘Editorial: Measuring and Buffering the Mental Health Impact of the War in Ukraine in Young People’ Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 62(3), pp. 294–296. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2022.11.001. Accessed: 4 December 2025.

Escamilla, A. (2023) (Re)Building the Future: Harnessing youth potential for the post-war recovery and transformation of Ukraine. Brussels: Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS). Available at: https://feps-europe.eu/publication/rebuilding-the-future/. (Accessed: 29 October 2025).

Flyarkovska, O. et al. (2023) ‘A Comprehensive Approach to the Management of Psychological Services in the Education System of Ukraine: Economic Component’. Baltic Journal of Economic Studies, 9 (5), pp. 261–265. Available at: https://doi.org/10.30525/2256-0742/2023-9-5-261-265. (Accessed 29 October 2025).

Giordano, F. et al. (2024) ‘Resilience processes among Ukrainian youth preparing to build resilience with peers during the Ukraine-Russia war’, Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1331886. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1331886 (Accessed: 4 December 2025).

James, A. and James, A. (2008) Key Concepts in Childhood Studies. London: Sage.

Kids of Ukraine (2024) Impact Report, September 2024. Available at: https://kidsofua.org/en/reporting/#tab-18544. (Accessed: 4 December 2025).

Kids of Ukraine (2025a) Impact Report, February 2025. Available at: https://kidsofua.org/en/reporting/#tab-18554. (Accessed: 4 December 2025).

Kids of Ukraine (2025b) Impact Report, March 2025. Available at: https://kidsofua.org/en/reporting/#tab-18553. (Accessed: 4 December 2025).

Prout, A. and James, A. (2014) ‘A new paradigm for the sociology of childhood? Provenance, promises and problems’. In A. James and A. Prout (eds), Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, pp.6–28. 3rd ed. London: Taylor & Francis Group.

Masten, A. S. (2001) ‘Ordinary Magic: Resilience Processes in Development’, The American Psychologist, 56 (3), pp. 227–238. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066x.56.3.227 (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Masten, A. S. (2014) ‘Global Perspectives on Resilience in Children and Youth’, Child Development, 85 (1), pp. 6–20. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12205 (Accessed: 15 October 2025).

Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (2025) Education in Emergencies. Available at: https://saveschools.in.ua/en/ (Accessed: 28 November 2025).

Ungar, M. (2011) ‘The Social Ecology of Resilience: Addressing Contextual and Cultural Ambiguity of a Nascent Construct’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81 (1), pp. 1–17. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01067.x. (Accessed: 3 October 2025).

UNICEF (2024a) Situation Analysis of Children in Ukraine 2024. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/ukraine/en/reports/sitan2024 (Accessed: 17 November 2025).

UNICEF (2024b) Building resilience of children affected by war in Ukraine: The “2 by 2” model for Early Childhood Education. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/media/162671/file/Education%20Case%20study%20-%20Ukraine%202024.pdf (Accessed: 3 December 2025).

UNICEF (2025) Preschool children learn key skills at catch-up classes in Ukraine. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/ukraine/en/stories/preschool-children-learn-key-skills (Accessed: 3 December 2025).

Voices of Children (2025) “Life Goes on: Make it Happier Yourself”: the story of 14-year-old Polina from Kramatorsk. Available at: https://voices.org.ua/en/stories/zhittya-prodovzhuyetsya-robit-jogo-shaslivim-sami-istoriya-14-richnoyi-polini-z-kramatorska-yaka-pishe-virshi-shob-vivilniti-svij-dosvid. (Accessed: 4 December 2025).

Zakharchenko, T. et al. (2025) ‘Estimating the impact of the Russian invasion on the displacement of graduating high school students in Ukraine’, Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 12 (1), pp. 1-10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-04675-5. (Accessed: 28 October 2025).

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