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ABSTRACT
Children and young people’s participation in collective decision-making has become a popular policy and practice concern. Yet challenges persist, such as tokenism, limited impact and unsustainability. This article examines ways to address these challenges and realise children and young people’s participation, particularly in child protection contexts. Conceptually, the article investigates three popular ideas – vulnerability, social accountability and co-production. Each idea potentially suggests revised and more emancipatory relationships between the state and service users. Practically, the article matches these ideas to examples of children and young people’s participation. The article concludes that claims to vulnerability’s universality are persuasive; however, conceptualisations fail to address adult power. Social accountability addresses power, but insufficiently addresses the current challenges of participation. Co-production has the most potential, with participation examples that have been meaningful, effective and sustainable.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the generous contributions of children and young people, professionals and policy-makers to studies that have informed this article. I wish to emphasise the collaborative nature of these studies, with the above and with numerous academic colleagues. I wish to thank colleagues for discussions related to ideas within this article: Rebecca Hewer (vulnerability), Patricio Cuevas Para (social accountability) and with colleagues on co-production (Lorraine van Blerk, Jeni Harden, Claire Houghton, Katrina Lloyd, Laura Lundy, Karen Orr, and Samantha Punch).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Note on contributor
E. Kay M. Tisdall is Professor of Childhood Policy and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships. Within her subject group of social policy, she is Programme Director of the MSc in Childhood Studies. She has a long-standing interest in children and young people’s participation, from her policy and research work.
ORCID
E. Kay M. Tisdall http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8967-6426
Notes
† The phrase ‘children and young people’ is generally used in this article, following young people's typical preference to be referred to as the latter. Broadly, ‘children and young people’ refers to children up to the age of 18, following the definition within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
1 UNICEF, ‘Child Club Helps Nepalese Children Find their Voice’, posted 3.1.4, UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/education/nepal_71686.html
2 J. Ennew and Y. Hastadewi, Seen and Heard: Participation of Children and Young People in Southeast, East Asia and Pacific in Events and Forums Leading to and Following Up On the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children (Bangkok: Save the Children Bangkok, 2004).
3 E.K.M. Tisdall, ‘Children and Young People's Participation: A Critical Consideration of Article 12’, in The Routledge International Handbook of Children's Rights Studies, ed. W. Vandenhole, E. Desmet, D. Reynaert, and D. Lembrechts (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015).
4 B. Daniel, ‘Concepts of Adversity, Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience: A Discussion in the Context of the “Child Protection System”’, Social Policy and Society 9, no. 2 (2010): 231–41.
5 L. Waterhouse and J. McGhee, ‘Introduction’, in Challenging Child Protection, ed. L. Waterhouse and J. McGhee (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2015).
6 UNICEF, What is Child Protection (2006), http://www.unicef.org/protection/files/What_is_Child_Protection.pdf
7 The terms ‘majority world’ and ‘minority world’ refer to what has traditionally been known as ‘the third world’ and ‘the first world’ or more recently as ‘the global south’ and ‘the global north’. This acknowledges that the ‘majority’ of the population, poverty, land mass and lifestyles is located in the former, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and thus seeks to shift the balance of our world views that frequently privilege ‘western’ and ‘northern’ populations and issues. S. Punch, ‘Childhoods in the Majority World: Miniature Adults or Tribal Children?’, Sociology 37, no. 2 (2003): 277–95.
8 S. Punch, ‘Exploring Children's Agency Across Majority and Minority World Contexts’, in Reconceptualising Agency and Childhood, ed. F. Esser, M.S. Baader, T. Betz, and B. Hungerland (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).
9 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 5 General Measures of Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (2003), http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CRC%2fGC%2f2003%2f5&Lang=en
10 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 12 The Right of the Child to be Heard (2009), 3, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/AdvanceVersions/CRC-C-GC-12.doc
11 B. Percy-Smith and N. Thomas, ed., A Handbook of Children and Young People's Participation: Perspectives from Theory and Practice (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010); G. Lansdown, Monitoring and Evaluating Children's Participation (2011), http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=25809&flag=report; E.K.M. Tisdall, R. Hinton, A. Gadda, and U.M. Butler, ‘Introduction’, in Children and Young People's Participation and its Transformative Potential: Learning from Across Countries, ed. E.K.M. Tisdall, A.M. Gadda, and U.M. Butler (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
12 C. O’Kane, ‘Children in Conflict Situations’, in The Sage Handbook of Early Childhood Research, ed. A. Farrell, S.L. Kagan, and E.K.M. Tisdall (London: Sage, 2015).
13 D. Rosen, ‘Child Soldiers, International Humanitarian Law, and the Globalization of Childhood’, American Anthropologist 109, no. 2 (2007): 296–306.
14 H. Montgomery, ‘Defining Child Trafficking & Child Prostitution: The Case of Thailand’, Seattle Journal for Social Justice 9, no. 2 (2011): 775–811.
15 M.A. Fineman, ‘The Vulnerable Subject: Anchoring Equality in the Human Condition’, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 20, no. 1 (2008): 1–18; M.A. Fineman, ‘The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State’, Emory Law Journal 60 (2010/11): 251–75; M.A. Fineman, ‘Equality, Autonomy and the Vulnerable Subject in Law and Politics’, in Vulnerability: Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics, ed. M.A. Fineman and A. Grear (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013).
16 B. Arneil, ‘Becoming versus Being: A Critical Analysis of the Child in Liberal Theory’, in The Moral and Political Status of Children, ed. D. Archard and C.M. Macleod (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 74.
17 For example, S. Dodds, ‘Dependence, Care and Vulnerability’, in Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy, ed. C. Mackenzie, W. Rogers, and S. Dodds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); M. Lotz, ‘Parental Values and Children's Vulnerability’, in Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy, ed. C. Mackenzie, W. Rogers, and S. Dodds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
18 See M.A. Fineman, ‘Equality, Autonomy and the Vulnerable Subject in Law and Politics’, in Vulnerability: Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics, ed. M.A. Fineman and A. Grear (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013); R. Hewer, ‘Book Review Vulnerability: Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics’, Social & Legal Studies 24, no. 3 (2015): 465–9.
19 C. Mackenzie, W. Rogers, and S. Dodds, ‘Introduction: What is Vulnerability and Why Does it Matter for Moral Theory?’, in Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy, ed. C. Mackenzie, W. Rogers, and S. Dodds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 9.
20 Ibid., 9.
21 Ibid.
22 C. Mackenzie, ‘The Importance of Relational Autonomy and Capabilities for an Ethics of Vulnerability’, in Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy, ed. C. Mackenzie, W. Rogers, and S. Dodds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 45.
23 H. Meintjes, ‘Growing Up in a Time of AIDS: The Shining Recorders of Zisize’, in Children and Young People's Participation and its Transformative Potential, ed. E.K.M. Tisdall, A. Gadda, and U.M. Butler (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014).
24 For example, D. Horgan, C. Forde, A. Parkes, S. Martin, L. Mages, and A. O’Connell, Children and Young People's Experiences of Participation in Decision-Making at Home, in Schools and in Their Communities (2015), http://www.dcya.gov.ie/documents/playandrec/20150617ExperienceParticipation.pdf
25 J. Qvortrup, ‘Are Children Human Beings or Human Becomings? A Critical Assessment of Outcome Thinking’, Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali 117, no. 3 (2009): 631.
26 See P. Alderson, ‘Younger Children's Individual Participation in “All Matters Affecting the Child”’, in A Handbook of Children and Young People's Participation, ed. B. Percy-Smith and N. Thomas (London: Routledge, 2009).
27 See also S. Coyle, ‘Vulnerability and the Liberal Order’, in Vulnerability: Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics, ed. M.A. Fineman and A. Grear (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013).
28 K. Valentin and L. Meinert, ‘The Adult North and the Young South’, Anthropology Today 25, no. 3 (2009): 23–8.
29 F. Sherwood-Johnson, ‘Constructions of “Vulnerability” in Comparative Perspective’, Disability & Society 28, no. 7 (2013): 908–21.
30 B. Turner, Vulnerability and Human Rights (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2006); A. Grear, Redirecting Human Rights: Facing the Challenge of Corporate Legal Humanity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
31 K. Brown, ‘Vulnerability: Handle with Care’, Ethics and Social Welfare 5, no. 3 (2011): 313–21.
32 B. Fawcett, ‘Vulnerability’, International Social Work 52, no. 4 (2009): 473–84.
33 To note that in the UK the disability movement largely prefers ‘disabled people’ to ‘people with disabilities’.
34 K. Tisdall and J. Davis, ‘Making a Difference? Bringing Children's and Young People's Views into Policy-Making’, Children & Society 18, no. 2 (2004): 131–42.
35 J. Aitken, Opinion of Counsel for the Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland, personal communication, 27 October 2015.
36 B. Daniel, ‘Concepts of Adversity, Risk, Vulnerability and Resilience; A Discussion in the Context of the “Child Protection System”’, Social Policy and Society 9, no. 2 (2010): 231–41; V.E. Munro and J. Scoular, ‘Abusing Vulnerability? Contemporary Law and Policy Responses to Sex Work in the UK’, Feminist Legal Studies 20, no. 3 (2012): 189–206; C. Philo, ‘The Geographies that Wound’, Population, Place and Space 11 (2005): 441–54.
37 Edstrom, ‘Time to Call the Bluff’, Development 53, no. 2 (2013): 215–21, 17.
38 E.D. Gibbons, Accountability for Children's Rights (2015), 4, http://www.unicef.org/policyanalysis/rights/files/Accountability-for-Childrens-Rights-UNICEF.pdf
39 UNDP, Reflections on Social Accountability (2013), http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/partners/civil_society/publications/2013_UNDP_Reflections-on-Social-Accountability_EN.pdf
40 Gibbons, Accountability for Children's Rights.
41 C. Malena with R. Forster and J. Singh, Social Accountability, Social Development Papers no. 76, (2004), http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/12/5529556/social-accountability-introduction-concept-emerging-practice
42 Ibid., 3.
43 UNDP, Reflections on Social Accountability.
44 Ibid., 89.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 L.T.P. Nguyen, Child-Responsive Accountability (2013), http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/iwp_2013_16.pdf. Nguyen describes the following in detail, which is picked up and accepted by E.D. Gibbons, Accountability for Children's Rights (2015), http://www.unicef.org/policyanalysis/rights/files/Accountability-for-Childrens-Rights-UNICEF.pdf
48 Gibbons, Accountability for Children's Rights, 11. To note this is belied by the example given on the same page, where it is reported that children have a role in planning and budgeting in Brazilian children's councils.
49 Ibid., 12.
50 Ibid., 12.
51 For example, G. Lansdown and C. O’Kane, A Toolkit for Monitoring and Evaluating Children's Participation (2014).
52 E.K.M. Tisdall, ‘Addressing the Challenges of Children and Young People's Participation: Considering Time and Space’, in Promoting the Participation of Children and Youth Across the Globe, ed. T. Gal and B.F. Duramy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
53 E.K.M. Tisdall, ‘Children's Wellbeing and Children's Rights in Tension?’, International Journal of Children's Rights 23, no. 4 (2015): 769–89.
54 E.K.M. Tisdall, A.M. Gadda, and U.M. Butler, eds., Children and Young People's Participation and its Transformative Potential: Learning from across countries (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
55 T. Brandsen and V. Pestoff, ‘Co-production, the Third Sector and the Delivery of Public Services’, Public Management Review 8, no. 4 (2006): 493–501.
56 D. Boyle and M. Harris, The Challenge of Co-production (2009), 11, http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/Co-production-report.pdf
57 C. Needham and S. Carr, Co-production: An Emerging Evidence Base for Adult Social Care Transformation (2009), http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/briefings/briefing31/
58 C. Durose, Y. Beebeejuan, J. Rees, J. Richardson, and L. Richardson, Towards Co-Production in Research with Communities (2011), 2, http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/documents/project-reports-and-reviews/connected-communities/towards-co-production-in-research-with-communities/
59 A. Williams, Comment: Is Co-Production Taking Youth Participation to a New Level? Children and Young People Now (2010), http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/1045146/National-Youth-Agency-Comment–coproduction-taking-youth-participation-new-level/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH
60 L. Stephens, L. Ryan-Collins, and D. Boyle, Co-production (2008), 10, http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/co-production
61 Young Scot, Building the Boat: Young People as Co-Producers of Policy (no date), http://www.youngscot.net/what-we-do/key-documents/building-the-boat.aspx. Young Scot are repeating this process in 2016, with a Youth Commission on iRights (children and young people's digital rights), https://rewards.youngscot.org/activities/1425-apply-youth-commission-for-irights
62 S. Robb, Public Policy Making. Exploring New Pathways: Children in Scotland Supplement (2012), http://www.crfr.ac.uk/assets/CIS-CRFR-participation-project.pdfScottish. Borders Council; Scottish Borders Youth Commission on Bullying, Recommendations (2012), http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/downloads/file/3474/scottish_borders_youth_commission_on_bullying
63 Voice against Violence, http://www.voiceagainstviolence.org.uk/; C. Houghton, ‘Voice against Violence: Young People's Experience of Domestic Abuse Policy-Making in Scotland’ (PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2013).
64 Tisdall, ‘Addressing the Challenges of Children and Young People's Participation’.
65 Ibid.
66 Keradi Alcohol Story, Directed by Makkala Toofan (2015), https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3MAx-b6BpynVG51b1FqdVg0cFU/edit
67 Children's Report: Stand with Me – Our Uncertain Future (2014), http://cdn.worldvision.org.uk/files/2013/9451/9407/Our-Uncertain-Future-Syria-Report.pdf
68 Needham and Carr, Co-production.
69 E.K.M. Tisdall, ‘The Transformation of Participation? Exploring the Potential of “Transformative Participation” for Theory and Practice Around Children and Young People's Participation’, Global Studies of Childhood 3, no. 2 (2013): 183–93.
70 Literature on the wider concept of accountability considers horizontal relationships extensively (for example, internal mechanisms of accountability within the state).
71 For a similar conclusion in development contexts, see P. Cuevas Para, ‘All Views Matter: Critically Exploring the Processes and Outcomes of Child-Lead Research in Conflict-Prone and Other Complex Environments’ (paper presented at BSA conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, 15 April 2016).