Councils, consultations and community: rethinking the spaces for children and young people's participation1

This paper is based on ideas in two separate papers presented at the RGS-IBG Annual conference, London 2006 and the Children's Participation Seminar, University of Bergen, Centre for Child Welfare, Bergen, Norway 2006 and subsequently developed as a result of learning from research and evaluation projects concerning children and young people's participation in 2007 and 2008.

Abstract

The participation of children and young people in decisions that affect them is now mainstream in social and public policy in the UK. Yet for many young people formal participation opportunities are abstracted from everyday lives and concerns. Children may not feel empowered despite the existence of formal structures for participation. This raises questions about how ‘spaces’ for participation are constructed. This paper critiques prevailing models of participation in formal structures and instead, argues for the need to rethink children's participation as a more diverse set of social processes rooted in everyday environments and interactions.

Keywords:

• children's participation
• spaces
• active citizenship
• everyday community contexts
• social learning
• empowerment

Notes

This paper is based on ideas in two separate papers presented at the RGS-IBG Annual conference, London 2006 and the Children's Participation Seminar, University of Bergen, Centre for Child Welfare, Bergen, Norway 2006 and subsequently developed as a result of learning from research and evaluation projects concerning children and young people's participation in 2007 and 2008.

The main arguments in this paper are equally relevant to younger ‘children’ and to ‘young people’. The author acknowledges that participation may take a different form for different age groups, however, for sake of ease the term ‘young people’ will be used throughout to refer to both groups except where talking specifically about children or young people.

Children's Trusts is a systemic arrangement bringing Schools and Children's services together under one umbrella.

The participation of young people is now a legal imperative across all public sector domains.

Readers who wish to learn more about children and young people's participation in the UK are referred to the further reading list at the end of the paper.

Kesby talks about PAR rather than ‘participation’.

See also Pells (2010) who similarly makes the distinction between ‘performed’ and ‘lived’ participation.

See also Honneth (1995).

Children's Fund was a government programme providing extra project support for children and families experiencing difficulties.

http://www.tda.gov.uk/remodelling/extendedschools/whatarees/parentingsupport/psa_project.aspx

In a similar vein Postman and Weingartner (1971) talked about the importance of developing in learners an ability for ‘crap detecting’.

See Mannion (2007) and Fielding (2006) as two notable exceptions.