Children's Participation, Childhood Publics and Social Change: A Review

Abstract

Progress in the implementation of children's participation rights in England is reviewed and situated within a broader agenda of social change. The article argues that much of the energy for 'change for children' has resided within a governance pathway across policy, practice and research. An alternative perspective is offered by re-connecting children's rights debates to those of social movements and asking whether childhood publics are possible, what they might look like and where they might be found. It is concluded that a cross-national and longitudinal perspective grounded in everyday life is likely to provide a more nuanced understanding of change for children.

Tomorrow's Leaders and Today's Agents of Change? Children, Sustainability Education and Environmental Governance

“…However, despite a substantial volume of work considering educational models (for a systematic review of this work, see Aikens and others, ), it is noteworthy that considerably less scholarly work has considered children's responses to moral and educational messages presenting the environment as an object of concern, or children's ‘everyday encounters with sustainability’ outside of school settings (Horton and others, , p. 906). This absence fits with Nolas’ (, p. 163) observation in relation to children's participation that the wealth of academic work on children's everyday lives has been ‘largely untapped’ by policy‐makers and practitioners.…”

Children's Lives: Taking Account of the Social

“…A key explanation for these limitations is the failure of a governance approach to recognise, understand and counter the structural and relational factors that determine how children experience participation (or non‐participation). We agree with Nolas (: 160) that distinguishing between a governance approach and a social movement approach ‘allows for the suggestion that a (theoretical and empirical) renewal might come from paying greater attention to children and young people's everyday lives’. This is not to suggest that the formal processes associated with a governance approach are not important.…”

Consultations with Children and Young People and Their Impact on Policy in Ireland

“…Barriers to securing children's rights through policy include significant power gaps between children and policymakers (Nir & Perry-Hazan, 2016). Government-led or official processes may function as a form of social control rather than empowering child participants (Cele & van der Burgt, 2015;Nolas, 2015). In this regard, Nir and Perry-Hazan (2016) refer to 'framed participation' which grants children decision-making power, but constrains this power to within confined boundaries where adults determine the scope of participation.…”