Discourses of Children's Participation: Professionals, Policies and Practices

Abstract

This article explores the dynamic field of children's participation and provides fresh insight into its construction within professional frameworks as well as within the social policy process. Protectionism, developmentalism, rights and managerialism are identified as significant discourses and this article explores their articulation and negotiation through policies. The argument is that the settlement reached represents a new configuration within policy frameworks relating to children where a version of children's rights is appropriated and mainstreamed. The interaction between children's rights, managerialism and professional discourses are illustrated with reference to policy and legislation.

Recognition as a framework for ethical participatory research: developing a methodology with looked after young people

“…A children's rights framework is clearly intended to empower children, but on its own is limited by the potential conflict between children's rights to participation and their welfare rights (Freeman, 1992), and by the inability of the essentially individualistic discourse of rights to acknowledge the importance of relationships to children's development and well-being. Tensions with the discourses of developmentalism (concerned especially with at what age children can cope with participation in what) and protectionism (concerned with the potential distress that may be caused by participation in some circumstances) reflect these limitations (Pinkney, 2011). Looking back at the end of the project on the shape which had evolved as a result of keeping in mind the well-being of the children and young people involved throughout, we concluded that it broadly reflected a stance of recognition, as described by Honneth (1992) and that his critical theory of recognition may offer a useful framework for other researchers working with children and young people.…”

Barriers to Children and Young People’s Participation in Policy Making in Ghana

“…The target population sampled were policy makers (civil servants), lobbyists/advocates and young people (between 15 and 17 years). The sample for the young people was based on the assumption that younger children cope less with participation than older children (Pinkney, 2011) and also younger children may not understand policy issues. It is however acknowledged that age is not an accurate determinant of capacity.…”

Participationasgovernmentality? The effect of disciplinary technologies at the interface of service users and providers, families and the state

“…Much of the policy discourse on the participation of service users, however, focuses on the development of 'service-user friendly' policies, failing to recognise or account for the tensions and competing discourses (Pinkney 2011 Pugh et al 1987;White 2000;Wilcox 1994) and specifically those in relation to children's participation (Hart 1992;Lansdown 2005) place family-professional relationships along a continuum.…”

“…Recent literature (e.g. James 2007;Pinkney 2011;Ranson, Martin, and Vincent 2004;Wallace 2005) that has examined the nature and extent of participatory mechanisms in policy and practice has represented the varying discourses as competing in this way; as either one or the other of a number of binaries. However, more critically, through a Foucauldian lens, we suggest the findings presented in this paper show that discourses are inherently more complex, multiple and simultaneously occuring; that both positive and negative discourses can and do unfold through the complicated and overlapping relationships that occur between families and the various services they are asked to engage with.…”