Global Studies of Childhood

Children's Geographies, 2018

The past two decades have witnessed an unprecedented rise in public policies aimed at hearing children and young people's voices, which typically entail creating supportive participatory spaces. While this political project is usually presented as a radical move towards a more inclusive society, it raises critical questions about whose voices are being represented, how, why, by whom and for whom. Drawing upon recent ethnographic research on childhood and youth policies in Switzerland, this article explores how children and young people's voices are produced in concrete situations. It studies how the institutional and material characteristics of participatory spaces and situated interactions shape which voices will actually be heard. The research highlights that, despite their inclusive ambitions, participatory spaces paradoxically exclude young persons who fail to articulate, orally or in written, linguistically, morally or politically legitimate voices.

The Palgrave Handbook of Positive Peace, 2021

Societies Without Borders, 2020

The role of independent children’s rights institutions is a multifaceted one, which can lead them to be pulled in many different directions. For most such institutions the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides a fundamental underpinning for their work, and many institutions place particular emphasis on Article 12 and on children’s rights to participation more generally. At the same time a principal focus of activity is on influencing law and policy in their national jurisdictions. In this paper we explore some ways in which these separate objectives can be combined in ways that challenge, or at least compensate for, children’s exclusion from political influence. Drawing on research conducted with independent children’s rights institutions in Europe, we point to some weaknesses in the current pattern of activity which can lead to a lack of impact, and some examples of how institutions can engage more effectively, both with children and with powerful actors, by promotin...

2011

The discourse of children’s participation in decision-making on all levels of society, from community and environmental development to their ‘everyday lives’, has received increasing interest in recent decades, developing into an almost universally fashionable rhetoric. Within the literature, however, there is a growing concern that much of this rhetoric fails to seriously engage in a wide-ranging and rigorous theoretical critique of its own policies and practices; policies and practices which have in some respects fallen short of their intended purpose to ‘empower’, to foster ‘agency’, to ‘give a voice’ and to ‘make change’. In addressing some of these issues, this doctoral thesis constructs a poststructural genealogy of the present state of children’s participation based on a discourse analysis of literature and semi-structured interviews with eleven key informants associated with the field of children’s participation. The informants were selected based on their experience and rep...

Children & Society, 2010

Drawing on comparative research with children’s participation practitioners in Nicaragua and the United Kingdom, this study explores the thinking that guides their practice. Earlier models are considered inadequate to describe complex, multidimensional participation processes. Whilst several differences are observed, the key issues or tensions are similar in both countries. Fifteen tensions are discussed in three categories. Most are tensions between participation as social control and participation as empowerment, which apply to all marginalised groups, not just children. The second group is specific to children. Finally, there are tensions between process and product. It is suggested that practitioners could use this analysis to reappraise and improve practice.

International Review of Sociology, 2018

From the early Frankfurt School through to the work of Manuel Castells, there has been a rich body of work on the cleavage between technological and social developments of the twentieth century in respect of the consequences for the constitution of subjectivity. However, little attention is paid to the role of children during their childhoods in attempts to bridge this gap beyond discussions about the democratic actors children will become when they are adults. This paper argues that only the full integration of children, during their childhoods, into democratic development of societies will prevent the deepening of the rift between technological and social progress. The paper traces the correspondence between the new childhood studies and those concepts of politics and politicisation which can support social progress towards an emancipatory social perspective undergirded by particular and democratisation of all areas of everyday life. Drawing on Bourdieu and ideas of participation as action, the paper critically examines the various mechanisms by which children are conventionally excluded from democratic participation and then explores how a deeper consideration of agency in childhood and social actorship opens up alternative mechanisms of inclusion and the concomitant expansion of the concept of democracy.

This paper compares children's participation in child protection (CP) legislative and policy frameworks and how this is then reflected in practice among five European countries namely Bulgaria, Ireland, Malta, Norway and Serbia. Literature suggests that whereas many countries have adapted their legislative and policy frameworks, there exists a gap between these frameworks and what happens in practice (Wilson et al., 2020; Jensen et al., 2020). This paper will address this gap by considering the contextual forces that facilitate the participation of children in formal CP services, where listening to their voices and involving them in decision-making processes is important. The authors draw on the Eurofamnet national reports (Abela and Dudova, 2021) to provide an overview of the history of child protection, and other important indicators such as poverty. A case study approach is adopted. The comparative analysis of the five countries suggests that whereas all five countries have adapted their legislation to achieve child participation and CP policies are increasingly becoming child-centered, there exists a gap between the legislative and policy frameworks and what is on offer in practice. The participation and protection of children is interdependent on a child protection service with the necessary infrastructure in terms of legislation and policy but also necessitates contextually framed resources, knowledge and awareness about the benefits of such a policy for the wellbeing of children and their families. The exchange of good practices, knowledge and experiences in terms of child participation between countries with more developed CP systems and those with a shorter history of CP practices could create long-term collaborations and innovation in the area for those countries who most need it. The influential role of international institutions is also an important driving force, especially for those countries who may not have a welfare regime context that is supportive of entering into a conversation with children when they most need protection and support.

International Journal of Children's Rights, 2020

Children and young people’s participation is an ever-growing demand. Thirty years on from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child’s adoption, however, fundamental challenges continue for participation that are widely recognised cross-nationally but remain stubbornly consistent. As a way in to considering the children and young people’s participation literature more generally, all articles referring to participation in their titles were identified from The International Journal of Children’s Rights. These 56 articles were analysed to identify trends, challenges and opportunities. The analysis found: a remarkably consistent narrative on participation over the 30 years; limitations on domains considered, geography and conceptual clarity; and far more written about challenges than solutions. Drawing on these findings and considering the participation literature more generally, the article recommends that the field expands its geographic and intellectual boundaries, uses powerful co...

Social Inclusion, 2017

This article discusses how adulthood is naturalized and how adulthood norms set limits on the possibilities of including children in democratic processes and understanding them as political subjects. The article examines the kind of resistance children and youth can meet when participating in democratic processes, with examples of speech acts from the Gothenburg Youth Council. It also discusses the theoretic concept of childism (Wall, 2008, 2010) and how childism can be a way to escape the dominance of adulthood norms. The concept of childism means addressing children’s experiences by transforming understandings and practices for all humans, not only for non-adults. How is it possible to create a political space for children and involve children in defining what should count as politically important?