Meaningful, effective and sustainable? Challenges for children and young people’s participation

Abstract

Children and young people’s participation activities continue to grow, galvanised by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. As the activities have proliferated, so has a list of common barriers and problems for children and young people’s participation in collective decision-making: from tokenism and lack of impact on decision-making, to some children and young people being over-consulted while others are marginalised. While this list is frustratingly familiar, certain activities seem to address all or most of these barriers and problems. These examples provide potential learning tools, to examine why they have apparently done so. One such example is youth-led research projects, which involve a core group of children and young people, over a set amount of time, with facilitating adults and organisations. This chapter considers how the young researchers and projects claim credibility and legitimacy, through processes of knowledge production. By emphasising expertise, these projects resist perennial critiques of children and young people’s participation being unrepresentative. But they create inequalities for those with less time, interest or commitment for in-depth involvement. The chapter concludes that such projects are not radical in challenging the norms of legitimacy and credibility but can be in positioning children and young people as knowledge producers.