Participatory Design of New School Learning Environments

Oksana Ostroverkh, Candidate of Sciences in Psychology, Associate Professor, Institute of Economics, Management and Environmental Studies, Siberian Federal University. Address: 79 Svobodny Ave, 660041 Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation. E-mail: ostrovoksana@mail.ru (corresponding author) Anna Tikhomirova, Individual and Group Psychology Teacher, Faculty of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education. Address: 29 Sretenka Str., 127051 Moscow, Russian Federation. E-mail: nutih@mail.ru This article looks into the legal and psychological aspects of child and youth participation in discussions and decision making on issues relating to their lives and gives an overview of the current trends in participatory development. Participatory design is interpreted within this study as activities that result in participatory action of children in the educational process. Participatory action is characterized in its intentional component and its persistence (reflected in searching for ways of bringing the intention to life) by initiative, consciousness, autonomy and responsibility. Participatory design is regarded as a tool for creating conditions to develop adolescents’ subject position. A new method of engaging children in participatory design of learning environments is offered and implemented in the study. The article describes successively the steps of method implementation and its testing within the framework of Pedagogical Design Studio’s activities.