Addressing the Challenges of Children and Young People’s Participation

As children and young people’s participation has gained hold in policy and practice rhetoric, its translation into reality has led to dilemmas and challenges in practice. These include concerns about tokenism, the lack of impact on decision-making, problems of sustainability and questions about children and young people’s “representativeness”. This chapter considers empirical evidence from two projects – research on schools councils and a collaboration to improve children and young people’s involvement in national decision-making – in light of Cornwall and Coelho’s requirements for inclusive participatory sphere institutions, with a particular focus on time and space. This juxtaposition of theory and evidence raises questions about the lauding of representativeness, the segregation of children and young people’s participation, and its fragmentation spatially and temporally. Possibilities include valuing other types of involvement than representative ones, greater structural support for participation, and tighter connections – sequentially or co-temporally – between children and young people’s participation and decision-making.