Session Information
25 SES 06, Rights and Limitations
Paper Session
Contribution
Our study examines the fulfillment of children’s right to participate in municipal youth councils and characterizes the barriers that impede this right. The study aims to enrich the scholarly discourse regarding the participation in municipal youth councils by describing and exploring the phenomenon of confined participation, which grants children power, but constrains this power within limited boundaries.
Article 12(1) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) anchored children’s rights to participate in decision-making. A prominent mechanism that mobilizes this right is pupil and youth councils. The scholarly discourse on the right to participate in pupil and youth councils facilitates characterizing the barriers that impede this right.
One of these barriers relates to the fact that pupil and youth councils are often structured by adults and are managed in the context of provisions shaped by adults. Such top-down mechanisms mimic familiar political institutions, without considering their adaptability to children, and may be subject to tokenism or manipulation (Freeman, Nairn, & Sligo, 2003; Matthews, 2001; Matthews & Limb, 2003). Another barrier that impedes the right to participate in pupil and youth councils relates to the low worth that adults tend to ascribe to children’s positions. These perceptions, which underrate the role of children’s opinions in the democratic marketplace of ideas, stem from society’s dominant images of children and childhood (see Cockburn, 2005; Freeman, Nairn, & Sligo, 2003; Matthews & Limb, 2003). In addition, certain groups of children tend to be excluded from participation in pupil and youth councils, such as children coming from disempowered families (Matthews, 2001; Wyness, 2006, 2009), or those tending to criticize adults (Pavlovic, 2001). Attempting to address this barrier, Nairn, Sligo, and Freeman (2006) explored how youth councils in New Zealand integrate “achievers” with “troublemakers,” and exclude “ordinary” children.
The cited barriers may generate negative images of the councils among children. Scholars have indicated that, in many cases, children do not believe that pupil and youth councils offer them the opportunity to participate in decision-making of any substance (Alderson, Matthews & Limb, 2003; McCluskey et al., 2013; Stafford, Laybourn, & Hill, 2003; Taft & Gordon, 2013). Studies have also shown that children perceive pupil councils as unrepresentative institutions (Morrow, 2001; Stafford et al., 2003).
Several studies have focused on the context of children’s participation in municipal youth councils in the US (Checkoway, Allison, & Montoya, 2005). Richards-Schuster & Checkoway, 2009; Taft & Gordon, 2013), in the UK (Matthews, 2001; Matthews & Limb, 2003; Wyness, 2006, 2009), in New Zealand (Freeman et al., 2003; Nairn et al., 2006), and in Latin America (Taft & Gordon, 2013). Most of these studies have shown that participation in municipal youth councils is impeded by barriers similar to those that characterize the context of school-based pupil councils. Other studies have shown how certain municipal youth councils were designed to overcome these barriers (Checkoway et al., 2005; Matthews & Limb, 2003; Richards-Schuster & Checkoway, 2009).
Only few of the studies exploring participation in municipal youth councils have referred to the special barriers that impede the right to participation in the municipal context. These barriers include the difficulty to sustain membership, as young people lead busy lives, and youth forums demand a long-term commitment (Matthews, 2001); the gap between the one year that children spend in youth councils and the planning cycles, which often demand more time (Matthews & Limb, 2003); and the lack of contact between youth councils and other youth groups (Matthews & Limb, 2003). Our study aims to broaden this limited scholarly discourse regarding the barriers impeding children’s right to participate in municipal youth councils.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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