Facing an uncertain future, there are many reasons to embrace, and indeed develop, participatory approaches to planning and decision-making. In this symposium, we present three papers from separate projects, addressing different local concerns in a range of countries and contexts, but all support the participation of people who might otherwise be overlooked in understanding and developing educational settings. Moving from a focus on the classroom, to the school and then the city itself, we share an understanding of these spaces as undeniably physical and material, but with these more tangible aspects intertwined with, and made meaningful through, their social and cultural features.

The papers present methods and approaches that have succeeded in including children and young people, teachers and other school staff in place-based and spatial decisions. We demonstrate how, through these processes, people develop relationships that reduce feelings of uncertainty and build a greater sense of communal belonging and empowerment. The results of these initiatives include not only tangible changes to space and places, but also enhanced understandings of the contribution community-members of all ages, backgrounds and roles can make. Such collaborative approaches have the potential to create landscapes of collaborative democratic decision making, turning spaces of learning within and beyond the school into welcoming, inclusive places of belonging, caring and community. 

Yet, in this symposium, we intend to look beyond immediate or local successes. We question what these experiences reveal about the relationship between such participatory approaches and the wider landscape of democracy, which itself appears under threat in these uncertain times. In the examples we present, local participation and wider democracy appear productively entwined (Percy-Smith, 2015), each contributing positively to the development of the other. We return to Arnstein (1969) and Hart’s Ladders of Participation to interrogate our own experiences.

Arnstein (1969) and Hart (1992) show how low levels of participation can reveal an absence of democracy. A Ladder of Participation model helps expose situations where those involved are fed a story of involvement while subject to ‘manipulation’ (Arnstein, 1969: 217). However, our research shows how we must also consider what is happening at the higher levels of participation in these models, and why it is happening.

Our findings illustrate how more equitable participatory processes seem sometimes to depend on the pre-existence of more democratic approaches in areas such as governance, pedagogy and curriculum. Yet, on other occasions, the participatory activity itself impacts positively on the development of democratic processes and places. Our research thus highlights the importance of focusing on the process of participatory decision-making, as well as the outcomes (Harris and Goodall, 2007). Reciprocal learning between professionals and those often excluded from place and space based decision making processes is a powerful tool in the development of place-making as a more relational, collaborative endeavour.

Thus, even when higher levels of participation in particular projects are achieved, perhaps supported by local democratic systems, there is a need to recognise the larger eco-systems at play and how these policies and practices may disempower not only the participants but also the organisers of the participatory activities.  

Many researchers and practitioners working with educational systems will have experienced such issues, where our interests in research or engagement must be balanced, and may be in tension with, other expectations and intentions based on ‘thin consumer driven and overly individualistic forms’ of democracy (Apple, 2013, p.49) rather than “thick” collective forms of democracy based on consensus and community.  We will draw on the diverse experiences presented in our paper to explore the challenges presented by such contested conceptualisations of democracy (Foner, 1998) and participation, and how these might be navigated.

Apple, M. W. (2013) Creating democratic education in neoliberal and neoconservative times, Praxis Educativa, XVII (2), 48-55. Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of planners, 35(4), 216-224. Foner, E. (1998). The story of American freedom, New York: Norton. Harris, A. and Goodall, J., (2007) Engaging parents in raising achievement – do parents know they matter? Department for Children, Schools and Families Research Brief. Hart, R. (1992) Children’s Participation: From Tokenism To Citizenship. Florence: UNICEF. Percy-Smith, B. (2015). negotiating active citizenship: Young people’s participation in everyday spaces. In: Kallio, K. P., and Mills, S. (eds.) ‘Geographies of Politics, Citizenship and Rights’. London: Springer.