Young children’s participation: Rhetoric or growing reality?

The February 1999 edition of Early Childhood Matters reviewed ideas and programmes of work that sought the views of young children, and that valued them as contributors to, and participants in, all aspects of early childhood development (ecd).

A follow-up edition in February 2000 highlighted a practical component of this approach: how to listen to children. Interestingly, it revealed that it isn’t hard for children to express themselves. Rather the problem is that many adults, assuming they are committed to the idea, are not actually all that good at listening to children: they lack the right attitudes, experiences and skills.

Four years on, we hope to have progressed the debate on children’s participation by calling on contributors to make the case for opening up spaces in which children can contribute to the processes of conceptualisation, operation and evaluation of programmes. This call is based on the conviction that participation by young children is beneficial for both the children themselves and for all of those around them; and it recognises that there is real sense in which participation implies a process of reciprocal learning – on the part of adults obviously, but also on the part of young children