| Youth rights |
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Youth participation is the active engagement of young people throughout their own communities. It is often used as a shorthand for youth participation in any many forms, including decision-making, sports, schools and any activity where young people are not historically engaged.
Youth participation, also called youth involvement, has been used by government agencies, researchers, educators, and others to define and examine the active engagement of young people in schools, sports, government, community development and economic activity.
In 1975, the National Commission on Resources for Youth in the United States defined youth participation as:
...Youth participation is the involving of youth in responsible, challenging action that meets genuine needs, with opportunities for planning and/or decision-making affecting others in an activity whose impact or consequence is extended to others— i.e., outside or beyond the youth participants themselves. Other desirable features of youth participation are provision for critical reflection on the participatory activity and the opportunity for group effort toward a common goal.
In 1995, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) established a definition of meaningful youth participation as:
Meaningful youth participation involves recognizing and nurturing the strengths, interests, and abilities of young people through the provision of real opportunities for youth to become involved in decisions that affect them at individual and systemic levels.
In 2006 the Commonwealth Youth Programme and UNICEF remarked: "As there are many types of developmental processes, cultures and unique individuals in the world, participation is not any one phenomenon. There are various definitions of participation. A basic concept of participation however, is that people are free to involve themselves in social and developmental processes and that self-involvement is active, voluntary and informed." [1]
The platform for youth to get involved has continued to increase in contemporary society, however these opportunities cannot be seen to be amplifying the voice of youth in society. [2]
The United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989) formally enshrines the rights of children and young people to participate. Article 12.1 provides: “States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.” [3]
There are various models of youth participation which can be followed when attempting to get young people involved with decision making or acting for change.
Marc Jans and Kurt De Backer present the Triangle of Youth Participation. This suggests that young people will actively engage with society when presented with three specific dimensions; firstly they must have something to challenge. Following this, they must feel they have the capacity to make a difference and finally must be able to connect with others in order to tackle the issue effectively. [4]
Hart’s Ladder of Participation is a model that can be used when developing and working on youth participation projects. [5] It aims to enable young people to take an active part in decision making, and give them the opportunity to have a 'voice' in society.
Hart states there are 8 steps on the 'Ladder of Participation" The first three steps, manipulation, decoration and tokenism, are considered not be engaging young people in active youth participation, but instead provide a pathway to move up onto the other stages of youth participation. [6] The following five steps after this look at how to fully integrate young people into the decision making process and how to get them actively involved. These steps evolve in that the next step the adult organize an event for young people to volunteer in (young people assigned but not informed). Following this the young people's opinions will have some influence on decisions made and they will receive feedback on these opinions (Young people are consulted and informed). Next step involves adults coming up with the initial idea, and young people taking the necessary steps to implement it with their own ideas and organization (Adult-initiated, shared power with young people). The penultimate step look at young people having full power and creative license over their ideas and projects (Young people lead and initiated action). The final step looks at the amalgamation of some of the final few steps, in that the young people initiate the idea and invite adults to join in, thus leading to an equal partnership. (Young people and adult share decision making.) [6]
In these forms, youth participation activities may include:
Youth participation often requires some measure of student voice or youth voice, as well as youth/adult partnerships. Results are often measured by youth development goals, academic outcomes or returns on social capital. They may take the form of civic engagement, youth rights or intergenerational equity.
Working on behalf of UNICEF, in 1992 sociologist Roger Hart created a model for thinking about youth participation as a continuum of activities. Entitled the "Ladder of Participation," this spectrum identifies eight types of youth participation ranging from tokenism and manipulation to engaging youth as partners. [7] Adam Fletcher of the Freechild Project has identified a range of youth participation in social change through his "Cycle of Engagement". [8] David Driskell, another UN-affiliated researcher, has identified several "steps" towards youth participation, while Daniel Ho-Sang has analyzed models according to a horizontal continuum. [9]
In some Indigenous communities of the Americas, children are seen as legitimate participants and have access to learn in order to make an important impact in their community. [10] Their high involvement in family endeavors allow them to observe and experience skills they will need as community members. Children are able to learn because they have the chance to collaborate with everyone in the community. They also are eager to participate and take initiative to engage in family and community events [11]
At different ages, children are performing a variety of tasks in their community. In the Yucatec Mayan community of Mexico, regardless of age, every member can be seen participating in the daily endeavors of their family in some form. At the age of 18 months, Mari is the youngest child in her family. Mari imitates her mother by using a leaf to scrub the stool like her mother. Mari’s mother pleasantly watcher her while she continues to clean the furniture. Although she is very young, her mother welcomes her eagerness to participate in the family’s daily endeavors. [12]
Indigenous children of San Pedro engage in activities like play, lessons, work and free-standing conversation, with family and community members of different ages. Children from the age of two to three year olds are integrated in activities with their elders. For example, Many two to three year olds do errands around the community and sell fruit or other goods. [13] This gives children greater accessibility to the endeavors of their elders and greater chances to learn useful skills.
Around three years old, Indigenous Mayan children from San Pedro, Guatemala are involved in mature-work such as farming, cooking, and caregiving. At this age they are observing what others are doing around them, but around five-years old they begin to directly help out such as running errands on their own. [14] The Mayan children are able to learn by being highly involved in the adults’ work.
In the community of Chillihuani in the high Peruvian Andes, at an early age, children around the age of four years old contribute to their family by running errands and helping take care of younger siblings. [15] Four year old Victor contributes to his family by running errands and helping take care of his two younger sisters by bringing his mother's diapers, going outside to dust small blankets, and holding their bottles while his sisters are drinking milk. This allows children to observe, listen and learn so that they can be able to meaningfully contribute to these endeavors as they get older.
As the children become older, they are able to take on more responsibilities. Also, as their skills become more advanced, children are able to take initiative in different tasks. In Guadalajara, Mexico, children around nine to ten-years old were reported regularly to take the initiative and contribute to family household works and activities like cleaning the house. [16] This initiation allows children to be more involved in their community. For example, In Yucatan, Mexico, children as young as fifteen-year-old will take over his father’s field to cultivate which helps out their family immensely. [12] Children take initiative out of interest and participate as much as they can.
In an experiment, siblings of Mexican-heritage with Indigenous history were invited to build a toy together. [17] They were able to learn how to build the toy by working together, considering others ideas, and combining their methods. This study shows that being part of the community at an early age allows them to learn important values such as involvement and contribution which they carry out in their own activities.
In many Indigenous American communities, children are considered as legitimate contributing participants. Children are integrated in the daily endeavors of the family and community. They have greater access to various opportunities to observe and learn so that they can make a meaningful impact in their family and community.
Many young people who leave the care system are largely excluded in society. They are less likely to be in employment or higher education and at higher risk of trafficking, exploitation and suicide. [18] [19] [20] [21] In recent years, many organisations of care leavers have become established across the world. Some aim to support each other; others to ensure they can participate more in the decisions made about them. [22] [23] [24] [25] They are particularly vocal in global efforts at transforming systems of care or deinstitutionalisation. [26]
Observational learning is learning that occurs through observing the behavior of others. It is a form of social learning which takes various forms, based on various processes. In humans, this form of learning seems to not need reinforcement to occur, but instead, requires a social model such as a parent, sibling, friend, or teacher with surroundings. Particularly in childhood, a model is someone of authority or higher status in an environment. In animals, observational learning is often based on classical conditioning, in which an instinctive behavior is elicited by observing the behavior of another, but other processes may be involved as well.
Citizen participation or public participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions—and ideally exert influence—regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision-making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including economic, political, management, cultural or familial.
Collaborative learning is a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together. Unlike individual learning, people engaged in collaborative learning capitalize on one another's resources and skills. More specifically, collaborative learning is based on the model that knowledge can be created within a population where members actively interact by sharing experiences and take on asymmetric roles. Put differently, collaborative learning refers to methodologies and environments in which learners engage in a common task where each individual depends on and is accountable to each other. These include both face-to-face conversations and computer discussions. Methods for examining collaborative learning processes include conversation analysis and statistical discourse analysis.
Youth empowerment is a process where children and young people are encouraged to take charge of their lives. They do this by addressing their situation and then take action in order to improve their access to resources and transform their consciousness through their beliefs, values, and attitudes. Youth empowerment aims to improve quality of life. Youth empowerment is achieved through participation in youth empowerment programs. However scholars argue that children's rights implementation should go beyond learning about formal rights and procedures to give birth to a concrete experience of rights. There are numerous models that youth empowerment programs use that help youth achieve empowerment. A variety of youth empowerment initiatives are underway around the world. These programs can be through non-profit organizations, government organizations, schools or private organizations.
Youth voice refers to the distinct ideas, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, and actions of young people as a collective body. The term youth voice often groups together a diversity of perspectives and experiences, regardless of backgrounds, identities, and cultural differences. It is frequently associated with the successful application of a variety of youth development activities, including service learning, youth research, and leadership training. Additional research has shown that engaging youth voice is an essential element of effective organizational development among community and youth-serving organizations.
Adultism is the abuse of the power that adults have over children. It has been defined as "the power adults have over children", "prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people", and "bias towards adults... and the social addiction to adults, including their ideas, activities, and attitudes". This phenomenon is said to affect families, schools, justice systems and the economy, in addition to other areas of society. Its impacts are largely regarded as negative, except in cases related to child protection and the overriding social contract. Increased study of adultism has recently occurred in the fields of education, psychology, civic engagement, higher education and further, with contributions from Europe, North America and South America.
Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to protect public values or make a change in a community. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.
Roger A. Hart is a child-rights academic, and former Professor of Psychology and Geography at the City University of New York and co-director of the Children's Environments Research Group.
The role of the children in ancient Mayan civilization was first, and foremost, to help their elders. Once children turned five or six, they were expected to contribute to the family and community. They were treated as young adults and received more responsibilities as they grew older.
Informal learning is characterized "by a low degree of planning and organizing in terms of the learning context, learning support, learning time, and learning objectives". It differs from formal learning, non-formal learning, and self-regulated learning, because it has no set objective in terms of learning outcomes, but an intent to act from the learner's standpoint. Typical mechanisms of informal learning include trial and error or learning-by-doing, modeling, feedback, and reflection. For learners this includes heuristic language building, socialization, enculturation, and play. Informal learning is a pervasive ongoing phenomenon of learning via participation or learning via knowledge creation, in contrast with the traditional view of teacher-centered learning via knowledge acquisition. Estimates suggest that about 70-90 percent of adult learning takes place informally and outside educational institutions.
Evolving capacities is the concept in which education, child development and youth development programs led by adults take into account the capacities of the child or youth to exercise rights on their own behalf. It is also directly linked to the right to be heard, requiring adults to be mindful of their responsibilities to respect children's rights, protect them from harm, and provide opportunities so they can exercise their rights. The concept of evolving capacities is employed internationally as a direct alternative to popular concepts of child and youth development.
Informal education is a general term for education that can occur outside of a traditional lecture or school based learning systems. The term even include customized-learning based on individual student interests within a curriculum inside a regular classroom, but is not limited to that setting. It could work through conversation, and the exploration and enlargement of experience. Sometimes there is a clear objective link to some broader plan, but not always. The goal is to provide learners with the tools they need to eventually reach more complex material. It can refer to various forms of alternative education, such as unschooling or homeschooling, autodidacticism (self-teaching), and youth work.
Youth engagement is the sentiment young people feel towards a particular person, activity, place or outcome. It has been a focus of youth development, public policy and social change movements for at least forty years. According to a Cornell University program, "Youth engagement is one of the buzzwords in the youth development field. Similar terms are youth voice, youth involvement, youth participation, and youth in governance."
Play is a range of intrinsically motivated activities done for recreational pleasure and enjoyment. Play is commonly associated with children and juvenile-level activities, but may be engaged in at any life stage, and among other higher-functioning animals as well, most notably mammals and birds.
Age segregation is the separation of people based on their age, and may be observed in many aspects of some societies. Examples of institutionalized age segregation include age segregation in schools, and age-segregated housing. There are studies of informal age segregation among adolescents. Age segregation in schools, age grading, or graded education is the separation of students into years of education by approximately the same age.
Learning through play is a term used in education and psychology to describe how a child can learn to make sense of the world around them. Through play children can develop social and cognitive skills, mature emotionally, and gain the self-confidence required to engage in new experiences and environments.
Indigenous education specifically focuses on teaching Indigenous knowledge, models, methods, and content within formal or non-formal educational systems. The growing recognition and use of Indigenous education methods can be a response to the erosion and loss of Indigenous knowledge through the processes of colonialism, globalization, and modernity. Indigenous education also refers to the teaching of the history, culture, and languages of Indigenous peoples of a region.
Child work in indigenous American cultures covers child work, defined as the physical and mental contributions by children towards achieving a personal or communal goal, in Indigenous American societies. As a form of prosocial behavior, children's work is often a vital contribution towards community productivity and typically involves non-exploitative motivations for children's engagement in work activities. Activities can range from domestic household chores to participation in family and community endeavors. Inge Bolin notes that children's work can blur the boundaries between learning, play, and work in a form of productive interaction between children and adults. Such activities do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Styles of children’s learning across various indigenous communities in the Americas have been practiced for centuries prior to European colonization and persist today. Despite extensive anthropological research, efforts made towards studying children’s learning and development in Indigenous communities of the Americas as its own discipline within Developmental Psychology, has remained rudimentary. However, studies that have been conducted reveal several larger thematic commonalities, which create a paradigm of children’s learning that is fundamentally consistent across differing cultural communities.
Child integration is the inclusion of children in a variety of mature daily activities of families and communities. This contrasts with, for example, age segregation; separating children into age-defined activities and institutions. Integrating children in the range of mature family and community activities gives equal value and responsibility to children as contributors and collaborators, and can be a way to help them learn. Children's integration provides a learning environment because children are able to observe and pitch in as they feel they can.
