Participation in perspective: reflections from research projects

Abstract

As the role children and young people play in the construction of knowledge is recognised, their position in society as social agents is changing. This in turn has led to a change in the way in which they want to participate, and are participating in research and in particular in their roles as researchers alongside adults. This paper seeks to add to the debate regarding children as researchers by exploring the reality of their participation in research. A critique of existing models of children’s participation is followed by an account of observations made during two participatory research projects. Although existing models offered a variety of criteria against which to measure participation, none allowed for the multidimensional nature of participation that emerged from the data to be fully described. The subsequent development of a dual axis model of participation, used to reflect on the participatory processes, is then described.