Participation of Youngsters in Decision-Making - Literature review Example

Critical Reflection Professor (Tutor) The Name of the School (University) The City and State Date Critical Reflection Children and youths are important because they are tomorrow’s generation or the future of this world. In future, children and youth will inherit the current society that adults are developing (Ashenden, 2013). Therefore, they deserve and require a means to contribute to the shaping of the current world to enjoy a better future. Nonetheless, children and youth have not had the opportunity to contribute effectively in shaping today’s society. According to Hart (1992, p. 12) children receive increased attention in society, but are rarely listened to in society. Adults tend to undervalue the ability of children while using them to influence societal and policy causes. The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on the following statement: If governments and society’s structures and institutions are to go beyond tokenistic participation of youngsters in processes of decision-making, grown-ups must be ready to share percentage of the power they have as decision-makers. Children or youth aged below eighteen years are estimated to be about two billion in the whole world. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 87% of the world’s children population resides in countries that are impacted by hunger, poverty, violence, and disease (Hart 1992, p. 12). Such challenges can lead to alcohol abuse or drug use as well as social despair and crime. The future of these children depends on how well society is able to overcome these challenges. Society and government’s intuitions and structures play a vital role in making decisions that affect children and their lives. Nonetheless, children do not have a say in what adults in society and governments decide on their welfare (Franklin & Sloper 2009, p. 13). What is offered is tokenistic participation that only used as a means to achieve a certain agenda. Societal and governmental structures and institutions should increase participation of children in decision making rather than pre-determined participation or intentional participation. This can be achieved if adults are prepared to share some of the power they hold as decision makers. According to Cashmore (2002, p. 847), sincere and effective children participation depends on numerous issues including; opportunity to participate, access to knowledge and information, disposal to trusted advocates, supportive registration and policy, as well as appropriate resourcing. Tokenistic involvement of children in decision-making processes is as a result of limited or no opportunities to make decision. Children are sometimes voiced in society, but they lack the choice on what they want such as school or care. There is little or zero opportunities to make opinions based on their own feeling and needs (Cashmore 2002, p. 847). For instance, a school’s environmental club may be sent to clean the school compound or plant trees, this cannot be termed as participation. However, if the school club was made aware of the problem before, they would voluntarily generate opinions that would solve the problem in the manner they want or an agreeable process, which amounts to participation. According to Hart (1992, p. 11) there are numerous stages of participation that describe how each party is able to genuinely and effectively participate in decision making. The first stage in the ladder is ‘assigned but informed’. Being assigned and informed means that an agenda has already been provided but all concerned parties have been involved. Adults and parents should be able to inform their children on their intentions even if they know their children opinions cannot make them change the subject (MacNaughton, Hughes & Smith 2007, p. 461). However, through this information, adults can share their power to make decisions on how the agenda will be carried out. In such a scenario, the children can use the information to develop opinions that can enhance or revise the original agenda. Nonetheless, information is not enough to go beyond the tokenistic children involvement in participation. This is because adults possess increased powers to make decision based on their knowledge. Even when research supports the idea of offering information, knowledge is greater importance. The idea of information virus knowledge is paramount in a achieving a certain level of decision making or participation. Children should get access to training and knowledge on decision making or issues that society or government focus on in terms of children’s welfare among others. Adults are able to make better decisions based on their experience and knowledge of challenges that face children (Malone & Hartung 2010, p. 29). This is the main idea used to bring up agendas and subjects that adults must then decide upon. However, if children are given a certain amount of knowledge such as even simple communication skills, issues on the environment, or drug abuse, they would be able to make opinions. By offering children knowledge and training, adults can empower their experience in becoming active and genuine decision makers. According to Clark (2004, p. 10) the idea of knowledge and training is based on allowing children make meaningful rather than decorative participations. For instance, children were trained on how to welcome dignitaries to a UNICEF convention that allowed them to serve a purpose that would help them later in life (Hart 1992, p. 13). Although not of much impact, such participation serves more purpose based on the abilities of children at that time instead of having the children address the convention as a decorative or tokenistic gesture. Overall, I believe that sharing of decision making powers begins by empowering children to acquire the same experience as adults. Opportunities also play a significant role in ensuring that tokenistic involvement ends and adults can share the power to make decisions. Many projects undertaken in the society do not specifically target a certain population or age group, but the whole community. Nonetheless, children are the list consulted or listened to when it comes to such projects or issues (Ashenden, 2013). However, children have the capability and deserve the opportunity to make contributions in such areas. According to Franklin & Sloper (2009, p. 15) children lack appropriate resources and opportunities that do not allow them to contribute in decision making. Many projects that allow children to participate are small-scale such as environmental matters, but in larger or border projects children are not involved (Lundy 2007, p. 930). This is specifically based on projects that are infatuated by adults, but require decisions to be share among adults and children. Children can be allocated resources such as funds or equipment to use in such projects. Moreover, they should receive increased advocates who can be trusted to deliver their true opinions and decisions. Opportunities should also be developed through research and development of appropriate platforms that enable increased participation (Ashenden, 2013). Developing research capabilities that can clearly evidence the voice of children is a form of sharing the power of decision making. When numerous researches focus more on parents rather than children to study a certain subject, the results will result in a bias. I believe that research involving children should be increased or diversified to include children or participants from all age groups (MacNaughton, Hughes & Smith 2007, p. 461). Having even one opinion of children from a sample population would allow decision makers to avoid making pre-determined or biased conclusion and decisions. Children should also be allowed and trained on how to participate in contrastive workshop where they can engage, discuss, and develop opinions, alternatives, and decisions on issues concerning society or their own welfare. This has already been proved through the New York City Young People’s East Harlem Resource Center park designs (Hart 1992, p. 13). Children were offered workshop frameworks that were held separately in different areas to understand what the children would like to see or how they would want the park to look. Moreover, girls from a school in Vermont also helped designers in the development of a dam by highlighting some of the numerous issues such as security and environment (Hart 1992, p. 13). Developing proper avenues and supportive platforms is an effective way of encouraging adults to share their power of making decision with children. Such provision of appropriate resources tends to eliminate the idea of tokenistic participation perspective. Moreover, it offers the whole idea of participation more meaning rather than using inappropriate methods as a means to an end. In conclusion, I support the statement that; if governments and society’s structures and institutions are to go beyond tokenistic participation of youngsters in processes of decision-making, grown-ups must be ready to share percentage of the power they have as decision-makers. Children are an important part of each society in ensuring the development and survival of the future generation. Adults must be prepared and willing to create more opportunities by offering information to children. Opportunity should also be created in terms of providing the knowledge and training required to better understand issues that affect children or society. With the appropriate training and knowledge, children will effectively be empowered just like adults to make effective decision making. Furthermore, the idea of sharing decision making powers can be supported by offering children appropriate resources. Children should be allowed to participate in research in a diverse perspective that allows them to serve a more meaningful purpose. Adults must also create platforms that support children’s involvement in decision making such as workshops or seminars. Although this may be challenging to achieve, evidence has illustrated that tokenistic involvement can be eliminated in small-scale initiatives. Nonetheless, the main theme of each imitative is the ability of adults to delegate some of their powers to children in the decision making process. References Ashenden, G 2013, Moving beyond tokenism to make youth participation a reality. [online] WhyDev. Available at: http://www.whydev.org/moving-beyond-tokenism-to-make-youth-participation-a-reality/ [Accessed 23 Oct. 2014]. Cashmore, J 2002, Promoting the participation of children and young people in care. Child abuse & Neglect, vol. 26 no. 8, pp. 837-847. Clark, J 2004, Participatory research with children and young people: philosophy, possibilities and perils. Action Research Expeditions, vol. 4 no. 11, pp. 1-18. Franklin, A., & Sloper, P 2009, Supporting the participation of disabled children and young people in decision‐making. Children & Society, vol. 23 no.1, 3-15. Hart, R. A 1992, Children's participation: From tokenism to citizenship (No. inness92/6). UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. Lundy, F 2007, ‘Voice’is not enough: conceptualizing Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal, vol. 33 no. 6, pp. 927-942. MacNaughton, G, Hughes, P & Smith, K 2007, Young children's rights and public policy: Practices and possibilities for citizenship in the early years. Children & Society, vol. 21 no.6, pp. 458-469. Malone, K & Hartung, C 2010, Challenges of participatory practice with children. A handbook of children and young people’s participation: Perspectives from theory and practice, pp. 24-38. Read More