Children's Participation: From tokenism to citizenship

Roger A. Hart

Innocenti Essay

Abstract: A nation is democratic to the extent that its citizens are involved, particularly at the community level. The confidence and competence to be involved must be gradually acquired through practice. It is for this reason that there should be gradually increasing opportunities for children to participate in any aspiring democracy, and particularly in those nations already convinced that they are democratic. With the growth of children’s rights we are beginning to see an increasing recognition of children’s abilities to speak for themselves. Regrettably, while children’s and youths’ participation does occur in different degrees around the world, it is often exploitative or frivolous. This Essay is written for people who know that young people have something to say but who would like to reflect further on the process. It is also written for those people who have it in their power to assist children in having a voice, but who, unwittingly or not, trivialize their involvement.

Keywords: children's participation; children's rights; right to be heard; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44
Date: 1992
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (89)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucf:inness:inness92/6

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.unicef-i ... -to-citizenship.html
The price is All UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti publications can be downloaded from our website free of charge. Printed copies of some titles can also be ordered from the United Nations Publications website https://shop.un.org/search/unicef/node/29892.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Innocenti Essay
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Patrizia Faustini ().