Decolonizing the Notion of Participation of Children and Young People

Abstract

What possibility is there for us to recognize and encourage children and young people’s participation in our contemporary world, which is largely determined by adults? What role does listening have in this recognition and encouragement of participation and in nurturing particular forms of theorizing that are amenable to these? This chapter addresses these questions in relation to the power dynamics imbued in theories and practices surrounding children and young people’s participation. In disentangling these relations (structures and histories of power) we make use of the notion of decolonizing, suggesting some avenues for how such decolonizing could be practiced and theorized with reference to children and young people’s worlds.