Cultural Variations in Constructions of Children’s Participation

Abstract

Children’s participation is globally considered a goal to strive for nowadays. It is viewed as an indicator of whether children are respected as subjects, with their own rights and their own dignity, and whether they get the opportunity to exert influence on events and decisions affecting them in their respective social environments, societies and international contexts. UN organizations like UNICEF and NGOs supporting children’s participation most often refer to the so-called participatory rights established in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). When doing so, they sometimes encounter scepticism and resistance in countries outside Europe and Northern America. They are accused of disrespect toward local cultures and the generational relations and age orders based therein and of imposing a ‘Western’ conception of children and their rights in a manner reminding of colonialism or missionary practices (see examples in Johnson et al., 1998). In this chapter, we will try to disentangle such controversies and to contribute to an awareness of the wide diversity of conceptions and practices related to the participation of children throughout the world. We take two premises as starting points: 1. minority world societies and the organizations and individuals originating in them do not possess a monopoly on defining what constitutes adequate childhoods, children’s rights or children’s participation; 2. all societies and cultures, both in the minority world and the majority world, offer contact points for, and necessitate changes in, relation to children’s participation.