In the article “Conditions for Effective Children’s Participation, According to Children’s Voices”, the authors investigate the conditions that children’s participation in different settings, such as school, leisure, or student council, should fulfill. The multiple case study, spanning 6 different educational experiences, used information provided by children to developed 3 main categories found to make child participation more meaningful and authentic. These catagories were: 1) acknowledgement of the rights of childhood, 2) how the participation-based experience works, and 3) the role of educators.

To delve into their topic of child participation, the researchers focused on the question: “what conditions must be gaurunteed by children’s participation experiences in  order to be effective from the standpoint of the children participating in them?”. In order to answer this query, the authors collected data consisting primarily of the opinions and attitudes of children. This was done using focus groups of children ages 10 to 12 who were involved in the experiences. Then, the data was analyzed through the process of organizing it, coding it, and then using the process of data triangulation with the catagories of school, leisure, and community to obtain results. Interestingly, the results obtained from asking children their thoughts were similar to the results obtained by other projects on the same topic which did not do so.

I found the research project to be interesting and well done. I appreciated the idea behind the project as well, I feel that asking those involved in such participatory experiences about their ideas is a vital part of improving any such experiences. I also appreciated the attention to minimizing the range of the project age-wise, and by selecting equal numbers of each gender of participant, so as to ensure a better set of results. My only complaint is that the authors indicated they chose groups with shared cultural and social values, which I fear may have limited the range of the study too much, so that it might not be applicable to a broader range of individuals. Otherwise, I found the article to be engaging and the research to be commendable.

AGUD, I., Ana María, N. C., & Asun, L. B. (2014). Conditions for effective children’s participation, according to children’s voices. Revista De Cercetare Si Interventie Sociala, 46, 9-21. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/docview/1665217576?accountid=14729