La participación de los niños en el desarrollo sostenible [Children’s Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in Community Development and Environmental Care]
Hart, Roger (2001).
Barcelona, Spain: UNICEF and P.A.U. Education; 208 pages. $37. ISBN 8482945416.
The complex and controversial idea of children’s participation as defined by the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child opened a new stage for the recognition of children as valid citizens with cultural differences, ideologies, identities, knowledge and particular forms of learning and relating. Thanks to this recognition, the Convention set the basis for the emancipation of children from traditional understandings of childhood and citizenship, which ignore or limit children’s autonomy; their knowledge and concerns about the world in which they live; and their ability to organize, manage and decide about many aspects of their lives.
Roger Hart, a researcher and theoretician who has written extensively on the subject of children and their physical environment, tells us that before we can speak of a truly democratic citizenship—one in which citizens are concerned about management of the environment and capable of making positive interventions in their own community—we must recognize and legitimize children as valid social actors. We need to be open to dialogue, make political power accessible, bring democracy to the relations between children and adults, recover local community relationships and ensure basic living conditions for all. With this conviction, the book sets out to make significant contributions regarding the methods, techniques and processes that are effective in authentically involving children in the research, design, management and supervision of their surroundings. The book is also an introduction to the debates, development and conceptual fundamentals of the relationship between environmental management and children’s participation. With these objectives in mind, throughout the book, Hart describes research experiences and projects involving children’s participation in rural and urban communities in both hemispheres of our planet.
The book, financed by UNICEF, is directed at all those who are concerned about sustainable development but have not worked with children before; government agencies and non-government organizations that work on environmental and development issues; teachers, community leaders and other people who understand the potential of children but would like practical ideas for getting them involved in environmental and community development projects.
The book is structured in three main sections. The first section introduces the theories and basic concepts of community management, primary environmental care and children’s rights to participation as viewed by the CRC (chapter 1); the development of psychosocial capabilities necessary for participation (chapter 2); the fundamental organizational principles for participation, illustrated with Hart’s metaphor of the participation ladder—with each level described in detail—(chapter 3); and some of the new organizational models to involve children and the alliances that can be formed through them with adult organizations (chapter 4).
The second part of the book looks at children’s participation techniques and experiences in practice, highlighting active over conventional research as the starting point for all participation initiatives (chapter 5). It also refers to the process of creating and transforming the environment through projects that are planned, designed and built by children (chapter 6); describes novel management initiatives for environmental management and supervision; and recounts a number of public awareness and political impact actions that children have launched. Finally, the section provides networking and linkage guidelines for local children’s organizations with global impact (chapter 10).
Finally, the third part of the book describes different practical methods to encourage the participation of children as well as other members of the community in generating their own initiatives for research, planning, management, education and political action. These include making pictures and collages (chapter 11) and maps and models (chapter 12); carrying out interviews and research (chapter 13); and creating audiovisual media (chapter 14).
Hart’s critical focus, which he applies to the participation strategies reviewed, is one of the book’s many strengths. The strategies are appraised for their pedagogical value and serve as examples that enrich the proposals throughout the book. Its multicultural perspective recognizes the differences from one community to another, which in turn results in approaches that are more flexible rather than more general. Hart describes in a clear, concrete style organizational principles and methods which are of great value to all people who are involved in processes that promote children’s participation. This book also makes important conceptual and methodological contributions to the advancement of studies on children’s participation by both establishing the relationship between participation and sustainable development in communities (an area about which little has been written or documented), and proposing ways to expose the public to the idea of children as citizens who are active in the design and implementation of environmental policies and programs.
Perhaps a shortcoming of the book is that it focuses exclusively on children up to 14 years of age, arguing that older adolescents are intellectually capable of understanding environmental issues along with adults. This does not seem reason enough to neglect the experiences of this age group. Their input would undoubtedly enrich the exchange since they are no longer children, but neither are they of age, and thus have a unique position within their communities. Such a perspective could suggest new analytical standpoints to make our methods more flexible and diverse, and challenge accepted notions about the role of youth in their communities.
Finally, Roger Hart’s book, far from being the final word on a subject that has only recently begun to be explored, is an invitation to commit to a kind of “cultural resistance” against the forces of globalization; to change traditional forms of education; and to shift conventional relations between children, institutions, and adults toward a more participative democracy. It is a book that calls for citizens—children included, of course—to “think and act both locally and globally.”
Reviewer Information
Julián Hernández Morales is a psychologist at the National University of Colombia and a member of the Child Observatory in Bogotá, Colombia. He has finished a specialization program in children’s rights at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana of Mexico. At present, he is working in rural communities with participatory programs for children and youth. His research areas are citizenship and childhood, proposals for child and youth participation, the rights of childhood, and children’s socialization institutions.