Diálogo de saberes sobre participación infantil [A Dialogue of Knowledges about Child Participation]
Corona Caraveo, Yolanda and Morfín Stoopen, María (2001).
Mexico City: UNICEF; 159 pages. ISBN 9706549811.
This book is conceived from Utopia, from a place of trust, from the certainty that it is possible to envisage a different society. This sense is poetically expressed by the words of María Zambrano opening the book: “The human being walks through history, after himself, getting caught up in his hope, dreaming himself, sometimes inventing himself.”
The contents of the book express the wish of a generation that allows itself the luxury of envisaging the future in order to act in the present, that wants to contribute to building a different society—a society centered around individuals’ dignity, where relationships may be more just, equitable, plural, and inclusive.
Diálogo de sabers [A Dialogue of Knowledges] is also a book constructed from a distrust of absolute certainties, of final truths. It recognizes the need to permanently revise our premises. As the authors say, it is a book that initiates a dialogue with a question, assuming that the path has not yet been traced. However, its proposition has a clear framework—human rights and the values of democracy—while it acknowledges the fact that these are under permanent revision and construction but nevertheless are beacons for action.
Diálogo de saberes speaks to us of democracy as a decision that society makes and that affects all the areas of life—public and private, relationships between couples, family dynamics, treatment of boys and girls, and work relationships. It speaks of democracy as a view of the world.
The challenge can be appreciated in the quotation from Alfredo Astorga and Diego Pólit:
the easiest thing is to change the apparel, the simplest thing is to alter the scenery. The deepest thing is to change the everyday, those small things… that make up all of life.
The main topic is participation, a basic ingredient of democracy as both a government style and a lifestyle. However, the book focuses on the need to include children in the construction of this democratic society we want to build. This is a treatise on child participation that uses a dialogue of knowledges as its resource; it promotes a conversation between theory and practice, asks questions of the experts on the subject, and includes the reflections of promoters in the field of child education who work in a variety of communities. Thus, the authors finely weave a conversation between theory and practice that enables us to become co-authors as the book encourages us to reflect on our own practice and generate new knowledge from it.
Myths about Child Participation
In this pioneering study on child participation, the authors express the conviction that the interests of future generations must be an integral part of the present and of public decisions. In this context, the meeting of academic work and the experience of civil society is enriching, because a dialogue between knowledges not only promotes learning but also contributes to the construction of citizenship. The book demystifies a great number of prejudices. Below are 11 myths that this work lays bare.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) represents a great worldwide step forward in that it rethinks the relationships between States and children, and between the adult world and children’s world. However, in everyday life, this change has proved threatening to many adults who grew up within an authoritarian culture without awareness of their condition as holders of rights, and therefore regard children’s rights as a pretext for licentiousness. The book also stresses the need to develop democratic relationships among children themselves in which they recognize one another as holders of rights, as well as learn how to converse and solve conflicts.
The CRC brought an end to the designation of minors as negatively defined individuals—i.e., characterized by the things they lack or do not know—and defined them affirmatively as developing people, whose rights must be protected. This analysis restores the concept of progressive autonomy, which, as Laura Salinas states, means that the boys and girls must gradually develop the skills to exercise their rights because they cannot exercise them by themselves from the moment of their birth. The authors suggest that adults too must learn from children; too often, adults have lost the ability to be surprised, to dream and to enjoy life the way children do.
While the transformation of the role of children has enabled them to emerge legally as holders of rights, this idea is confronted by attitudes and practices that reduce them to being regarded as objects or as the property of the adults, and deny their ability to make contributions to society. Overcoming this prejudice implies renouncing every temptation to manipulate or to abuse power over children. This is a challenge for both the promoters of child participation and the adults who are closest to children; there is much to learn in order to build democratic relationships, and much to unlearn in terms of authoritarian attitudes.
4. Well-behaved Children Are Those Who Keep Quiet or Do Not Participate
The book’s authors also express the importance of restoring play, because in playing, children not only gain knowledge of the world but also exert their enormous creative potential to invent possible worlds. This ability leads the authors to assert that children can become our best allies in finding a different path—a freer, more humane way to be—to use the words of Rosario Castellanos.
The right to participate is one of the most innovative articles in the CRC, forcing states and civil society for the first time to consider and respect young people’s expressions according to their age, culture, and needs. This is a civil and political right that facilitates the exercise of other rights, a fact which makes it one of the pillars in the construction of citizenship. The right of children to participate was recognized only in the year 1989, and it represents a huge challenge for the exercise of democracy.
This text postulates that the construction of citizenship must begin from childhood. Thus, the view that children’s rights are limited because they do not have the right to vote or access to formal participation niches such as political parties, must be changed. This also implies rethinking the inequities between the adult world and the children’s world, a process that must end their exclusion from decision-making. It is essential that children not only reclaim their feelings and views in everyday life, in the family and at school, but also that they share in the construction of society.
Promoting the interest of children in public affairs implies opening spaces for them to access information and its analysis in order to discuss with them, and for them to discuss among themselves, the social reality in which they live. Thus, children can cease to be passive observers of world events and gain the strength needed to influence the public sphere and exercise an active citizenship. The various experiences presented in this book reaffirm the importance of considering young people as true promoters of change and development.
Our point of departure is the fact, indicated in the book, that most adults lack a background in democratic processes. That is, the idea of participation is not deeply ingrained in us, and therefore we must acknowledge that we too are learning. Just as we can only learn to swim by swimming, we can all learn to participate by participating. The book offers methodological guidelines based on the practices of civil organizations. It emphasizes the need for adults to learn how to listen, as well as to develop mechanisms for conversing with and being accountable to children, in order to fulfill our responsibilities to future generations.
9. Children Are Not Part of the History of Mankind
In reclaiming the idea that history is built by human beings regardless of their age, the authors propose that an inclusive society that regards public policies as involving everybody would enable us to treat provision for the interests of children as part of the public interest. Because the social order is modified as a result of the action of citizens, the ability of children and particularly youth to renew reality must be recognized. In Ecuador, for example, children of both sexes are regarded as citizens from their birth.
The book suggests that the involvement of young people in decision-making processes does not imply extremes—neither children nor adults have the power of absolute determination—but requires finding a balance that allows young people to have a progressive autonomy that enables them to exercise decision-making.
11. Democracy Has Nothing to Do with Young People
From our perspective, a basic component of human development is the intergenerational and intragenerational convergence and dialogue needed to reclaim the importance of learning how to live together and tolerating and respecting differences. The authors of the book suggest that democratic society is a permanent collective-construction process and therefore any project seeking to democratize society must necessarily begin with the children.
The authors’ work, which began with questions and succeeded in opening a renewal process, deserves acknowledgement. To participate—to be a part of—is everybody’s right. Thanks to contributions like this book, we are building new ways of living together that include children’s vision and sense of the future. This implies a transformation from authoritarianism to democracy. It also implies justly valuing the voices of children and youth so that they become essential in the construction of a better world.
1. The opinions of both commentators have been included in this presentation. Those of María Eugenia Linares refer to the general introduction of the book, while those of Nelia Bojórquez focus on the prejudices demystified by the text.
Reviewer Information
María Eugenia Linares Pontón received her degree at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in psychology with a specialty in child development. A major focus of her work is in developing community-, family- and school-based models of practice in promoting participation. She has also worked and carried out research in various national and international institutions about child development and participatory projects. With UNICEF, she served as the coordinator of a program of parental and teacher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently, she is the Director of Hacia una Cultura Democrática, Civil Association.
Nelia Bojórquez received her Master’s degree in Human Rights at University Carlos III in Madrid. She worked for UNICEF as the coordinator of the Women and Child Rights Program, and also was responsible for the Programs of Children’s Rights, Education and Protection. Currently, she is a consultant for international organizations.