A new edition of a major international text is set to challenge and transform thinking around the role that children and young people can play in society in an era of radical change and upheaval.
A Handbook of Children and Young People's Participation - Conversations for Transformational Change has been co-edited by the University of Huddersfield's Professor Barry Percy-Smith, and is an all-new update of the edition published in 2010.
One key difference with the new edition is that several of its 33 chapters are co-authored by young people. It also has a wider global reach, with content now covering diverse contexts including South and East Asia, Africa and the Middle East, USA and South America, Australia and New Zealand.
Drawing on contributions from practitioners and young people as well as academics, the value of this text is in pushing forward thinking and practice so that children and young people's voice can be transformational.
"Youth participation and demographic engagement has advanced considerably over the last 10 years beyond just supporting 'young people having a say' says Professor Percy-Smith. It is also about young people being active in finding creative solutions to contemporary challenges such as climate change and social injustice that adults so often fail to address. Many of the contributions in this text document examples of how that can happen, for example through youth activism and social action.
The argument that young people are simply too young to engage in the democratic process is increasingly hard to sustain.
"So many of the global and local problems we face are as a result of decisions by adults that prioritise them rather than children and young people. But children and young people are now more aware than ever of what is going on around them, helped by the explosion in digital technology and social media since the first edition was published."
The 2023 edition has been co-edited with Nigel Patrick Thomas, from the University of Central Lancashire, Claire O'Kane (a freelance consultant working with partners globally) and Afua Twum-Danso Imoh (University of Bristol) who has a long track record of working with young people in Africa, together bringing fresh perspectives to compiling this new edition.
"The landscape of the 2020s is very different to when the first edition was being compiled, so we felt it needed more than just an update," adds Professor Percy-Smith.
"For example, at a UK level, there has been a surge in emphasis among local authorities to support the voice and influence of young people in local decision making. Some authorities have voice and influence teams whose responsibility it is to try to support the involvement of young people in local decision making.
This book is timely as it gives lots of examples from across the world of how young people are more actively engaging themselves in the democratic process and indeed, which demonstrate the valued contribution young people can make as agents of social change.
"We are particularly pleased that a significant number of the contributions feature children and young people as co-authors. As the title of the new Handbook suggests, this is part of a continuing conversation about how we can together achieve transformational change, at a time when this is more urgent than ever. For this we need reflection, we need learning and we need action."
Photo: Karolina Grabowska, Pexels
