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 The Ladder of Participation is a model for thinking about youth participation developed by Roger Hart. The bottom three rungs describe youth involvement that is not true participation whereas the top five rungs describe true participation.
Degrees of Participation
8) Youth-initiated, shared decisions with adults is when projects or programs are initiated by youth and decision-making is shared among youth and adults. These projects empower youth while at the same time enabling them to access and learn from the life experience and expertise of adults. 7) Youth-initiated and directed is when young people initiate and direct a project or program Adults are involved only in a supportive role.  6) Adult-initiated, shared decisions with youth is when projects or programs are initiated by adults but the decision-making is shared with the young people.
5) Consulted and informed is when youth give advice on projects or programs designed and run by adults. The youth are informed about how their input will be used and the outcomes of the decisions made by adults. 4) Assigned but informed is where youth are assigned a specific role and informed about how and why they are being involved. 3) Tokenism is where young people appear to be given a voice, but in fact have little or no choice about what they do or how they participate. 2) Decoration is where young people are used to help or "bolster" a cause in a relatively indirect way, although adults do not pretend that the cause is inspired by youth. 1) Manipulation is where adults use youth to support causes and pretend that the causes are inspired by youth. The 7 or 8 Debate:
Roger Hart's Ladder of Participation shows Youth-initiated, shared decisions with adults as the top form of youth participation, followed immediately by Youth-initiated and directed. This is somewhat controversial an issue for many people working with and around young people. Essentially, the debate is which of these levels of participation is actually the most meaningful? Many believe that shared decision making is most beneficial to both young people and adults. Others believe that young people are most empowered when they are making decisions without the influence of adults. Most often, this doesn't exclude adults but reduces their role to that of support. Both arguments have merit; ultimately, it is up the each group to determine which form of decision-making best fits with the groups' needs. Adapted from: Roger Hart's Ladder of Participation, Children's Participation: From Tokenism to Citizenship, UNICEF Sourse:http://www.mcs.bc.ca/ya_ladd.htm |
