Assessment of National and Local Practices

Structural barriers to achieving meaningful equality of participation and opportunity for young people persist. These may be compounded for those facing intersectional disadvantage i.e. where disadvantage attached to being a young person is combined with that based on background factors related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or (dis)ability. Efforts to promote youth participation draw on evidence that good early engagement experiences are crucial to the willingness of people to get involved again, where positive participation improves internal efficacy (confidence in one’s own understanding of political affairs) and external efficacy (confidence that participation will make a difference). However, it follows that if that experience of engagement is negative – if it feels non-inclusive, uncomfortable, unrecognised or pointless – then it can generate mistrust and cynicism and reduce the chance of future participation. It is thus essential that we understand, evaluate and improve the deliberative and participatory practices in which young people engage.

This report outlines the key findings of a five-country study of practices of young people’s participation and deliberation taking place in national and local organisations, youth councils and schools. The study aimed to: i) identify and map existing practices and experiences; ii) assess to what extent intersectional inclusion is considered in these practices and how far marginalised and excluded youth are recognised and involved; and iii) understand the strengths and limitations of challenging systematic exclusion and power imbalances through youth participation and deliberation. Using a combination of inductively and deductively derived common criteria, available documentation (including audio-visual materials) in educational (n= 25) and organisational (n=50) settings was analysed and compared.

Overall, the study found that the context of implementation – in terms of both the culture and traditions of promoting youth inclusion and participation in different countries, as well as the types of organisations and schools selected – were crucial to understanding how participation is approached, documented and described. However, at a high level, we can summarise overall findings in relation to the three objectives of the study as follows.

Mapping existing practices

• The organisations, educational institutions and projects studied were concerned to ensure that young people’s voice contributed to decision making and, in many cases, provided publicly available documentation demonstrating how this was implemented in practice.
• Where organisations and schools explicitly followed a good practice model of youth voice (e.g. the Lundy model), the language used to describe their processes and outcomes facilitated their demonstration of good practice.
  • There is evidence that broader programmes by local or national authorities or third sector organisations, implemented across a number of schools played a positive role in stimulating youth participation in the education sector.

  On recognition of intersectional exclusion

  • • • Organisations, and schools to a lesser extent, are aware of the importance of monitoring and feeding back to young people the impact of their participation. This practice is enhanced where organisations adopt formal models of youth voice or are directly linked into local or national policy making structures.
    • • Organisations use a wide range of innovative and creative ways of engaging and expressing young people’s views. More formal bodies, such as youth or student councils, effectively employ classic forms of consensus-seeking discussion and deliberation approaches to include young people in decision making. This ensures some power is transferred to young people.
    • • However, especially in schools, the critical capacities of deliberation and intersectionality to challenge systemic or structural inequalities are deployed only exceptionally. Careful thought must be given to balancing the need for encouraging classic deliberative and consensus-seeking skills with embracing the transformative potential of intersectional critique.• There was evident awareness that structural disadvantage is intersectional and efforts were made to reach out to marginalised youth and to ensure equality of opportunity, for example,
      • through accessibility of participation spaces for those with additional needs (including using accessible language) and making spaces safe and comfortable for all.
      • • It remains difficult for organisations and schools to avoid ‘self-selection’ bias when opening participation to all. Moreover, the desk-based nature of this study confines our findings to how good practice in engaging with more marginalised groups of young people is communicated in official documentation rather than in practice.

      On challenging systematic exclusion through youth participation and deliberation

    The fuller findings outlined below will be used, in conjunction with a parallel study of such practices at European level, to identify good practice, recommend ways to strengthen and extend inclusion, and help overcome systemic exclusion of a broader range of young people from participation and deliberation.