Welsh Children's Views On Government and Participation
- 18 May 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Childhood
- Vol. 16 (2), 247-264
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568209104404
Abstract
Qualitative research from Wales sought to explore aspects of children's views on government and participation. The research project was conducted in 2001 with 105 children aged 8—11 from a diverse sample of schools across Wales. The article first reports the children's perspectives on different levels (and places) of government: the UK parliament and the Welsh Assembly. Second, there is discussion of how the children see government as affecting their lives. The third section of the article presents the children's views on the extent to which they should have a say in local and national political decisions, the examples being the building of a new road in their community and going to war. The children, while declaring a lack of interest in politics in general, in fact engaged enthusiastically in discussion of specific issues that they saw affecting their lives. There was a general expectation that they should be consulted on issues that affect them directly and they saw the potential for their views to be fed into decision-making via intermediaries. Very few, however, expected their own views to be decisive, but rather most believed that their views ought to be considered alongside others.Keywords
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- Children's voices on ways of having a voice - Children's and young people's perspectives on methods used in research and consultationChildhood, 2006
- Recognition and JusticeActa Sociologica, 2004
- The participation of children and young people in decisions about UK service developmentChild: Care, Health and Development, 2004
- Participation—for a change: Disabled young people lead the wayChildren & Society, 2004
- Children as CitizensChildhood, 2004
- Constructing ChildhoodPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,2004
- Political Literacy Cuts Both Ways: The Politics of Non‐participation among Young PeopleThe Political Quarterly, 2003
- Can't Talk, Won't Talk?: Methodological Issues in Researching ChildrenSociological Research Online, 2000
- Children and Citizenship in BritainChildhood, 1998
- Participatory research with childrenChild & Family Social Work, 1997