Peer-reviewed article
Multiple Meanings of Child Participation in Architecture and Planning: Revisiting the Participation Ladder
Ece Altınbaşak Haklıdır, Betül Orbey, Pınar Şahin ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This article reviews the academic literature on child participation, with a focus on architecture and planning. It uses bibliometric analysis and thematic mapping, and also examines initiative reports that propose frameworks for levels of participation. The authors sort the different frameworks into one table with three groups: non-participation, low-level participation and true participation. They find that the studies differ in how they define participation levels, and that children's active roles in processes are still unclear.
Key points
- Studies on child participation categorise the levels of participation in different ways.
- Frameworks were grouped into three typologies: non-participation, low-level participation, and true participation.
- All studies address ethical distinctions at the base level, consider lower levels of participation, and define methods they regard as true participation.
- Some studies use more inclusive definitions that cover several levels of participation at once.
- Children's active participation in processes and their actual roles remain vague.
Limitations
The abstract does not state which databases, time periods or number of studies were reviewed, and it names no specific countries. It is a conceptual literature review, so it cannot show whether any participation approach improves outcomes for children.
Abstract
In literature, there are numerous studies on child participation and the levels of participation. However, the levels of child participation are categorized with different approaches among these studies. The aim of this article is to make a comparative analysis by examining the literature on the degrees of child participation and to systematize the concepts. Therefore, (i) bibliometric analysis and thematic mapping methods were conducted to identify various themes in academic studies in the field of child participation to understand the conceptual structure of the relevant literature that has changed over time; (ii) initiative reports suggesting different frameworks regarding participation degrees were also examined. These studies were categorized according to their definitions of participation degrees in a table. The table was structured from the lowest level of participation to the highest level, under three main typologies: non-participation, low-level participation, and true participation. It has been observed that all studies are concerned with ethical distinctions at the base level; consider lower levels of participation; and define methods that they consider as true participation. It was found that the levels and definitions in some studies were more inclusive and included several levels of participation simultaneously. However, the active participation of children in the processes and clarifying their actual roles are still vague issues. This study clarifies the boundaries of child participation in literature and serves as a basis for future studies investigating the degree of child participation in projects, which will help to uncover and develop the nature of practices involving child participation.